Luca’s POV
“Where’s Sofia?” I asked Sarah as I started to make my way out of the kitchen after I had made use of my drugs and downed enough water into my body system.
I haven’t set eyes on her since I woke up this afternoon and an unusual feeling in my stomach was suddenly wanting nothing more than for me to just set my eyes on her face and watch her eyelids flutter a couple of times as color slowly bloomed into her cheeks.
“Oh, she’s upstairs, sitting on the balcony. Would you like me to get her for you?” Sarah replied immediately, her face somehow lightening up by that question which I had asked her.
I shook my head instantly, already making my way out of the kitchen, “Nevermind, don’t think about it anymore.”
I paused outside the kitchen’s doorway and contemplated asking Sarah how Sofia was doing and if her injured arm was still hurting badly, and how she was fairing but thought better against it and nudged the urge away, not wanting Sarah to start to suspect a thing concerning Sofia’s and I marriage. Because it was most definitely going to sound weird and suspicious to her that I was asking her how my wife was fairing instead of me asking Sofia directly like a normal husband was supposed to do.
But then, I wasn’t a normal husband. Never felt like a normal husband for a second since the start of our marriage.
For one, a husband wouldn’t have gotten married to his wife in a crowd of three thousand people in attendance and not consummate the marriage that same night, here in Italy. Which made me start to wonder if Sarah had suspected if something had happened between Sofia and I on our wedding night or not… because she hadn’t bled on the sheets that night like every bride was supposed to, here in Italy.
It was one of the old beliefs that was just total bullshit. Not every girl bleeds at their first time having sex, because obviously every girl’s bodies are different and does not work the same way.
But people were not ready to accept that piece of information yet.
I finally ended up moving away from the kitchen’s doorway and made my way directly towards the door leading outside the house. I was met with Ethan, one of Sofia’s body guards outside the door along with a few other guards.
“Where’s Ryan?” I asked Ethan after they’ve all greeted me a good afternoon, bowing their heads in respect for a few seconds before lifting their heads back up.
“He’s inside the house, probably helping Mrs Ricci with something or…” Ethan started to say but I cut into what he was saying along the way.
“He helps her with some things?” I asked confusingly, not knowing my little wife was already familiar with her body guard’s already. I had thought it was going to take a month or more before she’d be able to warm up to them and try to ask them for something by the shy and timid characteristics I’ve picked off from her in waves, countless times.
I guess I was wrong… I had thought wrong?
“Uh, yeah. He helped with some of the settings of her new phone because some of the buttons were quite complicated for her to understand.” Ethan continued to explain and I nodded my head once before tapping him against his shoulders lightly and climbing down the small row of stairs. I didn’t know how I was supposed to react to that, I mean, I knew nothing was going to happen to Sofia because her two bodyguards were one of my most efficient bodyguards, I trusted them a lot, before I could be able to assign them to watch over Sofia during the day.
But then why did I feel some weird feeling inside of my head after being informed that one of her guards had helped her out with a difficulty she had been facing– her phone.
Christ, when did I start to really bother about these things?
What the hell is wrong with me?
I walked towards my car where my driver was already waiting in and tugged the back door open by myself and settled into the back of the car just as the driver started the engine of the car.
“Good day, boss.” He greeted me without turning around and I nodded at him through the rear view mirror.
“To the hospital.” I said to him before he could ask me of a particular destination and he started to pull out of where he was parked in– just as the guard that follows this particular car– while the rest of the guards tails ours in a different car– pulled open the side of the front door and got into the passenger’s seat, breathing heavily and sounding ragged as he turned around in his seat and greeted me respectively, his hair appearing wet as it fell over his face when he bowed his head a little in greetings before apologizing for coming late.
“You look rough.” I stated, because he did. Which was very much unusual for him. He also almost never arrive here late, he was on most times, already waiting before I’d be done with getting ready for the day.
“It was because I had totally forgotten about you wanting to go out today, I thought you weren’t going to leave the house today so I…” He started to say, breaking off his words and sounding really apologetic and almost nervous.
“It’s alright, it’s alright.” I said to him with a small wave of my hand and watched as he nodded his head before turning back around in the front seat and settling his back against the backrest of the chair.
I dug out my phone from my pockets and turned my data on before placing it down on the seat beside me, bracing myself for the amount of notifications that were going to spam into my phone all at once. I hadn’t removed my phone from the silence setting which I had left it at last night, so I wasn’t bothered about a thousand dings coming out of nowhere to fill up the whole car loudly.
