Antonioni's POV

“What's her name?” I had asked, although not like I sincerely wanted to know. I had almost asked subconsciously.

“Annabelle,” Edward had replied.

“Hmm. She got a sexy name,” I admitted.

Edward remained mute, face down.

Being in that house felt hot and boring like hellfire. No power supply throughout our stay.

I don't know how someone could be so broke.

Although he works for some bad boys in the city, as I heard, it could be that they don't pay him half as much as they should.

I prayed Edward didn't make a move to do something silly. Not like I feared their blood, though, but I didn't have enough time to spend there. 

Although the inner guards and the outer ones did a great job as well. My boys are well-trained.

Did I mention I had my fellas out, watching the neighborhood as well? I made sure every corner of their compound and streets was charged with protection. I'm never one to be caught unprepared.

“So you already know why I'm here, to get my promised bride. I have just 20 minutes more to do that, man. I hope it'll be worth it.” The last sentence came out in an undertone.

“At least let’s get you both to familiarize yourself today, and you can come back to take her tomorrow, please, young boss,” My potential bride's father had pleaded.

“I got a lot to do with my time, pappy…ain't no idle man like you. I can't be coming back here and forth to lick over a girl when I should be out there running my businesses.” 

I had asked impatiently: “Where’s she?”

Edward piteously looked down like a caught chicken about to be slaughtered, and stuttered, “Som— som— somewhere around the house.”

I don't care about how bad he felt. He owed me.

“Then she better be pretty and worth it, 'cause I'd kill you.” I had proudly pointed out, leaning forward on him, to address my last clause.

I have always been one to have everything I should have in three years just in one day.

I waited for a while for Edward to do the needful—call her out and quickly hand her over to me so we could be on our way home, but the atmosphere between us remained rather icy.

“Time is a luxury you no longer possess…I have other engagements today. Fuckin’ call this girl out here already!” I barked, cutting him off from whatever the hell he was saying. 

Truly, my gang and I had a major operation to run before the day drew its curtain. It was scheduled for the afternoon slash evening when the chance is high for us to pull through successfully. 

Our goods, which were in transit from China, were hijacked by a rival gang—a deadly guy named Lorenzo, the Viper lord.

I couldn't afford to have my time wasted in the countryside at all.

“You gambled with what wasn’t yours. You lost! Now, it’s time to pay your debt, Edward!” I reminded him.

Just then, out of nowhere, came the damsel I had been waiting for all day.

“What debt?” She asked, looking soft and confused, like a wild cat.

I ignored her question and took in the woman standing in front of me, whom I had come all the way from the coastal town to the countryside to pick up as a wife. 

Facially, she's not worth it, but she's looking very curvy and womanly. My eyes stayed there for a while.

“Is this her? Not very bad looking.” I had said. It was crazy, but I was suddenly getting hard just looking at those hips.

“What’s going on?” Her tiny but firm voice suspended my erotic thoughts, and her sad countenance, too.

I was confused and almost bursting out in laughter, “She doesn’t know?” 

That old fool said he was still going to tell her.

“Tell me what?” That tiny but firm voice had come again, her face almost turning pink

“Belle, sweetheart, I… I had no choice...” The old man had answered her.

Then came the voice that turned me on again, and left off somewhere. There was something that voice was doing to me, honestly. To even think I was just meeting her…

And then came the one like someone who had swallowed a frog. “I…I owe Mr. D’Angélo more than I can ever repay.”

Scrap that. I had no business with their little father-and-daughter moment. I needed to check out my bride and dump her right behind if she didn't look like what I wanted.

I stood up and went around about her in a 360 motion, invading her space until I was satisfied. She looked like she didn't see it coming.

She stood there, mouth agape.

She was truly beautiful, even when she looked obviously like a confused feline, watching me like she honestly wanted to understand what I was doing.

Being satisfied that I liked her a little, I felt it was time to explain to her the situation of things so that we can also quickly be out of that blazing shit hole called a house—no, a hellfire.

“Your father owes me a huge debt he cannot repay, so he is offering you instead.”

She suddenly stumbled back. “No! No! No, No!” 

She continued shouting “No”, unconsciously maybe, and pleading with her father. 

She's really feminine and reminds me of someone, although someone I dread to remember.

Her pleading was just too sexy to watch.

I could already imagine how she'd be pleading and screaming my name later in the night when I'll be fucking away her timidity.

