Chapter 57 ~ Promised to another

Chapter 57 ~ Promised to another
ADRIAN 

I had committed my life to avenging my father's death, and to do that, I had to become the most ruthless and powerful among the mafioso families.

Everything had changed when I decided to take a pet home. She was meant to pleasure me, to quench my dark desires but she ended up getting under my skin, and I couldn’t fucking shake her off.

She had betrayed me, and instead of putting a bullet in her skull, I had taken her to my room and thrown all the rules out the window.

Hearing my uncle suggest that marrying her was the only solution drove me crazy. But I’d rather have her by my side than let another man wife her.

Even if it meant she would have me for the rest of her life.

“Fine. It will be done,” I responded to Uncle John, who nodded in understanding.

“Well then, I’ll head out now to get things sorted and prepared. Don’t be too hard on your mother. She did it all for you,” he said, and I smiled.

“Careful. We Moretti men never defend a woman unless our dick has been inside her. I might look into it if you keep looking at me like that while talking about my mother,” I retorted.

He simply nodded and walked out of my office.

This was getting very messy. But I had no intention of getting sloppy. Maybe the universe had brought her to me for a reason.

Otherwise, what were the chances of picking a random girl at an auction who ended up being the most important piece in our underworld?

“Get a car ready for me,” I instructed Toren through my earpiece as I debated who I should visit first.

I guessed it would be my new family, then.

As I stepped into the sleek black car, the air inside felt charged with tension. I checked through stock reports on my phone while Toren navigated through the city’s labyrinth of streets, bringing us to the undisclosed location of Ella’s grandparents.

It was laughable how they underestimated my power as Capo. I’d heard the Costas were once powerful, but I had three things they didn’t.

Technology.

I wasn’t in hiding.

And I had their granddaughter, whom they were so adamant about protecting.

They needed a reminder that, at the end of the day, I called the fucking shots.

When we arrived, the shock in the elderly couple’s eyes was laughable.

It was clear they hadn’t expected me to uncover their new hiding place. The air hung heavy with a mix of defiance and fear.

Despite the brave front, I was hell-bent on making them pay for causing the only man I’d ever known as my father to leave this earth not by God’s hand, but theirs.

They may have been old, but my heart was so cold that I had no regard for age or blood. 

When you became my target, all I saw was red and it never ended well.

Why was Ella still alive?

The little voice in the back of my head whispered again.

I ignored it.

As I entered the room and offered myself a seat, the old couple remained seated, seemingly engrossed in their routine. 

The grandmother’s hands moved rhythmically, knitting God knows what, while the grandfather sat with a newspaper spread before him.

“One would think you’re just two innocents, retired and living peacefully,” I scoffed.

“How did you find us?!” the old man demanded, but I ignored him as I crossed one leg over the other.

“Your seemingly ordinary activities contrast sharply with the extraordinary circumstances surrounding you. I thought I’d entered the wrong house for a minute.” I laughed, and both of them glared at me.

“You bastard child. You will rot in hell!” the old woman spat.

“Please tell me you weren’t under the illusion that you’d be safe from me?”

The shock in their eyes revealed that my unexpected arrival had shattered the illusion of the safety they’d carefully constructed.

“Are you no longer worried about your precious granddaughter?” I asked, raising a brow.

“You wouldn’t hurt her. Otherwise, you’d have already killed her for betraying you,” the old man said but the way the old lady nudged him told me Ella hadn’t told them the full story.

They planted Camilla and made her play both sides?

“Ahhh, very nice. So how exactly do you know she betrayed me?”

“He assumed,” the old lady answered quickly, and I raised an eyebrow.

“I see. Well, let’s not waste each other’s time. I’m here for the ledger. And don’t fuck with me,” I warned.

“We can’t.”

“Can’t you?” I almost laughed at the stupidity disguised as bravery.

But then it hit me.

They had promised her to someone else?

Was that why Marco had been quiet? The fucker had been trying to gain power through the ledger so he could go to war with me?

It was a good try. But not good enough.

“Ella is now my wife-to-be. And in a week, we’ll be getting married. So you can hold on to it for the next few days, but eventually, you’ll surrender and beg me to marry her. Once Marco finds out she can’t be his wife, you’ll see his true colors and then you’ll realize that I’m the best there will ever fucking be. But if he kills you before my wedding, be kind enough to leave it in a place I can find it.”

The old lady stared at me with pure hate in her eyes as she snapped, “Over my dead body!”

I grit my teeth, anger boiling in my blood. They didn’t deserve to be breathing another second for what they’d done. Whatever role they played only made it harder for me not to put a bullet in their heads.

Ella already had enough reasons to never look me in the eye again and killing these two fools would be one more. The ones before them had been wise enough to make proper decisions.

But these two?

They’d lived in hiding so long, they no longer knew what it meant to make an upper-world decision. And in our world, that’s exactly what we stood for.

“I can arrange that,” I chuckled, flipping the safety off my gun and raising it.

I blew out a stream of smoke from my cigarette as I aimed for the heart.

I cocked the gun and fired.