Ju escorted me and Nina to her nearby apartment. After a quick shower and a blow-dry for my hair, I changed into a deep blue georgette dress adorned with small star crystals all over it.
"You intentionally gave me this dress, didn't you?" I asked her.
"Nothing else will fit your body now," she admitted with a sly grin.
I looked like a deity of the night sky. Was this the dress I was wearing to meet the Volkners officially?
Not bad.
---------------------------------------------
After traveling for almost half an hour, we reached a gate that looked like it came from a Disney movie.
The big iron gates had "Volkner" embedded in them, along with Volkner's emblem and multiple small emblems on every iron rod.
The car drove through between tall, bushy hedges. For 5 minutes straight, I could only see the car lights illuminating the hedges until it entered a road that split a big field in half.
At the end of that field stood a palace that resembled the château of Versailles. My jaw dropped at the view before me; the palace looked like a fairytale at night. Assessing the length of the road in front of our car, it seemed almost a kilometer long. A large water fountain stood in the middle, spewing water and glittering like starlight.
Our car crossed the fountain, creating a mini half-roundabout, and then reached the house. Two butlers descended the stairs, opening the door of our Rolls Royce.
Stepping out, I held my hem upward, and Nina joined me.
A faint hymn of music filled the air, someone playing opera songs.
Guided by the butlers, we entered the house. I was surprised to find that the château was smaller than I had imagined or assessed.
After passing through a few closed doors and a hallway, we entered a spacious living room. Royce was watching TV behind a kitchen counter, and Maria was setting the table by herself. They were wearing the same clothes I saw them in at the office. Then the oven made a noise, and Royce put on a glove, bringing out a large baking dish.
The enticing aroma of oregano and tomato filled the air.
"Kay!" Maria joyfully greeted me from her table and walked over to hug me as if we had known each other for ages. Royce smiled at me from a distance, taking the baking dish to the table.
"Rhys told me you absolutely loved Italian food, so I brought some from a restaurant nearby..." She grabbed my hand and led me to the table.
"....but, I can tell you my cooking is better than Dante's." She added.
"Uncle Dante will disagree," Nina chimed in.
"He will riot against you," Royce added as he took his seat at the head of the table. Maria sat in front of me, and Nina settled beside her.
Maria mocked her husband with a fake smile, and Royce playfully mocked her back. Nina rolled her eyes at their banter.
Their light-hearted banter made me forget that just a few hours ago, their only son was terrorizing me.
I immediately fell in love with Maria and Royce's chemistry. There was so much love between them, as they behaved like a teenage couple deeply in love.
"Sorry for their behavior, Kay. They are a bit childish when everyone in this family is together," Nina told me, grinning from ear to ear.
"Sure, Grandma." Maria playfully pushed at Nina's temple, making her head tilt a bit.
"Ugh, Mother Madonna!" Nina exclaimed.
"Madonna?" I was confused. Royce explained,
"Well.... we all have funny family names that we call each other." There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice.
"Such as?"
"They call me Madonna because I'm blonde, Italian, and I love singing.... when I am alone," Maria added.
"They call Royce Chewbacca because when he cannot contain his laughter, he makes a hee-hee sound. That's the funniest thing you'll ever hear."
I burst out laughing when Nina imitated the hee-hee sound. Maria kept looking at me with an unknown awe.
"And sometimes Rhys calls himself Beyoncé." She concluded.
"Because he is our little baby star." Nina teased her boyfriend's cousin.
This made me laugh even harder. I hid my face in my palms to control myself.
Then I heard a chair pull beside me, and I caught a whiff of his scent. My laughter dimmed slowly as I raised my head to look at him.
HE FUCKING SHAVED OFF HIS BEARD!
Royce gave one look to his son, and he burst out laughing. Maria tried to stop him by slamming his hand, but it only made him laugh harder. Then, he started to make that infamous hee-hee sound.
Trust me when I tell you, this was the funniest thing I have ever heard. I couldn't help but laugh along with everyone else at the table, except for Rhys. He grinned from ear to ear, but his cheeks were flushed with embarrassment.
"You look so much better without those atrocious things you call a beard," Royce managed to say between laughs. I was shocked that Royce was able to tease his son so openly in front of me, a relative stranger.
"I'm sorry you were born without good beard genes. I couldn't get it from you," Rhys fired back, his own grin widening.
Oh my God, all of them are crazy. If Rhys had Asian parents like mine, he would have slept outside tonight.
"At least I look good with my thin blonde beard. Your thick beard scared Kay so much she almost ran away."
