Sold to Mr. Giordano

My father smirks. “By all means. We understand when an itch needs to be scratched,” he winks.

Antonio grabs my wrist and pulls me along. When we’re behind our closed door he runs his hands through his thick hair. “What the fuck is he doing here? Dinner? Why didn’t Luca say anything?”

I start to cry. “Oh Xander, he said the worst thing. I-I-”

Antonio hugs me and rocks me back and forth. “Tell me.”

“He paid for people to kidnap us. He-he wanted those men to rape me that day. He beat Angelo afterwards for saving me first. It was a lesson in not caring for other people, to care only for yourself.”

“What the fuck?!” Antonio pulls back furiously. Anger burns with intensity in his eyes and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that murder is now on his mind. “I’m going to kill him!”

“You can’t,” I shake my hand and place my palms against his chest. “It’ll start a war. We need to think and not act rationally.”

“Why the hell would he even tell you something like that?”

“I made him angry. I sort of said something like Chicago is where my family is which was kind of me saying that he isn’t my family. I said you and Angelo were there and that’s when he got mad. He started yelling about how my relationship with Angelo is what makes us disappointments. He’d rather we be like Luca with cold unfeeling hearts.”

Antonio’s fingers clench into a fist so tight that his knuckles turn white. His face has a hue of red that tells me he is livid. His breathing is erratic as his chest rises and falls at a fast pace. “One of these days is going to find a way to kill that bastard and make it look like a happy accident.”

“Antonio?” I ask and he answers with a hum. “Do you still think getting close to people is a weakness? That loving people is a weakness?”

“Yes,” he answers simply.

“And am I one of your weakness’?”

“Yes,” he says breathless. “I never wanted you to be. I wanted to keep my distance but you made it so hard with wanting to be friends. You made it so damn hard when you did the littlest things and you made me fall in love with the vanilla scent of your body wash, the way you play with your fingers when your nervous, the blush you get on your chest when your nervous or excited. Or the way you’re so passionate to become someone, or the way you smile at the television and love TV show characters as if they’re your best friends you’ve known since childhood. I fell in love with the simplest things I never thought I could ever appreciate in a person and I hate it.” I frown. “I hate that I love you, Ary.”

Hearing I’m his weakness now made me realise that this cold blooded person is now in love with me. For some reason I now realised, after being sold to him my life changed to a different level. I can’t lose this man, never! Xander is everything to me.

I press my lips against his with complete and utter abandon. The feel is soft pink lips against mine feels like home and in this unfamiliar place in the city I used to love and call my own. Antonio makes everything whole again with every day, every step of marriage we experienced hardships but he was right. He was right in the way that I too never thought I could fall in love with the littlest things of a person.

Watching and cohabitating with Antonio made me notice how every morning he always has a glass of apple juice, he has this one hair that sticks up straight in the morning and he flattens it down in the bathroom first thing when he gets up. The way he rolls up the sleeves on his button-ups, the way his go-to color for everything is blue. Or the way he has a routine that he refuses to break by pacing at night, sitting in his chair and sipping his favorite drink.

Everything about Antonio from the way he smells like spice and mint to the way he doesn’t like a single wrinkle in his clothes or else he’ll change, I’ll love every piece of him.

Getting to know him was like solving a puzzle. With each conversation I got a new piece until the picture became whole and I saw the real him. The real him who is not Capo, not a murderer, not an uncaring person but a regular person who doesn’t want a weakness. Not because he’s afraid it’ll compromise his power or the Famiglia, but because he’s genuinely afraid to lose someone he loves—like his mother.

“I will always protect you, Tesoro.”

 My darling.

 “I believe you.”

And I do. I wholeheartedly with every fiber of my being trust that Antonio will do whatever it takes to keep me and this baby safe.

“Now, I think we have a dinner to attend that we’re just going to have to grin and bear. We have the upper hand in this situation, remember? Once I find out what his plan is, once I can prove he’s a traitor, he’ll be gone. He won’t ever hurt you again,” Antonio grabs my hand and locks his fingers with mine.This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

“Remind me again, how long do we have to stay here?”

“Just until business is done. Then we can leave right after. I thought you were enjoying your time with Arabella?”

“I am but it’s so painful to see her like this. She desperately wants an escape and I don’t blame her. Luca is sociopathic. There isn’t any way we can help her get away from him.”

“I’m sorry, Ary, but this isn’t worth constituting a war over. Right now, I want you to worry about the little one growing inside of you. No more stress. Let me handle everything,” Antonio kisses my temple before heading out of the door and downstairs to dinner.

Arielle

I wake up feeling groggy. I can hardly keep my eyes open. My head is pounding and my eyelids feel too heavy. I try to move my body but can’t, that’s when I realize my hands are tied behind my back and I’m not in bed—but in a hard wooden chair. The room smells like cleaning products and makes me suddenly gag.

As hard as I try to regain consciousness, I’m still in a sleepy daze. I know something is wrong but panicking doesn’t seem to be an option. I feel mellow and relaxed in the chair as if my fight or flight response system has been shut down completely. I know I’m in danger but don’t have the energy to react or think rationally enough.

Where is Antonio? I had fallen asleep next to him in our bed. I didn’t feel him leave the bed this morning. Is he here with me? Am I in a hospital because I lost the baby and they put me on strong drugs?

A rush of energy floods my system and I open my eyes wide and scan my surrounding. The room is darkly lit but the white tile walls make things bright enough. The floor is concrete with stains scattered below me—I fear it’s blood from previous victims. The chair I’m sitting in is bolted underneath me keeping me in place along with rope binding my arms and legs together.

A large man enters the room, seeing as there are surveillance cameras in the top corner of the room they were watching, waiting for me to wake up.

 “Arielle Giordano,” the man says in a thick Russian accent. “We’ve been waiting to get our hands on you.”