AZALEA'S POV:
HE TOOK our most prized possessions― well, not mine. Mostly Elliott's most prized possession. Confiscated our phones and grounded us, also made us do chores for a week. To me, it really isn't that bad. Basically an everyday thing back in London, nothing new, really. However, for Elliott, the world seemed to be coming to an abrupt end. One second without hearing complaining from his mouth would be equivalent to 10 hours in Heaven, 1,000 hours in Miami. For both sides, they apply more to me since my brothers are probably used to his whining. And, they could probably afford 1,001 hours in Miami. Might leave quite a big dent in the bank but they could still afford it.
To be honest, with how mad and over-exaggerating Giovanni was back in his office, I seriously thought he'd ship us off to a boarding school, or lock us up in the deepest depths of his hidden dungeons. Make us fight a tiger― dragon even with our fists.. Lock us in a room surrounded by 10 Tsar Bombas and give us a minute to try and deactivate all of them, 30 seconds if he's real mad. Skin us alive, throw us in lava, wack us with an anvil.. repeatedly.
Really, and I say he was over-exaggerating.
We're not getting our phones until next week. So, that means no using it in class. Also takes away the luxury privilege of being able to drown yourself in music rather than listening to someone's decaying nan ramble on about how sex is bad and it gives us STDs― or about how under 18s shouldn't be vaping. Then about how we shouldn't be drinking monster because it's bad. All stuff I could care less about.
There are things I do care about though, main subjects like Maths, English, Science and the others. Since I was a little girl, I'd always dreamed of getting perfect scores and going off to get so many diplomas. Major in Business and start a company from the scraps I'd pick up. Mum and Dad standing side by side though― encouraging, empowering and inspiriting.
Times have changed though because I would definitely not want Stefano anywhere next to me while my life is booming and Mary. Well, Mary is.. physically unable to come. Maybe spiritually though?
I'm supposed to be picking out an outfit― I'm supposed to be grounded. Both things I'm meant to be and not. Whatever though. Anyway, as much as I wish I have to pick out an outfit for different circumstances, it's only because Giovanni needs to do something with our brothers (his favorite ones of course, Nicholas, Elijah, Aidan) and apparently we can't be trusted home alone.
As if we'd do anything.
With an eye-roll, I raise myself from the cold comfort of my marble floor. Pace around my room for a minute, quite literally stressing because I'm not sure what to wear.
He didn't really specify if we should wear formal stuff or informal, fancy or not fancy, presentable or not presentable. Basically just came in here, muttered a quick, "Get dressed in 2 hours." 1 hour, 30 minutes ago and left. He holds grudges, gosh.
But anyway, now I'm left pacing up and down a room― a bit like the time I found out Stefano was dead, except this time I'm not waiting for my kidnapper to beat the living shit out of me― clueless as to what to wear.
It's Azalea, someone who you would never ever in a million years expect a fashion meltdown from but here we are! Joking, I couldn't care less, but Giovanni's already mad at me and I quite frankly do not adore the idea of being shipped off to a boarding school.. Calling on bluffs though.
Anddd of course, as expected, someone knocks on my door and I basically pray it's a brother with amazing fashion sense. Or Elliott, he'd be facing the same problem as me and we could both suffer together.
I sigh, leaning my head against a wall then proceeding to lightly bang it against the wall, huff, kick the marble as if it'd done something to me then finally utter the words of approval.
"Come in," My back slides against the poor wall until my arse hits the marble and I curl up into a ball. Start rocking like those little rocking chairs nans have and hope I can do that for the next 30 minutes I have, show up in my Pjs.
"What's wrong, Zaley?" Aidan walks into the room, asking that after taking one glance at me.
My heart warms at the nickname.
"I― nothing," He can barely hear me since my words are muffled into my elbows.
"C'mon, I'll help you up," He pulls my elbows, I let him.
My back is slouched as I sulk on my bed.
"What's wrong?"
"I just have nothing to wear― more I don't know what to wear," a frown settles on my lips.
"Ha! Lucky I'm here, I have the best style in this house," He grins, slapping his knees and sprouting up from his seat.
"After me, of course," I arch an eyebrow, smiling.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he scoffs, crossing his arms and turning away. I do the the same. We both look back at each other, squealing like little girls as he drags me into my closet.
༄ ✯ ༄
After what feels like years of shaking heads and nodding, agreements and disagreements, we finally find an outfit. A perfect one, in my opinion.
