Chapter 7 - Fear of Failure to Forgive
1903 Words
Terrified that Dante would never forgive him for his acts of treason against the Romano Family, Lanzo began to shake his head slowly from side to side as the realisation of just how f****d he truly was started to sink in.
His chest rose and fell rapidly with each of his fastened breaths as his heart accelerated to a ridiculous speed deep within his chest.
The Reaper was on his way in there now and Lanzo had no way of escaping!
“Lanzo, what are you talking about?” Alexa asked him, seemingly not following his sudden sense of panic as she placed the Dettol-soaked cloth down onto the bench.
He looked directly to her with his eyes wide and his fear showing more prominently now than it had before.
He was beyond terrified right now!
“Alexa, you don’t understand. Dante… he’s going to kill me!” Lanzo announced in all seriousness.
But Alexa simply frowned at such a ridiculous comment.
“Not when I tell him how you saved my life, he won’t.” she interjected.
“That won’t matter.” he countered, shaking his head as he looked across the room to where the main entrance of the room was.
“The Reaper doesn’t allow traitors to live. Everyone knows that! There’s no convincing him to show mercy now, Alexa. I’m… I’m a dead man walking.”
Rolling her eyes, Alexa stood herself up and reached for both glasses of water.
“Oh relax… Dante’s not as merciless as you think he is.” she argued, turning to face him before reaching out, handing one of the glasses and two pain killers to Lanzo who looked to her before he eventually took them.
“He won’t kill you. I’ll make sure of it.”
As much as he wanted to believe her, Lanzo was no fool.
It was a well-known fact that the Reaper killed all traitors, no matter how menial their crime against him.
It was one thing that everyone in the Mafia world knew about Dante Romano.
‘All rats must die.’ – It was Dante’s motto for Christ’s sake!
“Drink.”
She suddenly commanded, lifting both her brows at him from where she stood.
With a sorrowful sigh, Lanzo did as he was told and took a large gulp of the cool water, swallowing both pills and basking in the incredible way that it quenched his thirst almost straight away.
He was clearly dehydrated.
“You let me handle Dante when he arrives, alright?”
Alexa spoke confidently as she took a sip of her own water and placed the glass back onto the bedside table.
“He’ll listen to me, don’t worry. You saved my life and now it's my turn to return the favour.”
She immediately got back to work, finishing cleaning his wound before dressing it with the fresh white bandages she had with her.
And once she was finally finished tending to him, Lanzo was then able to pull his long track pants back on, ending the obvious awkwardness shared between them.
But something else was tugging at her thoughts now.
Something that she had been wondering about since learning that Lanzo was related by blood to Vincenzo Moroni.
She decided now was as good-a-time as any to ask.
After all, they had nothing but time to kill right now and she wouldn’t get a better chance than this.
“Hey, uh Lanzo?” she asked, causing him to turn to face her again.
“Yeah?”
Pursing her lips together in hesitance, Alexa fought through her fear and decided to just ask.
“So, what’s the story with you and your uncle? I mean, why did you help me to escape? You know he’s probably gonna be pissed at you when he finds out, right? So, why do it?”
Lanzo chuckled a little as a large smile spread wide across his face.
“Yeah, I guess he will be pretty pissed with me.” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders carelessly.
“The truth is, it’s hard to be loyal to a guy that I barely even know.”
Alexa seemed taken aback upon hearing this and her expression showed it.
“Whoa, what do you mean? He’s your uncle! How could you hardly know him?”
“He is my uncle, Alexa but only by blood.” Lanzo pointed out.
“I’d never even met the man before until about two weeks ago.”
“Seriously!?”
“Yeah… pretty sad, huh? Some family mine is. Everyone’s estranged. Imagine what our family reunions are like.”
“Ok, I’m totally lost here.” she admitted, shaking her head for a moment and clearly missing his attempt at humour.
“You’re saying that you have an uncle that you barely even know. One that you only met for the first time like two weeks ago, and now you’re… working for him?”
“No… well, not exactly.”
Lanzo corrected her with a disgusted frown.
“I’m not working for Vincenzo, per say. More like I’m… assisting him with small tasks here and there. You know; because we’re family.”
“Tasks like organising his getaway vehicles?”
She taunted him with her words, lifting her left brow at him in challenge and placing both her hands on her hips.
Lanzo smiled again.
“Unfortunately, yeah.” he admitted.
“Things like that.”
She thought for a moment before she asked her next question.
