37.Alin #3
“Luca, what do you mean?” I ask curiously from the end of the staircase as he heads to his office on the ground floor. He seems to have a plan, and I’m not sure if I like it.
“Come,” he commands, and I comply, following him into his office with quick steps. He has already called Mariano and Pedro.
“Luca, I think you need some rest. You’re not planning to start a war with merfolk, I hope,” I plead, but it comes out more like a question.
“Don’t worry,” he says, sitting in one of the chairs at the conference table, but his words make me worry even more.
I carefully sit in a chair next to him, and within two minutes, Mariano and Pedro enter the room quietly, sitting at the two chairs opposite of us.
Luca appears satisfied now. What is he plotting?
“As we all know, Alin is part of the mafia and my woman. We managed to eliminate the threat to her here on land, but now we need to deal with the next threat - her arranged marriage,” he begins explaining as if he’s in a business meeting. I smile at the sight, trying to stifle my laughter.
Luca fixes his brothers with a steely glare, awaiting their reaction to his declaration.
“Congratulations, brother. But is this really how you want to propose? With us in here? Where’s your sense of romance?” Mariano sighs and rises from his chair, but Luca sends him a bone-chilling look, and he immediately sits back down.
“If I were marrying her, it wouldn’t be a threat, Mariano,” he replies in frustration, clarifying the issue for both of them. Now his expression turns serious.
Sorry, Mariano. It’s not me, it’s Luca who’s lost his mind.
I sigh in despair, realizing Luca is about to make my problem everyone’s problem.
“Her family is marrying her off. A marriage of convenience for cooperation with another pod,” he explains, and now the brothers listen intently, their curiosity piqued.
“We need to come up with a plan to eliminate the convenience of this. That way, the need for it dissolves and Alin is free,” he continues.
The brothers seem to understand, and now I do too.
He wants to devise a plan here, like they do for their operations.
I’m definitely convinced he’s gone mad. What does he even know about my world?
What kind of plan is running through his head?
“What other option do we have besides continuing to hide me?” I ask in despair, but he silences me.
“If you just listen, you’ll understand,” do I see a scheming smile?
“We need to find a way to get rid of the head of the other pod and his son. Once we eliminate those at the top, all that’s left are scared little fish without leadership.
Your parents should be able to handle them,” he explains.
“We might come from different worlds, but it appears the rules are the same.”
He explains his idea confidently, and I chuckle at his comparison of the terror pod to little fish. He’s taking all this information about me much better than I thought. But I understand there’s some truth in his words. There’s a reason he’s the capo; if anyone can devise such plans, it’s him.
“Alin, we’ll need every piece of information you have about this pod,” Luca demands.
“How hard will it be to reach the head of the pod?” Pedro suddenly asks, deciding to join the conversation. It seems, for once, he’s starting to feel more comfortable with my identity.
“For you, it’ll be impossible. You’ll lose oxygen halfway there, and it would be too difficult for me to maintain enough oxygen for all three of you anyway.
For me, it’s a suicide mission. The law forbids me from approaching them until the day of the wedding; that’s how they prevent uprisings.
Just swimming in the area would get me accused of treason.
” I answer Pedro and turn my gaze back to Luca.
“According to the rumors, the father is from a royal lineage, and while the son has no powers at all, the father received more than enough for the both of them. My parents say he can paralyze any living thing with a mere touch, freezing them to death,” I recount, my body tensing.
The more detail I provide, the more I understand why I never thought of such a plan myself.
“Executing an assassination plan on the head of the pod would be like planning a mass suicide,” I conclude, and Pedro and Mariano nod in agreement as pure fear rises in their eyes.
“I’m sorry, all this talk of powers and tails is new to me, and I’m accepting it slowly, but I have no intention of fighting something like that,” Mariano leans back in his chair, making it clear to Luca that he doesn’t intend to take part.
Luca narrows his eyes at his brother but doesn’t push the issue. Instead, he turns to me, his determination unwavering. “He’ll do as I say. We’ll find a way, Alin. I promise you that.”
I look at him, torn between hope and fear. Luca has always been relentless, but this is a whole new level of danger. Still, if anyone can pull off the impossible, it’s him. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance for us.
“He’s right, Luca. You have no chance against him. You’ve seen what I can do, so just think about what he’s capable of. The odds are not in your favor, and I’m not willing to risk any of you because of me,” I reinforce Mariano’s stance.
Luca’s expression shifts, and it seems he’s recalculating, trying to think. There goes the tiny spark of hope that had built up inside me without me even noticing.
