The Devil's Wife

11. Gunshots And Obsessions

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Eden was frozen by the sound of the gunshot, but Alessandro moved for both of them, shielding her with his bigger frame as he sought cover.

“What’s happening?” She stuttered as she gripped her trembling fingers around the fabric of his dress shirt.

“I don’t know,” Alessandro gritted out, suspecting one of his enemies had penetrated his security. “Stay here. I have to go check.”

“No!” She refused to relinquish her hold on him. “Are you out of your mind? Why would you go anywhere?” Eden hissed as she finally got over the shock and craned her head to see where Andria and Sasha were.

She spotted them with Andria’s boyfriend and Sasha’s husband, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Only then did she remember that her mother had gone missing along with that married man.

“Where’s my mother?” she whispered.

Sure, she did not really like her mother or appreciate the things that she did. But at the end of the day, she was her mother, after all. Aria might not have cared much for her daughter, but Eden could not be that heartless and selfish even if she was twice-born to Aria.

“Let me go, babe,” Alessandro said, “I think it’s safe.” Even the other guests were coming out of their hiding spots. “I think one of the security personnel must have fired by mistake.”

“Everything’s fine,” Ricardo, who had slipped out to check on the situation, walked back in. “There’s no danger. I just want to know who played this prank.”

The guests relaxed at once and Eden finally let loose her death grip as both of them straightened up from behind the table. Alessandro gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as Andria and Sasha hurried to them, and left her to go talk to Ricardo after nodding at a barely fazed Luigi.

Ricardo smirked, "Married for barely a day, and you are already cowering in a corner with your wife." He mocked.

Alessandro rolled his eyes. "What is the situation? Are you sure there is no real trouble?"

"Your enemies may not be as strong as you, but none of them are cowards." He said the word 'coward' as if directed right at Alessandro, and it grated on his nerves. "I am sure everything is fine. There would have been a bloodbath by now, if otherwise."

"Alex..."

Alessandro turned to his little wife. "Yes?"

"Where's mother and Mr. Abarca?" She asked.

Alessandro caught on with her fear. They had not reappeared even with the chaos downstairs. Were they injured?

He wanted to curse under his breath as he reassured her once again and dragged Ricardo along with him to go look for the missing pair.

"Are any of Abarca's offsprings in town?" He asked as the two met up with the head of security, Tomasso.

"Camila is," he replied. "She owns a business downtown."

Alessandro tensed. He knew Camila very well - she had been invited to the wedding by his father since he believed she was a close friend of Alessandro in college. Except, they were not close in college. She was a psychopath who was delusional and believed that they were even though they barely talked. But still, she had wormed her way into conversing with Luigi multiple times through her father's connections and making him believe that she was indeed a friend.

She had not done anything crazy till date. She had never talked to Alessandro personally till date. But she had declined the wedding invite and Luigi had informed him that she had sounded less than cordial about it.

That had not sat well with Alessandro. But what he hadn't bothered to ask before was where she lived. He felt like he had made a major error.

"Go find Aria and Pedro." He ordered Tomasso and turned to Ricardo, "Let's not shrug it off as a prank. Skim the whole property. You need to find the perpetrator and bring them to me!"

"Let me guess," Ricardo said wryly as the security split in separate ways to carry out the orders, "While I do this, you will go back and enjoy with your little wife?"

Alessandro smirked, "You can't expect the groom to miss all the fun, can you?"

"I hope you are pretending to have gone soft or this will be a problem." Alessandro wanted to punch the man but he knew that it was the exact reaction that he was looking for.

So the groom simply shrugged and walked away.

He had just reached the door that led to the banquet hall when a gun went off again. Inside the hall. And it was followed by screams and chaos.

He pushed himself forward, bursting through the door.

Everyone was on the floor or crouching behind tables and chairs, but a woman stood at the far end of the room with a gun pointed at someone. He followed her target and saw his father on the floor, clutching his shoulder. And his bride holding onto her father-in-law.

"You took my man from me!" Camila shrieked. "He is mine!"

"Ms. Abarca, put the gun down!" Alessandro walked forward, holding both his hands up.

Camila looked over at him. For the first time, she did not seem so nervous to see him. She looked maniacal.

"I let it go." She sobbed. "I thought as long as you were happy, I could just love you from a distance."

Alessandro looked over at Eden and Luigi, his eyes on the bleeding shoulder of his father, where Eden was applying pressure, her beautiful gown soiled in dark red.

"But her mother is trying to steal my father from my mother!" She screamed. "Just like she stole you from me!"

Alessandro realized that he had been right in his assumption. The woman had found out about Pedro and Aria's throwing themselves at each other at the wedding. He swore under his breath.

"Ms. Abarca, I think you have misunderstood something. There was nothing between us. I don't even really know you. I was never yours. And as for your father, I think there is a rational explanation-"

Just then, Pedro and Aria barged in along with the rest of the security, their firearms up.

"Camila, what are you doing? Put the goddamn gun down!" Pedro bellowed, chastising his child as if she was holding up a toy and had not just shot someone.

"Is this the b***h?" She shrieked.

Alessandro stepped closer, seeing that Camila was distracted by her father. When he saw that she had noticed his advances, he moved with rapid speed to disarm her.

Camila screamed like a caged animal and pounced at him. The security ran forward and pulled her off of him while Ricardo made quick work of calling an ambulance.

Eden watched the mess that the wedding reception had become, and then down at the man who had partially filled the hole in her heart for fatherly affection.

He looked groggy and his eyes were half-shut.

"Alex!" She called out to her husband.

Alessandro turned around and hurried to their side, patting his father's cheek and asking him to stay awake. He looked over at Eden's tear-streaked face. "He will be fine." He wanted to yell at her for the mess that her mother had made, but he knew it was not her fault. And he also knew that yelling at her would not do good in his long-term goal.

"This is all my fault," she whispered.

He shook his head, his expression grim. He looked over at Aria, who was still standing there with her hand gripping the arm of Pedro's suit. "It's their fault."

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