HOLY HELL THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY.
Rhys mocked his dad with a fake smile.
"Nina, Marco is upstairs. Will you dine there with him? We need to talk in private," Maria commanded her with a smile. Nina obliged and took two full plates of food before leaving.
A butler closed the door behind her. I looked at Rhys's hand, resting on his thighs. His fingers were almost reaching out to mine, just a few inches away. I put both of my hands on the table.
Maria and Royce immediately stopped smiling and adopted serious expressions.
"Tell me everything Rhys did to you," Maria commanded, handing me a plate full of pasta Bianco. I twirled my spaghetti with a fork.
"He lied to me."
"I did not lie to you, Kay," Rhys interjected. I was astonished.
Really? Right in front of your parents?
"You can talk when we tell you to talk," Royce commanded his son. Rhys shook his head in disbelief.
"You were Sameer? Do you work as the head of Caelus Hotel Security? Really?" I yelled at him.
"My full name is Rhys Sameer Volkner Asscher! I go by just Rhys Volkner! I run the whole damn fucking chain!" He yelled back.
"Why didn't you tell her your real full name?" Maria asked, visibly irritated.
"She hates rich people," Rhys explained. My head exploded with anger.
"What the Fuck!!! When did I tell you that?"
"You told Julia that all rich men want is sugar babies," Rhys accused me.
I couldn't believe my ears. Was he for real? I make fun of rich people and their Ludicrous behaviors sometimes, but which fucking planet did he live on to not get my sarcasm? Besides, it was true I disliked powerful rich men, but that didn't mean I would hate them all, like he was accusing me of!
Before I could respond, Maria's icy tone cut through the room like a blade. "Rhys, you should be thankful to be alive. She hasn't killed you... yet."
My heart sank at what Maria said to Rhys. What did she know about me?
"She once threatened to kill me over the phone when I was talking to Julia," he continued, his voice tinged with fear. "And she told Marco she'd prick my eyes out with a fork. I was scared to even tell her who I was."
Dude... what the fuck?
How could he think so poorly of me? And what had he been telling his family about our interactions? It was clear that things were more complicated than I had ever imagined.
"So, hiding your identity was the only option you think?" Royce questioned him, cutting through the tension in the room.
Rhys sighed with evident frustration. "You should have seen us... we were living the best life. If she ever knew who I was, she would never open her heart to me," he explained, his gaze fixed on the water. Maria, meanwhile, poured herself a glass of wine and took a significant sip.
"...I have never been happier," Rhys concluded, his expression a mix of worry and guilt.
"And? You killed 5 men. For a woman," Royce pressed on.
"They were there to hurt her."
"And... whose fault was it?" Maria directed the question at him, her piercing gaze meeting her son.
But Rhys's eyes locked onto mine, carrying a heavy load of guilt and regret. The room seemed to tighten around us, each word hanging in the air, leaving a sense of unease and uncertainty.
WHAT THE FUCK HE DID?
"Wait... What do I not know?" I demanded from Maria and Royce. Their expressions turned guilty, and I felt a knot tightening in my stomach.
"Rhys sent his stupid men to inquire about your whereabouts, and they had no idea about how to do espionage work on anyone. Unfortunately, their unprofessional actions alerted our enemies—those who wish to see the downfall of the Volkner group. They assumed a romantic relationship between you and Rhys, making you a target," Maria explained, her tone heavy with the weight of revelation.
My mind was a whirlwind of disbelief.
"... If he had just asked me about you, I could have used my employees for the task, people who actually ever worked in espionage. But he thought he could handle it with his own men, who had zero experience."
"Now, every one of our business rivals is after you because they believe Rhys is in love with you. Harming you becomes a way to hurt him," Royce added, finishing Maria's explanation.
I struggled to process the implications of their words, unable to believe that my life had become entangled in such a dangerous web.
"Problem is, Rhys had been officially single for the last 5 years due to his, our busy schedules... You know how things work here. I think we have time to breathe after like... 6-7 years of project after project...And now all the troubles started to happen at the same time,' " Maria spoke, followed by a heavy sigh.
"So, the first thing they knew about you, they started to follow you everywhere."
"We knew things would go south, but kidnapping you? Ugh! Not just one time, but two attempts? In front of our nose???... they have balls, I must say," Royce admitted, finishing his pasta.
"Eat, Kay. They are halal," Rhys requested. I began to eat my pasta mechanically.
"Killing rivals' men is always a bad idea. We are not a mafia. We carry guns for our own protection. Once you start a killing spree, blood will be shed from both sides," Maria mused to her self.