She's just too sweet, innocent but fierce, sexy, alluring, ladylike, and vulnerable in a very delicate and fragile way. 

I was now enjoying this part of the visit. “Hmm... interesting... You are even more fragile than I imagined." 

Her eyes crossed mine. I shook a little, in a way that no woman had ever dared to startle me before.

Again, her rigid and angry tone yanked me out of my sexual thoughts. 

“I am not fragile!” 

She also seemed quite stubborn. 

No need to be there, arguing with some fragile chic when I had some serious business to handle. It was high time I left for the coastal town.

“Well, we will see about that.” 

She seemed not to understand that it was a futile choice to keep flexing her muscles. I shifted on the chair, losing patience.

Adjusting my gaze between the two culprits and on the watch on my wrist, my eyes flashed on the time that it told, and I just knew I couldn't stay any longer. 

Edward and his stubborn daughter aren't enough to waste my time.

“You belong to me now, Annabelle. Guards, take her, let's go!” I commanded, ignoring Edward, since it seemed to me like he was deliberately wasting my time.

The words Annabelle spat made me know she's got quite some nerves. I might be dealing with it for the rest of my life. 

“I’m not something to be owned, Mr D’Angélo! I'm not going anywhere with you!”

Quite unusual for a woman to yell at me; they don't have the guts to do that.

For the first time being there, I got pissed. I had to reply to her guts in a way that she'd be pained too. “You don't have a choice.”

Amidst her begging, I was going to tell Edward it was about time when we heard gunshots from outside. 

Edward must have counter-planned us, I thought. But he must be assured that I didn't come unprepared.

I warned him. 

I needed to because if it turned out to be that I was right, I didn't mind sending a bullet into his gambling brain, burying myself deep and roughly into his fragile daughter until she cried out in pain, before also sending her to meet her father in the land of the dead.

Either way, I must collect what he owes me from him. “You better not be playing a deadly game, Edward.”

I went outside to know the exact situation of things, even though I knew that whatever it was would be taken care of by the guards who were positioned outside. 

One of my boys, who was inside with me, followed me out, and the other kept watch on Annabelle and her father.

Without fear, I rushed out of the room to supervise the environment, knowing my boys were effectively securing the area.

“What is the challenge?”

“Nothing, boss, it's just to scare the dangerous animals away,” replied one of my guards, Danky, who was more like the head of the security team.

I adjusted my tie. “I trust you guys to cover this vicinity, Danky. Make sure everyone's back on their duty post.”

I trust them. They're well-trained.

The Gracias were still in the room when I returned, without any need to share the news of what had just happened in their neighborhood.

My boys had almost killed two cultist boys who came to rob their hood.

Annabelle's POV 

“You better not be playing a deadly game, Edward,” Antonioni warned Father before he stepped outside, with the other guard following him closely behind.

I saw Father freeze in fear, with beads of sweat dripping down his face.

They had returned in the shortest minutes, Antonioni's face looking fulfilled as if he had settled whatever the issue was outside. 

He fixed a piercing gaze on Father and me as he kept on adjusting the wristwatch on his left wrist. 

I just knew his patience was thinning and it was about time—the time I dreaded.

I was right. 

His fierceness cut across my anxiety. “We'll be on our way now, Edward. Word will continually be sent to you as to how the marriage is going. Good bye man.”

He took his leave after saying those last words. Walking majestically through the exit.

Shockingly enough, father still couldn't utter a word. It's only that this time, he was able to lift his face from his hands, only gazing at Antonioni like a lost sheep. His eye bags were heavily sagging down on his upper cheekbones.

“Father, please say something.” I cried further, looking at him and expecting him to save me. 

Instead of getting the protection I expected, I saw him still looking transfixed at the exit where Antonioni had taken out, defeated. He stayed in the posture for a few minutes. 

The next feeling that came was a feeling I had never felt in my entire life.

I was shattered and disappointed.

Before I could say another word, the two men in suits who had been with us, stepped forward and made to put their hands on me. 

I jerked back, my heart hammering in my chest. 

I couldn't believe Father could do such a thing to me. 

“Father, please say something! Don't allow them to take me away, please,” I cried uncontrollably.

We bolted for the door.

I was being pulled like a criminal who wanted to run away. 

As I was about to be pulled through the last step, I fell face down, but thankfully, I didn't get to the ground—a firm grip closed around my waist and held me up.

Antonioni.

With him coming close to me, the two men stepped back for their boss.

I gasped. His touch was like ice and fire all at once. 

