Elegance with Expense

70. Ludis Belov

'Claude, we're going to go inside the building now. We know our way into the lounge.' Gio spoke up after we had been waiting for five minutes, in silence, in the stationary car.

'You will wait here Mr Rossi, until your family arrives, I have been told to see that you do.' He spoke in an automated voice, shifting in his seat a little.

'But I'm hungry. They have the best ginger cookies.' Claude said nothing in response so I shoved him.

'Stop whining, they'll be here soon.' 

'Now I'm thirsty.' He claimed with a tone suggesting he wanted, better yet, needed to get inside. What was so wrong with being in this car? I understand that he gets antsy at times, but we had only been in the car for about 40 minutes. Was he really that hungry.

'Look they're here now, please stop being so bloody irritating. It's late, and I just want to sleep.' I told him when I saw multiple black cars pull up at the same time. I thought they were all going separately. Questioning them at a time like would be unthinking.

'Don't you have your final exams to revise for?' He clearly wanted to antagonise me, and he did it well. I had set aside my revision for the past few days because I wanted to focus on safety over anything. Now that I know were travelling somewhere that I assume is safer than New York, I will practically have to force myself to sit down and get some work done.

My first guess of our destination is of course Italy, but it is such a predictable location, I almost believe that we are not going anywhere near there at all.

'It's a good thing I packed my textbooks.' I rolled my eyes, trying to show him that his words didn't piss me off.

'It's a night flight, it'll be quiet on the plane so you can concentrate.' He added as the cars finally parked all around us. I saw Vince's driver exit the car first and come to our driver's window to discuss some particulars. They both nodded in unison and Claude made a movement, signalling that it was safe for both of us to exit the car.

I slid the door shut behind me when I was on the outside. It slowly getting warmer, so I wasn't as cold as I was the last time that we were travelling.

Armani quickly came over to the both of us, handing us blankets to put over ourselves. I'm not quite sure why we were given these senses of warmth and comfort when Romeo was only a few meters away, wearing a skin-tight white shirt. He didn't look cold, neither did I.

I walked through the cars and people and made it to Romeo who was casually talking to Luca. Both had their arms crossed, talking in deep, serious voices to one another. I unfolded the blanket as I neared them and walked behind Romeo. I tossed the fluffy blanket over his shoulders and back, causing him to bend down a little, whipping his head around to see me grinning up at him. Wordlessly, I pulled the blanket over him further, and grabbed his large hands, which were surprisingly heavy, and made him hold the ends to secure it around him.

I then looked at Luca who was in a full black suit. 'Do you want a blanket?' I asked him.

'Do you?' He retorted, not answering my question. I turned around and walked away.

At this point we had been standing outside the airport for around five minutes, some of the family were in small groups, some of them were on the phone. I was standing at the side with the twins, Gio and Xavier, feeling weirdly cold.

It was the worst possible timing, but my stomach began to cramp up, engendering an unbearably uncomfortable kind of pain, one I had never experienced before. I was unaccustomed to such a feeling, and unknowing of how to deal with it. I bit my lip and held my lower stomach, waiting for the pain to pass, but it wouldn't.