"If I needed to kill someone to protect her, I would kill them all." Rhys calmly replied to her.
"Wait... what?" Royce was shocked at something. He frantically looked at Maria and asked,
"Is he in love?"
"He is your son you don't know?" Maria angrily asked her husband.
"You raised him, you know him better than me." Royce replid her.
"He killed 5 men for this lady, What else do you need to know? He used to cry like a baby every time his exs broke up with him. Now he is on a murder spree for this woman who doesn't even like him. Can't you see it, you fool!" Maria scolded her husband. Royce gasped like a child, his eyes were beaming with unfathomable happiness.
Then he looked at me and closed his gasping mouth.
I was in such shock that I forgot why we were even at this table to talk.
"I like her." Royce tried to explain to his son while taking a big sip of his red wine.
"Yeah, I like her too. She is pretty, smart... She is cute. You are cute, Kay. I love your eyes; they are so pretty. I think you have the prettiest eyes ever!" Maria babbled like a guilty teenager, Royce nodded with his wife and forced the biggest grin ever.
What the fuck?
"I think we are here to discuss what Sameer... Rhys did to me." I expressed my desire to stir the conversation back on the right track.
"I am still Sameer, Kay." Rhys tried to explain it to me.
I shook my head with disgust. How dare he scare the shit out of me!!! How dare he ruin everything like an idiot for his so-called "protecting Kay" rhetoric? I was scared of him before entering here.
But now, his actions were pissing me off to the extent that I can feel a headache rising back of my head. I could not control my anger.
"Why did you declare war?" I asked Rhys.
"I beg your pardon?" He asked me.
"Why did Marco mention your name at the press conference?"
Silence fell in the room for a few seconds.
"She is actually smarter than him," Royce whispered to Maria. Maria shushed her husband and glanced at us as if she were assessing the situation.
"I wanted to warn them about even touching you, let alone even think of harming you," Rhys explained.
"What does it have to do with the Kingdom of Anubiah's problem?"
"Our business rivals at Weaponry wanted to start a war in this region, selling weapons to the terrorists and mercenaries. And the need for weapons will increase even among the allies, so- the mass production of weapons will increase. We have vowed 5 years ago that we will minimize our weapon production to make Volkner more eco-friendly."
"And anything we could do is the opposite of being eco-friendly. After COVID-19, everyone started to fight war after war. Russia, Ukraine... Sudan... Israel......''
"Russia stocked weapons since the Covid, from us. We had no idea that they were planning to invade Ukraine. When we realized it, we stopped selling to them. Our rivals got chances to do business, this caused a huge power shift in our monopoly."
I could not believe we again started to shift away from the main topic, I wanted to talk about how Rhys deceived me, and they were discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine's.
"Now, as our rivals got to sell to both Ukraine and Russia, they thought they could kick us out of the game as we have no interest to get tangled with wars." Maria started to laugh.
"One thing is doing business, getting your money. Another thing is to be hungry for power." Rhys commented as he took a sip of wine, and his gaze got lost somewhere.
"Thus, it was needed to declare that Rhys will be watching everyone's move. On behalf of us. We needed our Beyoncé on stage for performance." Maria added, ending her wine with a big gulp.
"What it have to do with me?" I asked again.
"It has to do nothing with you, actually. All it has to do is fuck him up." Royce pointed at his son.
"They will hurt you, to fuck with him," Maria explained.
"They? Who?"
"Our rivals."
"But, we are not together," I explained.
"Kay... I thought you said yes to me yesterday."
"I said yes to Sameer, not to Rhys Fucking Volkner," I yelled at him.
"Ooof! I like this new middle name." Royce complimented him with a mocking grin.
"Goes quite well with his.... habit," Maria explained to her husband. I was so disturbed by their claims.
"Do you think it's funny?" Rhys asked Maria as the couple started to diss their son in front of me. He stood up and walked back and forth at the dining space,
"Do you have any idea the panic I felt when I saw she was gone?" His piercing, deep Prussian eyes were about to come out of his socket.
"That does not explain why you trashed my apartment," Royce said to his son.
"You will fix that TV tomorrow," Maria explained.
Did he trash the suite? Broke the TV? What the fuck? That place belonged to Royce?
"You like it or not, you are with me," Rhys commanded me suddenly.
"You like it or not, all this over-possessiveness looks and feels so great in all the romance books that you read, but women hate it when it happens to them in real life." Maria mocked her son.
"Thank You." I complimented her.
"They will do harm to you if you stay away from us." Royce tried to explain.
"So?" I was pissed.