He licked his lips seductively. 

This time, he leaned in on me as he spoke, searching my eyes provocatively. “You don’t get to run because I will find you. Do you understand?”

His voice came across as both a whisper of warning and protection. His breath brushed against mine. “You are coming with me tonight. You dig? You are all mine from henceforth.”

With that warning, he let me go.

For some strange reason, I was supposed to be anxious since I was in danger, but I suddenly felt my adrenaline rushing with tingling pleasure at his touch, his deep voice, and his piercing gaze from up close.

I had heard my heart pound heavily. I could hear myself whispering to my inner mind, “Annabelle! Wake up from that crazy feeling! You're in danger after all.”

I just wished that what was happening was a nightmare and that I’d get to wake up later.

As the two men continued to drag me closer to the car, I turned to look behind, wishing my father were following. 

I saw him standing far off, closer to the house’s door, while gazing at us with bitterness on his face. 

This was the man I spent my adult life paying some of his debts and feeding from my late Mama's business, which I managed.

“Where are you taking me to?” I managed to ask amidst the ragged, hiccuping breath that followed after a long, hard crying.

“My hom—! Now you just come with me and stop asking brainless questions, little girl.”

“Then I'm not com—” 

He cut me short. “Stop resisting. I don't like repetition, and if you don't take time, you won't like what may follow if my fellas get impatient.” 

Antonioni's voice kept coming off, startling me like a deadly sound from a horror movie.

Then, without further warning, the men pushed me into the car, into the back seat. 

It was the latest model Rolls-Royce, black, clean and expensive-looking. 

Then they sat side by side with me. 

Antonioni sat in the front with the driver.

I observed they had come with two other black cars, filled with guards. 

The two cars quickly followed behind us like a convoy.

As soon as we drove off my compound, I felt my world shatter, and I realized this was real.

We drove to his apartment. The route to his place was rather far and complex.

I was looking outside the car window throughout the journey, refusing to look at any of the three men with me in the car—not Antonioni, not the two men who yanked me through like a rogue while taking me to the car.

I was devastated by what was happening to me.

At some point, I noticed Antonioni’s phone ring. He brought it out from his inner tuxedo and took the call.

He put it on loudspeaker and their discussions echoed through.

“Hello, Dee. Oh yes, the plan hasn't changed. We're already on our way to the Park. Please get the other boys ready, really ready, and we shall be heading out once I step in.” He said.

“Okay, boss, noted.” His caller answered from the other end of the line.

I blurred my ears from their discussion. I was too sad to listen to anything. My heart was aching.

I thought about my family—Father. 

I thought about how alive going to the flower shop every day made me feel.

I felt rather peaceful to be lost in thoughts, in trance, in fantasizing about my father's house, anything but Antonioni.

Soon, all those would be memories. Nothing but memories.

Henceforth,

I was going to live with a criminal as his wife.

How much worse can I expect?

There was no escape, no turning back.

Antonioni’s POV

When I returned, I noticed she was sobbing hard, and unlike me, I felt pity for her for the first time. 

There's something her fragility does to me that I just can't explain.

But then, feeling pity is not my style. It's a dickhead weakness for all I care about! 

I had to snap back to being a real man. No one has ever made headway in life by being pitiful.

I checked the time for the umpteenth time.

“We'll be on our way now, Edward. Word will continually be sent to you as to how the marriage is going. Goodbye, man.”

I left, while my men took Annabelle, following behind.

She sobbed even more, pulling backward and making all of us stop. 

For a reason I couldn't explain, I hated to see her sob—I hated the fact that she was being dragged unfairly. 

But the problem was that the little stronghead would try to run if we had left her. That's the kind of show women like to put up, and I had little or no time for that drama. My boys and I had an important business to take care of, and then after that.

We were made to leave, and my eyes caught and locked with Edward's eyes, but that, too, has got nothing on me. 

The bloody old fool might now learn to stop gambling when he has no substance.

Daddy's girl cried further, looking at her father to save her. 

There's something about this girl that I'm yet to place. 

I am ruthless and have no feelings for the folks I hurt, not to mention being moved by tears. But here I am, feeling some sort of thing that I can't even explain, for this girl. 

I held myself and refused to be guilt-tripped by her tears. That's what women know to do best after all.

I looked at my men, and they understood the assignment. Side by side, they moved her forward. 

At first, she resisted and continued to seek rescue from her father, her cry this time, loud and uncontrollable.

