John 8:7 (KJV)
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. _________________
Last Will and Testament of Alessandro Vincenzo D'Angelo
I Alessandro Vincenzo D'Angelo being of sound of mind leave my properties, both in America and Italy to my son Antonio Alessandro D'Angelo.
My multitude of cars will be left to my daughter, Avelina Maria D'Angelo.
My chain of businesses shall be handled by my sons, Antonio Alessandro D'Angelo and Giovanni Rossi till my daughter is of age to have an equal position as they, my shares shall be sold and the money given to charity.
Lastly, my empire will be given to my wife, Emma Rodgers till the day of marriage between my son, and Samantha Cavelli.
The last sentence hit to the core making me refuse to accept that reality. I had the will checked, rechecked and checked again and all three lawyers confirmed that it was the real deal. I was bound in an arranged betrothment with a woman I could not even stand.
That very same person was currently sitting on my lap, enjoying herself or rather flaunting me like some dress she had that other girls did not have, I wish I could just push her off into the floor just to embarrass her and of course for my satisfaction, but, to my dismay, I had to bear with her despite my rancour towards her until the day of the wedding because though the will was agitating it did however only have a hold of me up until the day of the wedding. For now, I had to pretend to at least like her to the outside world.
My mood got even more damped as I watched the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen since my mom walk in with her friend, she did not look bothered by the stares or whispers that just spread across the cafeteria like a virus as soon as she entered. Samantha ceased talking to Lucia and Margaret who were pretending to listen but I knew how much they despised her for her snobbish ways, her gaze focused solely on her and if she had laser beams then Destiny would not be there anymore.
At first, I thought that they knew each other and had some feud only to find out that Samantha was the one who had some sort of resentment towards her, for an apparent reason, me. She saw how I gave my attention to Destiny something she had wanted ever since I had known her. And I just added fuel to the fire by wanting her to be my fake girlfriend and now they were enemies in Samantha's eyes.
She was about to stand up and move on to her when I harshly pulled her arm making her give out an incoherent gasp as I pulled her body closer to mine, placed a smile on my face and slowly twisted her hair into my fist making her hiss in pain but I could care less, "You will sit down like a good girl and not try anything, you do not want to make me angry, now behave, understood?" She nodded repeatedly but she knew I wanted a verbal answer so I continued pulling her hair until she said, "Y-yes understood."
I let go of her hair and relaxed into my seat as Lucia gave me a questioning stare which I only winked at. She knew that she reported every single thing to her dad but she would not report me and I could attest to that, and even if she did he was at a lower rank to me so he would not be able to do anything except run his mouth and that's if he would be brave enough to do so.
She ate her rabbit food with a solemn look on her face, I was already full so I just watched her eat, chew and swallow her food. A few minutes later a girl a few shades darker than Destiny and short blonde-dyed hair came over holding a lot of papers from the campus' media committee, something Emma supported financially because of Samantha's involvement or rather her cupidity to always have been pocket full whilst using her puppet of a best friend to do all the writing and gathering of information before handing it to the committee, and how do I know about that? Well, Samantha herself proudly told me during a date which Emma had planned how she ate off her best friends with her job being just to sit and listen to the gossip before approving it.
The girl distributed the papers to everyone around the table, except me, because what would I possibly do with the paper filled with girl gossip, demeaning a fellow girl in the worst possible way except uplifting her, they hurt them in the worst possible way ruining their self-esteem physically and emotionally, and though I was said to be stone-hearted I was indeed like any other human with a fully functioning heart that also beat, loved and mourned and my mom had taught me better than to accuse falsely plus if something like this happened to Avelina I know that I would be extremely furious.
I turned to my phone, busying myself with reading the news when Margaret called out, "Boss?" I looked at her and rose an eyebrow to know why she would call me.
"You might want to see this," Her eyes did not say much but I knew that something was bothering her otherwise she would've called, she held out the small A5 paper which I toke from her.
The paper had some badly designed flowers but what caught my attention was Destiny's name, what was she doing in this so-called excuse of the weekly dose of gossip? Samantha quickly scurried off me going to sit next to Lucia who looked like wanted nothing to do with her but I did not think much about her weird behaviour as I had more important things to do.
I started reading the article and with every word I felt anger slowly boiling inside of me as a wildfire that started as something small but soon becoming something worth fearing and by the time I was finished reading it, my breathing was so laboured I had to breathe through my mouth, I slowly lifted my gaze from the aggravating article which was now inside my fist and looked at the scared and innocent-looking Samantha. I took deep breaths to calm down so as to not cause a scene in front of the whole student population but I couldn't stop the fist that collided ferociously with the table making a resounding noise quietening down the noise in the cafeteria. Everyone turned to look at us each holding their own article.
"Sa-man-tha," I gritted out her name in syllables, looking at her like some sort of prey. "What did you do?" Her eyes darted looking all over the place, not meeting mine, fear taking over her entire body.
"Samantha!" I shouted making her jump up in fright. Who was she to ignore when I was busy speaking to her in the kindest way I could at the moment? The cafeteria broke out into whispers which irked me. "Shut up!" I said looking at each and every one in the cafeteria, it must have been the murderous look in my eyes because they were shaking in their boots whilst one specific boy looked angry to be commanded but being the wimp he was he just sat down and did as instructed.
"Now back to you," I turned back to Samantha as I caught her trying to escape, tip-toeing to the door but I bolted out of my chair and within seconds she was in my fierce grip, trying to wiggle her hand out of it but she was doing more harm than good because she started bleeding.
"I asked you a simple question that requires an answer," I said as I walked us outside the cafeteria from all the preying eyes.