"At least you can pretend that you are with him." Maria expressed.
"Excuse me, do you think this is some stupid Wattpad love story? That I will have a fake billionaire boyfriend to protect my ass?" I asked Royce
"Eww Kay!! We are not billionaires." Maria calmly expressed.
"I don't give a fuck about your trillions and gazillions. You can shove your business and politics anywhere up to you your arse but I am out of this. I don't give a damn shit about your family and its rivals." I threw my napkin on the table and walked to the door.
Rhys caught my arms and stopped me.
"You can shove your opinions about my family anywhere up to your ass, but once you said yes to me, you are mine. If anything, happens to you, I will die."
His last sentence made my stomach churn in anxiety.
"You like it or not, you are with us... for now." Royce spoke as he stood up.
"I want nothing to do with Rhys! I can't tolerate him anymore after his lying got exposed." I turned back to him; Rhys was still holding my arm.
"I am your Sameer, Kay! I am yours! I did not lie a single thing to you! I hid many things, but not what I feel for you! My kiss, my hugs... everything was real! Everything I told you while we were watching the stars was real! My love for you is real!!" He almost teared up.
For a second, his sad face made my heart curl up in such confusing agony that I had never experienced in my life.
"You will hurt me." A gush of cries started to choke me from inside.
"I think we should go," Maria said suddenly. Royce nodded to her. They both walked out slowly from the dining space.
"Why do you think I would hurt you?" Rhys spoke after they left us alone to fight.
"You already hurt me; you scared me," I spoke.
This made a sudden change in his expression; he pinned me to the wall while holding my shoulders. He then held my both cheeks with his fingers and forced my head to align with his gaze,
"Why are you blaming me as if I fucked you forcefully? I did everything to make you happy. I did not kiss you even without asking you. I did everything to win you! Why the fuck do you talk like I raped the shit out of you?"
Everything around me became void and soundless for a long, long moment. Only his last words lingered in the air, deep in that abysmal void. I was lost in my mind and saw little Kay mocking me with a powerful grin.
I opened my eyes to see his face, he slowly spared my body from his grips walked a few steps back, and covered his mouth with his hands.
Neither of us could believe what he just said.
But his expression, his widened eyes with astonishment caused by his sheer stupidity, and two large tears falling from the Prussian Ocean made me realize two things,
Number 1, he had no idea about my past. That mean he had no idea who assaulted me, how long I had been raped when I was little, Julia kept her promises as well. Otherwise, I knew Rhys was an absolute idiot, but he was not that of an idiot to say those words someone who was a childhood sexual abuse survivor.
Number 2, he just murdered me with those words. I wished he instead shot my head off with his guns. I wish he actually assaulted me before saying any of these.
I walked slowly to him,
"Sameer, you did not even let me love you for 24 hours...." I said, I let my tears fall down.
"When you slept like a baby last night beside me, I wanted to hug you so bad. I wanted to give a billion kisses on your back so bad. But I did not touch you without your consent, I even regretted kissing your forehead because... I was so happy. I was so happy that finally, someone wanted to love me, and I wanted to love him back harder.... But you took that away from me... It was not even a day......You have no idea how happy you made me... I imagined my whole life with you......I had imagined my whole future with you, Sameer......"
"Don't say this, please," Rhys begged me. This 30-something-year-old man was sobbing full on in front of me , like a child.
"Why did you say this?" I asked him again.
"I'm so sorry... I can't take this anymore.... I never got so angry like this my whole life... I swear...." his voice became so heavy with pain of his sheer stupidity and guilt.
"You know, I danced like a princess when I realized you were the best human that I have ever met..... I imagined dancing with you in my own fairytale, while all the kings and queens were jealous of me, that I got myself a man like you... But you proved me wrong... I thought you were everything I have ever wanted... You have no idea how long I have waited to meet someone like you...I thought you were my soulmate..."
"I am.....Please believe in me...." Rhys could not speak as his tears muffled his own voice.
My smile mocked at him.
"You need a psychiatrist... You actually need therapy." I said while stepping back away from him.
He dared not to touch me; he realized the destruction his words did. I knew he wanted to hold my hand to stop me. But he knew he lost this right to even look at my face.
".... I will never forgive you; I may love you again...... But forgiveness will never be an option...ever...... Sorry but... You lost me forever..... I really did love you, even for a second, I loved you so much, Sameer..I was looking for my happily ever after, with you." I walked back, looking at his destroyed expression...
I walked away from that dining area. Leaving him alone to deal with his own monsters. I had my own monsters to deal with.