An Arrange Marriage
1872 Words
SERAPHINA
The scent of aged whiskey and cigar smoke lingered in Viktor Morelli’s office, curling around me like a noose. I sat stiffly in the leather chair across from his massive oak desk, my fingers digging into the armrests, my spine locked in place.
Viktor leaned back, studying me with the same cold detachment he used when handling business deals. Because that’s all I was to him—a transaction. A problem to be solved. Whatever little girl dreams I had of him as being a father to me that I never had were scraped and marred the moment I took away his precious son from him.
“You’ve grown,” he remarked casually, as if he was just noticing me for the first time and maybe he was as he had barely paid me any attention since the day I ruined everything. “You look just like your mother.”
The comparison burned even though it was half right. I do have my mother’s blue eyes and her jet black hair, and the figure that I inherited from her, or maybe it aas due to all the diets my mother subjected me to. But even when all those things made me textbook beautiful, I never felt like it. The reason was no one except my mother, when people say I looked like my mother I hated it because she wasn’t beautiful in my eyes.
She was the woman who never cared for her little daughter, never spared her more than a glance and never gave her a full meal to fill her stomach.
But I didn’t let it show how much it affected me, his comparison to my mother as I asked, “You wanted to see me, Mr. Morelli?”
His lips curled at my formality, but he didn’t correct me. He never did, so he never became anything except Mr Morelli. The man my mother married, the man whose son I sent to prison, the man who hated me. “Yes. There’s an arrangement that needs to be made.”
A sinking feeling twisted in my stomach. “What kind of arrangement?”
“A marriage.”
The single word landed like a slap. I barely kept my expression neutral, but inside, my mind was already spinning. “What?”
“I have arranged a marriage for you to Fernando Houston,” he continued smoothly, as if he were discussing the weather. “He was looking for a wife from a respectable family. He has an empire for which he needs an heir and is a distant cousin to a duke. Marrying into his family will help ours a lot. And as it happens, I happen to have a perfect candidate right here. It’s a perfect match.”
My heart was beating so loud, I think people outside the room would be able to hear it. But I knew even if I threw a tantrum, broke out in tears like I wanted to, it won’t change a thing.
I let out a slow breath. “And if I refuse?”
Viktor’s dark eyes, just like his son’s but they were not as hateful as his son’s had been that night. “You won’t, Seraphina. If you know what’s good for you and your mother.”
Helpless anger curled in my gut, but I bit it back. “Why would I agree to this?”
His expression didn’t change. “Because you owe me, Seraphina. You put my son in prison. Do you think that came without consequences?” He stood up, his eyes furious. “I have kept you under my roof instead of throwing you and your mother out like I should have. But I took pity on you two, now it’s time you pay me back.”
My fingers curled into fists. “Dante—”
“Is my blood. My fúcking son that you sent to prison!" he interrupted, voice quiet but filled with warning. “You disrupted the balance of things, and now, you’ll fix it. I didn’t only keep you under my roof and safe from the local mob who would’ve torn you apart for what you did to my son. But I also made it possible for you to attend the best high school the London has to offer and then have you admitted in the Elite Lords University so you could make a life for yourself.”
“And now you want me to marry someone, how does it help? Everything you did for me will be in vain, won’t it?”
He waved his hand. “Of course not. Fernando is a nice man, he’ll allow you to study further and you can even help him in the business. He has many of those.”
My throat tightened. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Did you give my son and his friends any choice?” He asked, his eyes narrowing on me.
“I did the right thing. What they did—” His eyes flashed and he took a step toward me. I silenced and murmured, “I didn’t have any option.”
“You had many. You chose the wrong one. You could’ve kept your mouth shut and nothing would’ve happened. My son wouldn’t have been in prison for two f*****g years!”
I flinched back, my hands trembling. “I am sorry.” I didn’t even remember how many times I have apologised to him and dozen other people over my sin of sending their precious Lords to the prison.
“If you are sorry you will do this.”
I clenched my jaw, willing myself not to react.
Viktor exhaled, watching me for a long moment before speaking again. “The Houston family will be in town by the end of the month. There will be a meeting. Think about it, and when the time comes, do the right thing.”
Think about it. He’d said it just for the sake of it. Because he already said in not so many words that I didn’t have a choice.
“What will happen if I don’t agree to this?”
“I will make it my mission to ruin you and your mother. What do you think will happen to you both when I take away my money and you will have no home to come to at the end of the day. And if you think you’ll be able to work, think again,” He snapped his fingers, “Just like that, I will make sure no one give you even a penny.”
I stood stiffly, offering him nothing before walking out. My pulse pounded with each step, my breath shallow. I had only taken a few steps down the corridor when my mother appeared in front of me.
Her manicured nails curled around my wrist in a vice grip. “So, what did you say to the marriage proposal?” She asked, her eyes cold and unemotional like always.
And like always it made me wonder if my eyes will be like that too in the future. The future that was slowly turning bleak right in front of my eyes and I believed it will come true.
“I told him I’ll think about it.” I said, trying to push past her but she didn’t release my hand.
“There is no thinking about it,” she hissed, her voice sharp with warning. “Just say yes. Do it for me, you selfish brat.
I tried to yank my hand out of her tight grip, but she only tightened her hold, nails digging into my skin. “Mom, you’re hurting me.”
She ignored me as she said, her eyes gleaming, “Fernando will shower you with all the money you need, Seraphina. We both will be settled and living our lives without ever knowing what poverty means.” Her eyes went to Viktor’s door behind me. “And, I can even leave Viktor. He is richer than Fernando and half of the population in UK but I am tired of him lording it over our head.”
“Mom!” I stared at her. “You are married to him.”
She gave me a look like I was crazy. “And I can divorce him, Seraphina.”
I was out of words. I stared at her, barely recognizing the woman in front of me. She was my mother because she gave birth to me but she’d never done anything to be worthy of that title. And yet still she always surprised me how low she can go, and all of it for money.
She smiled and I wanted to hide as that smile never bode well for me. Then she leaned in, her breath hot against my ear. “And my advice? After what you did, get out of here as soon as possible, because Dante and his friends are coming back. He’s completed his sentence, and they will be coming for you.”
A cold chill slithered down my spine.
I knew she wasn’t lying. Before the police had dragged them away, I had seen the promise of retribution in their eyes. It still gave me nightmares.
And the anonymous notes I had been receiving these last two years already promised me a fate worse than poverty.
I wrenched my hand free of her tight grip, hating her and hating the life she gave me. If it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t be here. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have been so love deprived that I thought to get it from my step brother. And seek his attention by going to that party where it all happened, where this f*****g nightmare my life was now turned into a living hell.
But then I couldn’t blame her for what happened two years ago at that party. It wasn’t her who followed them into the forest. It wasn’t her who made that call and it wasn’t her who was responsible for them spending last two years in the prison, and the other two will be there for more than two years unlike my step brother.
Fúck.
Hating myself, and cursing the sixteen years old me who put me in this hèll, I marched down the hall. When I was climbing the stairs to get to my room, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I rarely got any messages but I had applied for a few jobs and I was hoping to hear from them. I hoped to save enough money to get out of this hellish town. But now there was something else looming ahead in my path: an arranged marriage to a man I had never even met.
I pulled my phone out and when I saw it was a text from an unknown number, for a moment hope blossomed in my chest. That I had fi ally gotten a text from one of the jobs.
Until I opened it.
'Did you miss me, little sister?'
My foosteps faltered, and my vision turned dark for a second as blood turned to ice in my veins.
Dante.
He was out of the prison.
___________________________________
A. Gupta
- Writer