I moved my foot a little in the car, brushing my hands on the material of my pants, brushing my fingers over it and repeating the motion over and over again, trying to resist the urge to run my fingers through the neatly, arranged curls on my head- an obsession of mine that I was really starting to think about seriously and wonder if it wasn’t too obsessive of me to want to always run my fingers through the soft curls.
I moved my foot in the car once again, changing their positions and stretching the first one out while the second one stay folded against the seat I was currently sitting in. I glanced sideways at my phone and noticed that the screen was still turned on and more messages were still coming in.
At this point I was going to have to get a new phone as well- and someone to handle my personal social handles as well, it was now very obvious to me that I was way too busy for these shits. And most importantly, I was going to hand over my current email address to my secretaries on Monday.
The amount of work I had already missed out on. The amount of appointments James would have to reschedule, the amount of visits he’d have to put off for next week – because of my absence, was the msin reason why I disliked taking breaks from the office. It always ends up drawing us back and interfering with our other appointments for the next few weeks.
I also have a meeting with the generals and the people with titles and those on different high seats here in my mafia, next week.
I had no idea about how I was going to juggle everything together next week without rubbing myself to the ground once again… but I was going to end up finding a way, James was going to be a really great help as usual.
I’d end up canceling huge appointments next week if I have to, I refuse to overwork myself next week, a freaking few days after I was just starting to recover.
Now that I think about it, I really am an extremely busy man.
I picked up my phone and ignored the notifications and instead cleared everything up all at once, steering clear off my email and other social media apps and heading straight into my iMessages.
There was a new message from an unknown number and I clicked on that message first, my curiosity having no patience of any kind – which was because my phone number doesn’t get shared by anyone, I’ve warned the people close to my circle about that and they knew just what I was trying to avoid.
Unnecessary things. Lots of unnecessary things.
The messages were three in number and my eyes ghosted over it super fast, reading the messages all at once – because they weren’t all that long each.
Hello Luca
Thanks for doing what you did for Aria.
Really appreciate it.
Æį’
What the fuck?
I thought to myself as I reread the text again and again, wondering who it was that had sent this message and how whoever the person was knew about what had happened.
And most importantly, how they got my private phone number… where they got it from…
Luca: Who the fuck are you?
I typed the message in and was about to hit on the send button when a thought occurred to me, urging me not to send the message, and after I thought about it for a few minutes, I deleted the typed message and existed the stranger’s direct messages, before proceeding to scroll through my list of messages.
I clicked on that of James and as expected, got met with a ton of unread messages which he had been sending since yesterday’s afternoon when I had been in the car, while following the trail we had found, thanks to her phone.
Which reminds me… where was the damn phone?
Could it be that it has fallen off her in the room where she had been held hostage, in the house of Ivan and his brother’s.
Or it could have been in one of her pants pockets? I reminded myself to ask the nurse at the hospital today if she had seen any phone call of Aria’s body while undressing her.
I started to type a message to James, a second later and sending the message over once I was done typing.
Luca: Hey man, I’m sorry I ignored your bunch of messages here.
I waited for a reply, knowing one was coming as soon as possible because it was James and James was with his phone a lot, almost never turning off his data on most days.
Like I had guessed right, he started to type in a reply, a few minutes later.
James: I wouldn’t dismiss it like it’s fine, because it isn’t.
I rolled my eyes as my eyes ghosted over his messages, just as the three dots appeared on his side of the message box, showing that he was typing in a reply again.
James: You have better have a good excuse. Also, most importantly, how’s your sick ass doing?
I cracked a small laugh as I started to type in a reply almost immediately.
Luca: I still feel sick, but I’ll live. And yes, the excuse isn’t even an excuse, it’s something really huge. Can you come to the hospital today? I’ll tell you about everything there.
I sent in the reply and glanced towards the front of the car, noticing that we were in a little bit of traffic. I lifted my right hand absentmindedly and was about to dig my fingers into my hair before remembering at the very last second and pulling my fingers back down, pressing them down on my thighs and scratching lightly against the warm material of my suit pants, the hard muscles in my thighs pressing into the tip of my fingers– a sharp contrast to the warm, soft and silky curls of my hair which I wanted to badly feel against my fingers.
Of everything to unconsciously get obsessed with, it just had to be my hair.
Yeah, I knew my hair was perfect… but getting obsessed with it was just too much.
I think I have a problem.