Wed or Dead

IX

"What will happen to him? To Larry?"

"Do not concern yourself with him. I truly cannot comprehend, why would you stop me from getting rid of his limbs, he clearly doesn't deserve to have them"

"Do you hear yourself? Oh, I'm sorry I stopped you Hannibal Lecter from breaking the law and doing something unimaginably cruel"

"Excuse me, under The Habsburg Law it was perfectly normal to sever someone's limbs if their transgression was serious enough"

"Turn off the history channel!"

"I never had to turn it on. You will find my world cruel with your sensitivities, but it's fair. More fair than what society has to offer you now. One of the rules is that women are not to be touched"

"You're such a scary person," Eliana muttered under her breath.

"Normally, people don't reveal that they're scared of someone"

"Why not?"

"That's a weakness easy to be exploited"

"Oh..."

He looked at me for a long time and then sighed and shook his head.

"What am I supposed to do with you? I need you to stop being so trustful, I can't have you getting in trouble on my watch"

"I don't get in trouble easily, it was just a really unfortunate night"

"Eliana," he said while playing with the strand of her hair. "What I would like to know is why these unfortunate night events happened in the first place. How much did you know about me before you planned to break into my office?"

"I knew you were from the mafia or something"

"Mafia?" he raised his eyebrows, and traces of amusement started showing on his face "That's a law enforcement language are you a cop?" He asked casually as if he wasn't really interested in my answer.

"What? No," Eliana looked at him scared. "I promise I'm not"

"That's what a cop would say"

"I'm not, I swear!"

"Relax, I'm joking"

"Stop making fun of me"

"I can't. You're just too cute"

I'm not cute, he was wrong.

"Are you not worried then that you won't be able to tell if I'm a cop or not?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"By tomorrow I will know everything about you if you are a cop, that's the last day of your life,"

He said, again in this casual voice of his, while he was making a serious threat.

"You live here?" He asked when as he stopped the car.

"Yes," I said, already feeling defensive, hearing his tone of voice full of distaste.

"This place looks like it's about to fall apart any minute"

"That's not true! It's just an old building, so it looks a little... rusty. But it's home"

"Well, I can't do anything about your living arrangement right now," he said.

"You don't need to do anything at all, ever"

He ignored her response.

"Give me your phone"

"I don't have one, it's a temporary issue"

"You don't have a phone" he repeated slowly as if he was tasting those words in his mouth.

"It stopped working. I will get myself a new one soon if you can leave me your number I can-"

"Eliana, shut up"

Ouch?

He picked up a phone from his pocket and handed it to her.

"It's my emergency cellphone. Only my brothers have the number, so there's a low chance someone will call. Just wait until I contact you"

"You have two phones? Who carries two phones?"

"Who doesn't carry any phone these days?"

"Touché"

♦️♦️♦️

When Rafael came back to the club in the early morning, Larry was properly dealt with.

Antonio made sure to make the lesson stick, so naturally, the man had his whole body covered in bruises.

"We found out an interesting thing about Larry. He works at Snow's company. He has just a low-tier production-related job. The entrance would be too high for him to come here on his own"

"Snow is not wasting any opportunity, I see. He sends you here to scare his little niece, am I correct?" Rafael asked.

"Maybe, so what?" Larry asked gruffly.

"Snow is really one sick bastard. The fact that he knew she was going to be here yesterday means he's spying on her. As for this one - what are we planning to do with him?" Lorenzo asked.

"Nothing. If he's going to show battered up in front of his boss, it will be the message enough. Antonio, get that man out of my property"

As Antonio was dragging a half-conscious Larry out of the room, Catia almost stumbled on the as she was trying to enter the room with a stack of papers in her hands.

"Documents you've asked for, Mr Vincenti" She handed the white folder case to Lorenzo.

"Thank you, Sunshine," Lorenzo said briefly while not even looking at her, he dismissed her with a hand gesture then he handed the folder over to Rafael.

"It turns out Harvey is really about to lose everything," Lorenzo said as his brother was checking out the results of the initial background check.

"We will make sure he will" Rafael replied.

"Harvey is contesting the validity of the will ever since he became the trustee but it is obvious that he has no chance to win. Eliana is the only person with full rights to inherit although there's an unusual addition to her parent's will. She's only allowed to get the money after she turns 21 not 18. Seems fair. Imagine 18-year-old getting ahold of millions of dollars and a company with dozens of employees" Lorenzo explained. "There's also a 16-year-old girl under Eliana's care. Eliana has trouble with settling the custody case in her favor, in other words, everything she told us was true"

"Lorenzo, you're going to be an uncle, are you happy?"

"Ecstatic. As if we don't have enough brats in this family to take care of," Lorenzo responded, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "But on a serious note - what are you planning? You never do anything without a reason. I just don't see why would you agree to help Harvey's Snow niece, after what Harvey did to our family"

"This is a good opportunity to kill him without starting a war if we play our cards nicely. As for her, her ward, the company, and the Snow family legacy, I couldn't care less what will happen to them. As long as Harvey loses everything at the end"

"What if you get attached to them?"

"You speak as you never met me before, brother. I do not get attached. I would never get attached to the person related with sister's killer"

____

Guys, I'm so exhausted.

I hope you like this chapter, let me know if you do. Thank you for your response to my story so far, you're very kind <3