The day she dreads to come has come whether she likes it or not. She obviously has not slept even for just a second in the hopes that Daemon will come for her and save her but he didn’t come for her. By the time, the sun rose, Devon has already made up her mind. She will lose her life by herself or she will lose it to her own family.
“The ceremony will just happen here in our mansion, Devon.” Melena looked fondly at her daughter at the vanity mirror where a make-up artist is preparing her. She touched Devon’s hair. “My baby is really getting married.”
“I am already married.” Tears welled up in Devon’s eyes again. “I married Daemon. And you didn’t get to witness how secured I felt when I wore his ring. You weren’t there when I felt so relieved to be able to do it my own way. To finally have a choice. Daemon might be cruel but he does not force someone. He’s not even my family, he is a stranger but he knows what I wanted more than my own mother.”
Melena is hurt but she just dismissed it with a smile. “Darling, it’s time for you to forget Daemon and started accepting your life as Joffrey’s wife. This will be your life now, to be a powerful wife of a soon-to be the most powerful man in the state. Devon, do not just think about yourself. You also have to think about the future of our family.”
“I don’t care! I don’t care about all this family and stuff!” she snapped. “Family? And you call yourself my family?” she scoffed in disbelief. “And yet, you do not care if I am suffering now. You didn’t even ask me if I am okay! What kind of a mother like you? What kind of a father would sell her own child to his friend just for the sake of that business I don’t even know about? And it’s not like I want to know about it. I just don’t care! I don’t care!”
“Devon!” She glanced at her brother, Killian, who just came into her room and fuming with anger while consoling their crying mother. “You don’t talk to our mother like that! Have some respect! Is this what you learned by being with that man?”
“No!” she shouted back and pushed all the stuff on the table. “No! I didn’t learn it from him. I learned it from all of you. You all taught me to be like this because you think that I am a pushover and that because I am the girl in the family, you can all throw me to the man and take advantage of the situation. Family? Family! I do not have a family! I do not have a brother who treats his sister right. You know what I got? I got a whole bunch of people pushing me to go to hell.”
“Devon…” her mother called but she was too spent up to hear her. She is only hearing her grief, of her utmost patience to understand why they were so nonchalant to her suffering.
“I don’t care if you’re thinking that when we know that we are only doing the best for your sake. Marrying Daemon is the worst decision you could have ever made. You just embarrassed the whole family with what you’ve done. Now we have to convince every client that your wedding did not happen,” he said in a voice without any hint of regret. It’s full of justification that they were all right, that she is just like a teenage rebelling because she was not allowed to go to a party.
“Nobody really understands me,” she said in a low tone. “No one wants to. You just wanted me to say yes to all of your plans and decisions even if it’s my life that’s at stake. It’s my life you are trying to control. How dare you?”
“And you only have what? Daemon Druft? And yet, your husband does not have spine to come here to face all of us. He left you.”
She smirked and wondered how was she able to live all her life in this kind of family. “Why would it be a responsibility of a stranger, an enemy to you to save your own sister, Killian? Is he my family? My brother?”
Killian went silent and let go of their mother. “You so hate this family so much that you forgot that we gave you everything. We have given you a house to live, a lavish lifestyle a protected life, Devon. Be thankful! What is a small sacrifice for us who worked hard to give you all the material things in the world you are enjoying?”
“Yes! I am thankful for all of that but do not also forget that dad did everything and gave you everything too but he didn’t for once forced you to marry someone. He did not imprison you in your room, told you to suck it up. He didn’t do all of that because you are his son and I am just what? I am just his daughter. Makes me wonder if I am really his daughter.”
She looked at Melena who was too shock to respond.
“Devon! Watch your mouth!” Killian positioned to hit her but Melena quickly stop him.
“That is your sister, Killian!”
Devon looked at her reflection in her mirror. She hates the girl who looks at back at her.
The wedding pushed through as she has expected. But unlike the very first one, there is no Ariane or Daemon to save her. When the priest pronounced they are husband and wife in front of the less than fifty guests they have, Devon literally felt her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. The ring on her finger felt so heavy.
Joffrey leaned down on her lips to kiss her but she moved in disgust so it landed on her cheek. She saw his lips thinned in annoyance but she doesn’t care anymore. She was just too busy planning how to get the gun from one of the guards.
“Alright! Cheers everyone to the new husband and wife!” her father announced followed by the congratulatory messages from the visitors who didn’t mind if the bride looked like a swollen red sponge from all the nonstop crying.
It seems like everyone got too used to seeing weddings like this. Not a new thing. But the growing clatter of sounds outside the mansion is definitely a new thing.
The sirens unmistakably coming from the police cars outside disturb the solemnity of the occasion. Devon’s eyes lift up in hope but Joffrey was quick to kill it when the grip on her waist tightened.
A police officer approached her father who greeted him with a calm demeanor.
“Officer Clark, I didn’t remember sending you an invitation to my daughter’s wedding.”
“Thank you for remembering me Mr. Farrows but that is not the reason why I am here. Mr. Daemon Druft filed a criminal complaint saying that you are taking hostage of his wife, Devon Druft.”
Devon cried in relief and scanned the area for her husband and there, she found him walking to her way wearing the darkest expression on his face while staring intently at Joffrey’s hand on her waist.