“Have you by any chance… helped him with anything else that I should be aware of? You know, before tonight?”
Lanzo’s response was immediate, giving no room for him to come up with any sort of lie.
“No, nothing else. This is actually the first time I’ve done something for him since we met. I got the call last night. It seemed easy enough at the time. Have some SUVs parked and ready at the back of the villa when he texted me… so I agreed to help him out.”
He paused, his expression showing sudden guilt now as he refused to look her in the eye.
“I honestly had no idea that you’d be involved in any of this, Alexa. I swear!”
She waved dismissively as she spoke.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re not the one who kidnapped me and forced me to marry him, Lanzo. Your crazed uncle was, remember?” she reminded him.
Now Alexa appeared to look somewhat guilty as she stared off into the middle distance for a moment in silence.
She’d unintentionally mentioned the marriage!
And now it was Lanzo’s turn to bring up a subject of soreness for her.
“Was what my uncle said true?” he asked her.
“About you... being his wife?”
Alexa’s face grew deathly pale in colour as she suddenly felt physically ill at the reminder.
A reminder that she’d been tricked by that bastard to sign a marriage contract and forced through a ceremony to make things official.
And all for the promise of something that he could have never delivered to her in the first place!
“Yeah…”
Alexa replied simply, her tone showing defeat as she swallowed a lump in her throat.
“But your bastard uncle tricked me into signing that contract! And then he forced me to go through with it all…”
She paused, realising there was no point in trying to convince Lanzo about her innocence in all of this.
In the end, it simply wouldn’t matter.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna tell Dante… or how he’ll react when he finds out the truth.”
Even Lanzo looked terrified of what would happen as he lowered his head in silent thought.
Alexa was right.
Dante would definitely not take news like this too well at all!
Looking up at her, Lanzo now noticed as tears began filling Alexa’s warm brown eyes.
The usually white space around her chocolaty irises were now tinging with red as she fought back the need to cry.
She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have her heart torn out if he did ever choose to leave her because of this.
Especially since it wasn’t by choice!
“What if he wants nothing to do with me now that I’m married to his sworn enemy?”
She asked no one in particular, as if she were merely thinking out loud in the moment.
“Oh my God… what if… what if he… leaves me because of this?”
Sniffing, she lowered her head down into her open palms as she began sobbing.
“Hey, that’s totally ridiculous, Alexa. Come on now.”
Lanzo spoke to try and console her as he came to sit himself down on the edge of the bed beside her.
“You know how much Dante’s crazy about you! I’ve never seen him acting this way about any other woman, ever... you ask anyone. They’ll tell you the same thing.”
Wrapping his arm around her shoulder, Lanzo continued trying to console her with his kind words.
“Sorry, but I think you and the boss are pretty much stuck with one another for the rest of your natural born lives.”
Laughing at his lame attempt to cheer her up, Alexa nodded her head as a smile graced her stunning features at long last.
Both he and Alexa had no idea that at that very moment the door to their hotel room clicked unlocked from the outside as someone with a key card gained entry into their room without even making a sound.
As Alexa and Lanzo continued to console one another whilst seated on the edge of the bed, several figures silently swept into the hotel room and began their search for its occupants.
Still with the pair completely unaware of their presence.
The silent intruders crept through the first section of the suite-like hotel room, coming closer and closer towards the two seated on the edge of the bed.
The whole time they somehow managed not to make a single sound as they moved in complete stealth and perfect formation, one after the other.
By the time they had finally reached the two seated in the bedroom and were busily surrounding them, Lanzo spoke to Alexa once more.
“Seriously, everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”
“Are you sure about that?” an unfamiliar voice spoke up from behind them.
The sudden sound of the unfamiliar voice caused both Lanzo and Alexa to spin around wide-eyed to face their intruders.
There were twelve of them!
Big, bulky men dressed in darker shades of clothing. And all twelve men were currently standing around the outer edges of the bedroom with guns in their hands.
Terrified, Alexa and Lanzo's complete attention was drawn towards the man standing in the centre of the group.
Their leader, perhaps.
With his gun raised up and aimed directly at Lanzo’s head, he spoke with a smirk.
“I mean, I have no quarrels with Alexa, but with you, Lanzo…”
He paused for a moment as his expression had become much darker, fueled with a demented anger and ruthlessness as he added one last thing.
A threat of sorts…
“I think it’s time that you and I have ourselves a little chat...”
- Writer
