Page 19 of The Vatican
The elevator doors opened, and we stepped out into the lobby. We had just turned the corner when I saw Vincent strolling in. He got one look at my face and pulled me to him. “What wrong, Ria?”
I looked up at my older brother, and I didn’t know how not to hate everyone who knew. “You knew,” I spat. “You fucking knew, and never said a word.”
“Ria-”
“What kind of big brother are you?” I hissed, my anger renewed. “How could you not tell me? How could you all keep this from me?”
“Ria, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied, worry in his eyes.
“Francisco!”
Vincent dropped his hands and stepped back, his face dropping in regret. “Ria-”
“Don’t you see what you’ve done?” I pleaded. “Don’t you see what…you’ve done tome?”
“Ria-”
“You’ve taken away my chance for love, Vincent,” I choked out. “I am never going to know what it’s like to be loved by someone who loves me because he can’t help himself, and not because he’s family and has to.” The tears of betrayal started again, and I was so sick of them. “I’m never going to have what Mom and Dad have. I’m never going to know what it’s like to be cherished.” Hate seeped through my voice with each word. “I’ve been sentence to a marriage that is going to slowly kill me every day, and for what?”
“Ria, don’t talk like that,” he begged.
I pulled out my phone, threw it on the floor, smashing it into pieces. I bent down, picked up the shatter phone and dropped it in my brother’s hand. “All of you,” I seethed, “can go to hell.”
“Ria!”
“Spread the word, big brother,” I snarled. “I don’t want fuck to do with anyone who knew and didn’t tell me.”
“Ria, you don’t mean that.”
I turned my back on him and walked out of the building, Mica at my back with Vincent yelling my name. Mica helped me into the car, walked over to the driver’s side, and off we went.
A few miles down the road, he said, “You know I have to tell your father, right?”
“I know, Mica,” I replied, my eyes closed, my head resting on the headrest. “But he knows he can find me through you, so I think he’ll give me my space.”
“So, where to?”
“I don’t know,” I told him truthfully. I had nowhere to go. All I knew was my family. I had no one I could run to because I wasn’t going to knowingly put anyone on the bad side of The Holy Trinity. It wasn’t fair. I just wanted to get lost, but when your family owned the entire city, where could I go?
His phone started ringing, and I let the sound of my sobs drown out the ringtone I knew could only belong to one of the many people who’ve betrayed me.
Chapter 10
Francisco~
It was bad.
I stood in my father’s living room as our mothers sat heartbroken, and our fathers didn’t know how to fix it for them.
After Saveria left earlier, an alarm had gone out to everyone. She had run into Vincent on her way out, and when he showed up with her broken phone and her message that we were all basically dead to her, my father had called me, telling me what happened.
I had immediately called Mica who assured me he had her covered. After that, I had raced over, and everyone was a fucking mess.
Replaying what Vincent told our fathers, it appeared that Saveria’s issue was that she believed she was going to be in a loveless marriage. That wasn’t the case, though. However, if I told her I loved her now, she wouldn’t believe me, and I wouldn’t blame her. She’d think it was just a desperate ploy to bring her to heel.
Our parents fucked us and fucked us good.
“Do you think she was serious?” Aunt Frankie asked, looking over at me. Ria might be their daughter, but I was the one who knew her best, and as much as I wanted to make everything better for Aunt Frankie, I wasn’t going to lie to her.