Black flared jeans, low-waisted and a Louis Vuitton belt securing it all, a black cropped top, not that cropped but cropped enough to see some stomach, then a simple leather jacket. Topped it off with a black purse pair YSL heels.
Imagine what you want!! ^^
I personally think its a gorgeous combo but maybe a little bit too much― I don't even know where we're going or what we're doing. I look like a beg.
"Are you sure it's not too much?" Nervously, my eyes roam my outfit in the mirror.
"You look absolutely perfect, Zaley. Plus, everyone else is wearing suits, we're going to Dinner for some reason."
He smiles and it's infectious because I find myself beaming right back at him.
My eyebrows form a crease. "Dinner? Dinner with who?"
"Just us, us and ourselves," His shoulders shrug.
"Why can't we just eat inside?"
"Not sure, a special treat. Yippee!"
"That's weird.."
"This family is weird, yet here we are."
"Hm," I hum, dropping it. Yes, it's weird― very unusual, but whatever. It could be a special treat and Aidan seemed unbothered so maybe it's a yearly thing.
We strut out the closet, and I walk out feeling particularly good about my outfit and the accompany I had received.
"Thanks Aidan," he stops in front of me, turning around.
"Anytime, Zaley."
Zaley.
Sounds.. familiar.
"Where'd you get the nickname?" My head tilts slightly in wonder. I try hard to think of where the sense of familiarity suddenly came from. Maybe, he used to call me that when I was younger or something.
"Well, I used to call you that when you were younger and I've been wanting to call you that again, just didn't want to make it weird. Of course, you don't like it automatically results in me stopping calling you that!"
"No, no. I like it, it's perfect," A grin overtakes my face.
"Great." He pulls me in for a hug, to which I gladly accept. After a few seconds we part.
"Walk down together?"
"Of course," he nods, kissing my head. I would go to rub off the lipstick stain but that would only be if there was a lipstick stain.
༄ ✯ ༄
We're in a car.. an alpine white BMW. The BMW is gorgeous, admirable, fucking amazing. I'm officially a fangirl for it, and a fangirl for every single other car my brothers have in their garage. They have such good taste it's shocking.
But besides my fawning over sports cars, the fact we're going 50 in a what, 25 zone is.. interesting. I'd try to make out where we are, but I'd little to no luck considering all I can see is blurred pavements passing by rapidly and I'm the last person you'd want to ask about the streets of Italy.
"Wouldn't kill anyone to slow down a little bit, mate," I mutter, the words coming out with a slight British accent.
Elliott snorts. "What are you, British?"
"No.. but I lived in London 3/4s of my life." He grimaces at me and I know it's a spark to the fire: very fucking hilarious jokes about Azalea living in London.
I'm not the one who failed to protect their sibling despite having numerous guards stationed around a mansion. Sucks to be them.
"Can't relate," Nicholas butts in.
"No one likes you, pipe down."
"Pipe what now?" And I thought they were smart.
"Forget it, I thought you'd use your 2 brain cells to figure out what what means but I guess not."
He scoffs, turns away from me. "More than you."
This bitch is asking for his head being booted in by me. "Do you want my fist?"
"As if your scrawny arms could do shit," He rolls his eyes and I gasp, gape at him.
"You're asking for it now, you wanna go? Let's fucking go."
"Go where?" How is he in high school at all? Giovanni must be paying them to keep him.
"Fuck off now, you're taking the piss," I turn my back to him, crossing my arms.
"Don't say that word," Elijah mumbles from the front seat― the luxury seat, royalty, best seat in the car.
I'm jealous. Jealous, bored, confused, all those combined with a million different emotions.
Gio sparks up a conversation in Italian. I try to listen in but completely give up. Probably doing it on purpose.
My head leans against the leather seats. Eyes closed, breaths regulated, peace found.
All that is quickly disrupted by a ping coming from my phone. Then, a series of other pings.
People barely ever text me. Who the hell?
Vincent.. Vincent. That's weird. We normally call like weekly, twice or something, but even then the calls are pretty short.
He askes me if I want to chat, to talk casually. No reason, nothing suspicious. Just a simple text: 'Wanna talk?' then some spamming of my name, but I reply with a yes anyway. I've got nothing better to do and I am pretty bored. It'd also cure my boredom, maybe entertain and amuse me. All pros for me, not exactly sensing any cons.
