Chapter 22 – Enzo
ENZO
“You’re not serious?” Althea says, shaking her head. “I’m not marrying you. Why would you say I’m marrying you?” She’s nearing hysteria now.
“We won’t do it right away. I’ll need a few days to set some things up and, of course, talk to Maurice about your brother.” I ramble off to myself, making a mental checklist of all the things I’ll need to do when we land.
Grabbing my laptop, I wake it up and send off an email to the forensic department head at the police station and let him know Althea will no longer be working for them.
It'll make things easier to resign rather than tell them she had a family emergency. Especially with who her father is—that would send up alarm bells, I’m sure.
I’ll need to ask Nazario to bring Giselle out here with him, because I know he’ll be coming.
She’ll be out a school in a few days for break, so maybe I can plan it for a day she’s off.
Otherwise, she’ll get pissed at me for making her miss school.
But she would be even more upset if she learned I got married without her being there.
Oh, and maybe I should have Chloe brought out too.
“Do you want Chloe to be your maid of honor?” I ask, but don’t wait for a response.
Instead, I take it upon myself to send Naz a text asking him to bring them both when he comes to Italy.
“I know it’s not the ideal wedding you probably had in mind for yourself, but I can at least provide your best friend to be your maid of honor and stand next to you. ”
“Enzo.”
“What about flowers and a dress? What flowers would you like? Any preference in color? I personally prefer deep red, but I’ve never thought about what my wedding day would be like, so I’ll defer to you on the matter of decor.”
“Enzo.”
“I’m sorry we won’t have a traditional wedding with all our family, but it’s not feasible to have everyone together until after we’ve said our vows. I’m almost certain your father would object, and …”
“ ENZO !”
I stop typing and find my bride to be’s wide, fear-filled eyes staring back at me. “What is it, baby?”
“How can we possibly get married? We don’t even know if we’re compatible as a couple,” she argues.
“Compatibility is not something that should concern you. We already know how good we are together.” I’m hard just thinking about it, but perhaps now isn’t the best time to tell her that.
“Just think about it, baby. If Gianni is responsible for kidnapping your brother and if Maurice kept it a secret all this time, Caspien will see that as an admission of guilt. Hiding his son from him instead of returning him like he should’ve been,” I explain.
“I’ll tell him none of you knew. It was that Gianni person’s fault. Not Nazario, or any of yours.”
“It’s not enough, Althea. You’re just being stubborn.”
“I am not being stubborn. My father will never honor a marriage contract of convenience and forgive me if I don’t want to be stuck in a loveless marriage because your family fucked up!
” She shouts. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t put a bullet in your head for trying to force me into such an arrangement without his permission. ”
She doesn’t want to marry me because she doesn’t think she can love me.
Anger and something I don’t quite understand hit me like a truck, and I find myself struggling to keep myself together.
Is this what hurt feels like?
“Well, that’s too fucking bad. You want to find your brother and I, for some Godforsaken reason I can’t think of now, want to keep you alive.
So put away whatever fairytale dream you had about your perfect wedding to Prince Charming and prepare to walk down the aisle and say I do, because that’s the only way both things are going to happen,” I snarl.
Althea flinches slightly at the harshness in my voice.
“You’re blaming me for this? I’m not the one who stole a child from his family! I’m also not the one trying to force anyone into a sham of a marriage.”
“Do you see any other way out of this? Because I don’t!
” I roar, getting to my feet and pacing the room.
“My family believes you are in some type of arrangement with our enemies, and I won’t be able to convince Nazario otherwise.
Not while he’s still dealing with Santo’s recovery and cleaning up the mess The Bishop and his cronies left for the family to take care of.
” Laying my laptop down, I move toward the bed, stopping near the edge.
We’re in a stare-off with one another. “Get ready, Miss Drakos. Because the only way I can see for you to make it out of this shitshow alive is by hitching yourself to Death.”