"I told that best friend of mine to write an article about her, what's so wrong about that?" A sudden jolt of confidence cascaded off her in waves, for a moment there I forgot that she was born into a life of crime and did not get scared easily and I was just the exception, being the most feared mafia leader.
"Cosa c'è di così sbagliato in questo?!" I shouted out furiously making her flinch as I let go of her now swollen and bloody hand.
After a few calm breaths to control myself, so as to not do something I would regret later on, I spoke, "So you find nothing wrong with falsely accusing an innocent girl by writing about her in your good-for-nothing article?" I closed in on her making her move backwards until she bumped into a wall which made her look around in panic with nowhere to run, just how I liked it. I trapped her in both of my hands.
"No, I don't!" She said with false confidence and determination, clearly she did not know me.
I raised my hand to her skinny neck and pushed it deep into it, I could've used my liner lock knife but being the good and kind person I was, I did not use it on her, her heart rate picked up as she breathed in harshly trying to get in as much air circulation as possible. She tried to tear off my choke hold.
"Would you like to repeat that?" I smirked and pulled my hand deeper into her neck making her squirm in my hold, her eyes slowly opening and closing.
"...No, I- I am s-sorry," She rasped out, her eyes pleading with me to let her go as her body buckled against mine.
"You will apologise to the one that you wronged and tell everyone how much of a little liar you are, understood?" I watched as she gave me wide eyes as if wanting to fight me but without having the strength or power to do so she nodded.
"Excuse me?" I expect word answers, not signs, we have mouths for a reason.
"Y-yes." I let go of her neck and her body gave out on her as she almost fell but instead landed in a squat, coughing her lungs out, while rubbing her sore neck. Her extra short pink skirt showed all her thighs which she didn't bother to hide, making me feel disgusted at her lack of love and respect for her own body.
She lifted her gaze from the ground, her coughing fit having stopped and I could see fear written all over her face as she moved away from me her eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"Y-you are a monster, I will never get married to you!" She seemed to give up on her infatuation with me, realising that I would never love her, finally. She stood on her two weak legs and started walking as fast as she could to escape me.
That just made my day if only I knew that was all it toke to get rid of her I would've done it a long time ago but then I remembered the will which meant that I was stuck with her until the day of the wedding, so I had to apologise.
"Samantha!" I said as softly as I could making her halt in her trek. I couldn't believe that I had to pretend to be sorry whereas I couldn't be happier with what I did.
I jogged over to her and pulled her into my arms, feeling her stiff body against mine, the smell of her perfume was too much that I felt like gagging but that would just make her angry, "I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me," I said rubbing her back as comfortably as I could, she was my gateway ticket to the empire so I needed to keep her happy even though I despised her with my every being.
Cold arms wrapped around my back as she sobbed quietly, dampening my shirt in the process, she could've cried on anyone but she just had to choose me and now I would have to wear my shirt with all her tears and snot on it. Talk about disgusting.
She finally pulled away from me before swiftly raising her hand and striking my cheek harshly making my jaw tick, but I stood as still as stone.
"You better not do that anymore," she said pointing her fake nails in my face, had I not needed her she would not be standing here right now.
"I will not," I smiled whilst feeling a fire burning inside of me.
"Okay, I love you, Ally," She smiled pressing her lips on my cheek making me grimace but she did not notice.
I just smiled, how could I say I loved her back when I felt the total opposite of that and my mom had told me that love was a sacred thing that I did not need to toy around with but one thing I could toy with was her gullibility.
"Samantha!" We both turned at the sound of her name being shouted, and we saw Thato walking towards her like a bolt of lightning, anger all over her features. Destiny was hot on her trail calling out to her with another girl I did not recognise.
In no time Thato stood in front of her and jabbed her pointer finger in Samantha's chest making her recoil in disgust and making me internally smile. At least she did not ask me to defend her.
"Who do your think you are writing about my best friend in that newspaper of yours?" She asked and just in time Destiny came and pulled her from her and as usual, she was looking splendid with her hair curled up into a bun.
"Thato, please leave it be," She begged, her eyes not showing an ounce of anger towards Samantha.
"No, she's right. I'm sorry for embarrassing you on my magazine," Samantha said eyeing Thato who called it a newspaper. "Jealousy blinded me, please accept my sincerest apologies." Let me tell you, the girl is a liar she looked sincerely sorry but I knew that couldn't be any further from the truth, at least we were similar in that sense, we were both liars and opportunists.
Destiny smiled her dazzling smile before pulling Samantha into a tight hug, surprising all of us, "I forgive you and please know that God loves you as well," she whispered but loud enough for us to hear her but then at that moment she saw red marks on her neck and asked, "What happened?"
"I wore a choke necklace and it hurt my sensitive neck." Samantha smoothly lied as I knew she would.
"You forgive her!" Thato asked incredulously, angered at her forgiving nature and effectively changing the topic.
"Yes, the Lord says we should forgive seventy times seven times, so I forgive her and who would I be if I failed to forgive her for such a mundane thing?" They pulled away from the hug and she turned to look at me with a shy smile which I returned. Her and her church ways.
"I will never understand you," Thato admitted, shaking her head.
They waved goodbye and walked back into the cafeteria with their friend that had silently watched their exchange.
****
Later on in the evening when I was finally done with my paperwork, I thought about a certain brown-eyed beauty and how it seemed like she had made a home in my heart unknowingly something that bothered me deeply because I could not like someone as much as I liked her, it would be far too dangerous.
I knew what I would do, ignore those feelings, afterall I had more important things to worry about.
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Cosa c'è di così sbagliato in questo- What's so wrong with that?