༄ ✯ ༄
20 minutes pass, 20 minutes of texting Vincent. Now, the car has come to a halt. We're all getting shooed out the car, and I, quite frankly, find that very rude.
There's no one here, just a trail. Maybe we're going camping?
"Ugh, walking." Elliott complains, stomping his feet like a little child.
"I like camping!" A grin forms on my face as I start getting excited.
"Camping? We're not―" Nich stops talking. Or maybe he's saying something because his mouth is still moving, but none the less, I'm not paying an ounce of attention to him right now.
Because something else in this deserted place has.
A quiet, so vague crack of a twig sounds out. I freeze, my body tenses. My breaths quicken. My eyes quickly scan the place, for anything. Fuck, I need to be vigilant.
I feel eyes on me, a pair of them. I feel like we're being watched, like my every move is being recorded, tracked. Someone is watching us― watching me.
Or, maybe not. Maybe, the branch breaking was from one of my brothers and I'm being delusional. Hearing stuff maybe, lack of sleep finally catching up to me? Now, as much as I'd love to do that, put my nerves at rest, it just wouldn't make sense. We've all been huddled in a little group since we'd stepped out the car, no one has left. Just been chatting amongst ourselves until Gio makes the call, saying we can go do whatever we want to do.
In a desperate attempt to find something, anything that proves my theory, my eyes rapidly search the place. Trying to find a lead, mistake, just something.
A set of palms, fingers are waved in my face. I swat them away.
"What?"
"You just zoned out― a totally different planet. You okay?" Nicholas' eyebrows form a crease and I nod. I am okay. Just a bit paranoid but still perfectly OK.
"We can go now, come on," Giovanni nods, beckoning us over. I take one last glance around, confirming I saw nothing before going to catch up with them.
Aidan is by my left, Elliott my right, after him it's Nicholas. Kind of all forming a line. Then Giovanni and Elijah stand in front of us, discussing whatever. Pretty much a barrier around me and Elliott if you think about it. I can't really see in front of me because of these two 6'4 beanstalks in front of me. But, there's no one behind me and so it gives me a perfect view if I need to look back. Doubt I'll have to but just in case, you know?
I nudge Elliott lightly. "Hey, is it just be being paranoid, or can you hear like, I don't know, bushes shaking suspiciously?"
"No, sorry Azzy," he shakes his head and my shoulders slump. "only thing I can hear is food calling my name in a seductive tone―"
Footsteps. I heard footsteps.
I swear I did, why am I the only one being observant and hearing this? Fuck, I know we're being watched, followed or whatever. It could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. Doubting everything right now to be honest.
"We're here!" Elliott squeals, running forward to come intact with the restaurant but instead, he comes intact with Giovanni's back.
Giovanni turns around and softly glares down at Elliott. Not at all soft, but compared to the very harsh ones he dishes out to others, pretty soft.
Finally, I get a little curious and move to the side, enabling me to see the restaurant. My mouth forms a very large 'O' shape.
It's really fancy. Arched little hallway as an entrance. Potted green plants stand opposite each other at the front, centimeters away from touching the crimson carpet with gold lining. 4 seater tables sit in a more distant place, cutesy fairy lights hovering above them.
"Do you like it?" Elijah's voice is just above a whisper. Hear it perfectly though.
"Yeah, gorgeous really. Thank you for taking me here. I turn around and hug him.
A chuckle escapes from him, he pats my back and we pull away.
I take a quick peek behind him, and fuck. A person, a full on person, all black is standing there, in the far distance, camouflaging with a tree. Scary, mysterious and all, simply watching my family from afar.
Shit, we are being followed.
And I was the only one that noticed.
༄ ✯ ༄
The end part was kinda lazy, I apologize for that.
Also apologize very sincerely for this being out a day late!!
At least I got it done, I guess.
Trying to progressively make my chapters have more words!:)
Also Azalea talks to Matteo on text a lot more and she's gotten closer with vincent. Her and Matteo are really close friends― best friends if you'd like but i dont mention it in the chapters because it's kinda irrelevant. Vincent and Azalea are A LOT more close because they knew eachother from London and were already pretty familiar with each other. Just wanted to let everyone know to clear up any confusion!! She doesn't really talk to damir and Julie yet but they'll get a lot more close in future chapters♡
7 chapters left!! Wooo!
Next part will be out soon. Can't determine when until later on, but sooner than this, at least.
Anyway, until next time!
~violet