“Father, please say something! Don't allow them to take me away, please!”

This time, we truly left without looking back.

As soon as we stepped outside, the outer guards who had lined up, strategically positioned in different corners, started coming out one by one. Each of them bowed in respect to me as I walked past them. 

I nodded charismatically in return.

Annabelle’s cry was becoming louder and was almost beginning to attract the passersby. 

She didn't seem to care about the people who were watching.

Maybe it was because she was lost in a cry and tears blinded her eyes. 

She was being pulled along, as she stumbled forward. That was the only way she could walk. 

I started going backward as I had walked many kilometers past them. 

As I got to them, I made an effort to shut her up, but as I went closer to pinning her lips, she fell, not to the ground yet, because I had caught her by the waist and tried to pull her up.

At first, I thought it was a deliberate move for her to run.

My men had given way since the time I had come closer. Then the rest had gone closer to their different rightful cars to take, still waiting for me.

I held her in my hands, like a prince in shining armor. She felt so soft and vulnerable in my hands. 

Then came those maddening feelings again! 

I won't lie. Holding her in my hands and the feel of her face close enough to mine aroused me, and it was crazy! 

I took her scent in, slowly licking my lips.

“Who's this girl?!” I thought to myself. 

Unlike me, I never feel a genuine yearning for a woman, but this particular one makes me feel it. But then, and I'm not about to lose my guard for a chic! Never! All of them are betrayers!

“You don’t get to run because I will find you. Do you understand? You are coming with me tonight. You dig? You are all mine from henceforth…” I informed her in case he had forgotten, abruptly letting go of her.

I was also going to inform her that in my world, I make all the rules, and nobody dared to challenge me when I saw a look on her face. I was trying to read that look.

Surprisingly, she seemed a little lost, gaping at me. 

Uh, uh, maybe I was wrong. She spoke up stubbornly.

“Where are you taking me to?” I heard her ask. Her breathing was glitching from the cry.

“My hom…! Now you just come with me and stop asking brainless questions, little girl.”

Where did she find the confidence to question a Mafia lord like me? Nobody else talks to me the way this girl does. 

What nonsense! 

What followed after that from her words made me crave her blood, literally.

“Then I'm not com… ”  

“...stop resisting. I don't like repetition, and you won't like what may follow if my fellas get impatient.” I had interrupted her because she was stepping on my patience.

Again, I looked at my men, and they understood what the look meant. 

Over the years, I had taught them how to communicate with me just by taking note of my gestures.

I also observed that they craved to discipline her for talking to me disrespectfully, but were laid back because I hadn't given the order.

The men pushed her into the car, into the back seat. Then they sat side by side with her. 

I wanted to order one of them to sit rather at the front so I could stay with her at the back, but I didn’t want her to think too highly of herself. Instead, I sat in the front with the driver.

The two other cars we had come with also started almost at the same time and eventually took off behind us.

En route, I pulled down the rear mirror in front of me just to observe her and know what she was up to. 

She was looking outside through her left-side window. Unbothered. 

How can she dare to ignore me like my presence meant nothing to her? I fumed secretly. 

If she dared to disrespect me in the presence of my homies, I swear, I will skin her alive.

The city blurred past the car window beside her. “Must be a twisted reminder of how fast her life has been ripped away from her little comfort trenches.” I scorned her in my thoughts.

The car ride continued like a funeral procession.

I couldn't help but continue looking back like someone was suddenly going to open the back door and run away.

There she was. Annabelle. Sitting stiffly in the backseat of my sleek black Rolls-Royce, her hands clenched together in her lap.

I decided to distract her a little. 

Across from her, I lounged like a king, fingers lazily drumming against the leather dashboard in front of me.

I paused and listened to her heartbeat. 

I could feel it from where I was. Her pulse hasn’t slowed since we left her father’s house.

“Daddy's girl,” I cursed under my breath. I thought she heard me, but it appeared she didn't.

Without a warning, my phone rang out loud…

It was Diego, one of my right-hand men—the one in charge of training, weapons, and ammunition.

“Hello, Dee. Oh yes, the plan hasn't changed. We're already on our way to the Park. Please get the other boys ready, really ready, and we shall be heading out once I step in.”

“Okay, boss, noted.” Diego had answered from his end of the line.

I just knew that by the end of that operation, we would all be either dead or alive, luckily.

Either way, I wasn't going to let that baboon Lorenzo put his fingers in my eyes.

My phone kept on beeping with calls throughout the journey.