“Wait, I remember you mentioned a wedding ceremony, right?” Luca suddenly asks. “Tell me about it,” he demands.
“Yes, the couple and the parents of both sides gather around a table. Then, each couple takes a turn drinking sweet river water from the tip of a shell, like a straw. It’s a blessing for happiness.
There’s a specific order though. First, it’s the male’s parents, then the female’s, and finally the betrothed couple.
But, during their turn, they each have to pluck a scale from the other’s skin, just above their heart, and a drop of their blood must mix with each of their water.
Only then do they drink together, and the union is sealed.
” I explain, detailing every aspect of the ceremony.
“You spill blood at a wedding and drink it? Alright, I think I understand why you ran away,” Pedro seems amused now. Mariano chuckles in response.
Luca puts his hand to his face in frustration. “Can anyone in this room be serious? We have a problem to solve,” he implores them.
They seem to be the only two men capable of behaving like this around Luca, even when he’s hot-headed. I envy the brotherhood they have.
Luca needs to lighten up a bit. After all, we don’t know how long I can keep running or if we’ll find a solution, so at least some of us should laugh.
“Luca, it seems I’ll have to bring you to my wedding day after all. A little water with a blessing for happiness will surely do wonders for your stress lines,” I wrinkle my nose at him in a playful jab, trying to lighten his mood.
Pedro and Mariano’s laughter grows louder now.
“I love this girl, Luca. She fits our family like a glove,” Mariano declares, his laughter calming down.
Even Luca seems to chuckle a bit. I’m sure he’s holding back his laughter. How does he not see this whole situation as absurd? A mermaid sitting with a crime family, planning an assassination on terror pods.
Suddenly, his smile disappears, and he stands up.
“Alin, you can control liquids. What about poison? Can you slip it into the head of the pod’s shell during the ceremony without him noticing?” he asks, surprising me with his sudden inspiration.
“I hadn’t thought of that before, but in the sea, there’s a high risk the poison would disperse.
The sweet water in the shells always mixes with the saltwater after the first sip.
I won’t risk my parents. Besides, to really kill us with poison, it would need to be something really strong,” I reply, my mind trying to develop the idea.
It’s not a bad plan if we can find a way to execute it.
“It doesn’t have to be in the sea. Declare that you want a fair setting for both sides at the ceremony, and we’ll do it on land. Then, we can be a part of it,” he continues to suggest, and his idea starts to spark hope in me again. This could work.
“I’ll need to return home and declare my intentions to marry.
From the moment I do that, they won’t take their eyes off me for a second.
I’ll be under constant surveillance and won’t be able to return to the surface until the wedding day itself.
That’s assuming I can convince them to hold the ceremony on land.
..” I explain to Luca the next step, and we both understand that we have to take this risk for my freedom, for our freedom.
Hope ignites within me as I start thinking of all the ways I can sell the idea of a land ceremony to my parents.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll need to have an escape plan in case this doesn’t work,” he declares with a voice full of confidence, but this time, I can sense he’s faking it.
I’ve come to know him well enough to recognize the helplessness in his eyes.
Yet, I’m comforted by the knowledge that he’s doing everything he can to help me.
Sooner or later, I’d have to face this problem anyway.
It’s better to let him think I have an easy escape route if things don’t go as planned. It will hurt to leave him, but I won’t survive knowing something happened to him.
“We need to find a poison, a very potent one. There needs to be no chance of survival after drinking it.” Mariano joins the brainstorming.
“I know exactly what poison we need. More precisely, venom. The sea wasp,” I announce, and my hope for the plan’s success only grows.
“The venom from one sea wasp is enough to kill about eight humans instantly, so imagine what it will do to one merman,” I add, showcasing my extensive knowledge. It seems my survival training in the sea is truly paying off on land.
I’m glad we have a plan, but to obtain this venom, I’ll have to deal with the hunters’ pod, or I’ll have to extract it from the sea wasp myself, which is a suicide mission in and of itself. But I keep this to myself, they’re already worried enough.
“How exactly will you get this venom?” Luca asks suspiciously, as if reading my thoughts.
“It won’t be easy, but there’s a way,” I declare with a firm face, preferring to keep these details from him.
I avert my gaze from his eyes and relax when he doesn’t press for more information.
“So, we have a wedding to organize. Let’s get to it,” Pedro announces, standing up from his chair with a scheming smile. Luca, like me, doesn’t seem genuinely happy about this. He understands that many things could go wrong, yet he still manages a smile in response.
I hope the plan works. I’m not ready to let go of either of my families just yet.