Keeping his bride

Verona

I

‘M WRINGING MY hands in my lap as Dante drives us to…who the hell knows where. I don’t even know where the safehouse is or how long it’s going to take before we get there. It could be in another state, for all I know.

We ditched the SUV we were originally in because Dante said that’s what Luca wanted him to do. And now we’re in an old sedan that he hotwired in the parking lot of a gas station. Even though I didn’t want to believe it was part of Luca’s plan, I have no idea what he and Dante discussed. I mean, I didn’t even know about the safehouse. And Dante hasn’t ever given me a reason not to trust him, so why start now?

“How much longer?” I ask Dante, and I don’t care if I sound like a whiny child on a long road trip. I need to know how soon we can stop so that he can try to reach out to Luca. I need to know he’s okay.

“Not much longer,” Dante says, and his voice sounds different, weird.

He’s also acting weird; has been ever since we left the house and he refused to let me roam more than a few inches from him this entire time, even when he was hotwiring the car. I guess that’s the biggest reason why I haven’t told him about the cellphone I have safely tucked in the pocket of my yoga pants. The longer we’re in this car, the more I feel like I can’t fully believe or trust Dante. But deep down I know that’s probably just absurd. Dante would never hurt me. I’ve known him almost my entire life.

And yet my hands keep sweating and my heart won’t stop pounding in my chest every time I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. Something has changed, and my fight or flight response is kicking into gear against my best friend. I need to find out why.

“Can you call Luca now?”

“He’s dead, Verona,” he says so assuredly that it sends a chill up my spine.

“You don’t know that!” I protest vehemently.

“I know. And he is,” he says through gritted teeth. Then he adds, “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

My eyes fill with tears, but I refuse to let them fall. I was right in not trusting Dante. He’s changed ever since I married Luca. He’s become more possessive and unpredictable.

Feeling desperate, I keep my eyes locked on the rearview mirror to make sure his eyes are on the road before I carefully retrieve the cell phone from my pocket. I flip it open, turn the volume the whole way down and press and hold the number one button. Once I see the call connecting, I quickly close it so that the light doesn’t give me away and tuck it back into my pocket.

If Luca is alive…or Benny…or anyone, hopefully they’ll get the call and be able to trace it.

“Dante, how much longer?” I ask.

“I already told you, Verona, not much longer,” he says vaguely. “Fuck, you’re just like your mother. So impatient.” I grow angry at his comment. How dare he talk about my dead mother like he knew her better than me. I’m surprised he even remembers her. He was only around her for a short period of time before she died.

“Don’t talk about my mother like that!” I yell, my voice thick with overwhelming emotion.

A crazed laugh escapes his lips, and the car swerves on the road as he cackles loudly. “Your mother was a cunt,” he spits out. “Always asking me to do things for her, like I was her goddamn servant. So entitled.”

I shake my head at him. My mother was never like that. My mother was the sweetest person on the planet. “You’re lying,” I tell him.

“She deserved to die. Just like Luca’s mother.” His hands tighten on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Once I killed your mother, I knew that his was next. It just took a little longer to get to her.”

The breath leaves my lungs in one gasp as I try to process his words. “W-what did you just say?” I stammer, not believing him.

“Your father took my mother away from me. Killed her right in front of me. Along with my father, but hey, he was a bastard that deserved to die anyway. But my mother…no, my mother didn’t deserve that horrible fate.” He moves his head from side to side, cracking his neck. “I wasn’t able to have a mother, so you didn’t deserve to have one either.” He continues on with, “Your mother wanted pudding that day. Always asking for shit,” he hisses angrily. “So, after the cook was done making it, I crushed up a bottle of sleeping pills I found in her medicine cabinet and mixed them in.” A sadistic smile tugs at his lips. “She stumbled around and around, knocking into things, before I led her outside to the pool. Just a small push was all it took until she fell in.”

“You monster!” I scream at him. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I reach into the front seat and start pounding him with my small fists.

He easily deflects my hits and swerves the car off the road, slamming to a stop. I fly into the seat in front of me, the wind knocked from my lungs. I gasp for air to return to my lungs as he looks back at me with a hateful look in his eyes.

“You weren’t supposed to be the one to find her. I wanted your dad to discover her body floating in the pool.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “I wanted him to feel the same pain I felt when I lost my mother.”

When I’m finally able to suck in a full breath, I hiss at him, “We saved you! We took you in.”

“Saved me?” he scoffs. “Your father ruined my life!”

The car is filled with silence for a long time. And then I have to ask, “But why Luca’s mother? What did she ever do to you?”

“The Morettis along with the Vitales made the decision to kill my family after my father betrayed them. They were all in business together, you see. So, after they murdered my mother and father, I wanted the families to go to war, destroy each other. There was only one way to ensure that would happen.” He hesitates, staring off into the distance as if remembering something. “I snuck into the house early one morning and killed Luca’s mother. I killed her the same way the Morettis had killed so many before her, three slashes to the throat, so that the Vitales would assume it was them. And the Vitales believed it. They went to war with your father, trying to overtake everything he owned. The war went on for years, and both families just tore each other apart at every fucking chance they got.” He shakes his head and sneers. “And then this little wedding fucked everything up. I wanted more blood to be shed. I wanted them to wipe each other out of existence. I wanted to watch your father’s empire crumble to the ground.”

I silently sob in the backseat. There are no words for

Dante’s betrayal, the hurt he caused both of our families. I

feel ashamed that I ever had fee ings for this monster. All the times he consoled me after my mother’s death, when he was responsible for it the entire time, makes me physically ill.

Dante climbs out of the car and looks around, checking his phone. “We’re here.” “Where?” I ask.

“Right where we’re supposed to be,” he says vaguely before opening the back door and dragging me out by my hair. I scream and kick, fighting for my life in the darkness surrounding us.

I’m vaguely aware of the phone slipping out of my pocket and landing on the road beneath me as I fight him.

Dante drags me down the road for what feels like a mile before we come to a stop. In the darkness, I can see the moonlight cascading off the dark water. And as he continues dragging me towards it, panic begins to set in. “No, no, no!” I beg, thinking he’s going to drown me in that water.

Dante throws me to the ground and towers over me.

“Time to get in the boat, sweetheart,” he sneers.

“No! I won’t! I can’t!” I cry out, hysterical.

“Well, since you won’t do it the easy way, we’ll have to do it the hard way,” he tells me right before something hard smacks me in the head and the world around me goes black.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.