Page 87 of Keeping My Bride

“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 feelings 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.

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