Luca’s pov
The first thing that tumbled past my lips was a laugh.
A chillingly, humorless one. One that vibrated through the empty sitting room which I’m currently in.
I reread the text once again, eyes hurriedly scanning it, just so I could be sure that I had indeed read the text she sent correctly.
The same text was still there, staring back at me almost mockingly. I didn’t realize when my grip around the phone began to tighten until a sharp pain shot up my arm.
“Fuck.” I whisper out loud while trying to digest what I had just read.
She couldn’t be serious. Could she?
Refusing to even consider that she had actually what meant she had texted me, I decided to try calling her instead.
Of course, I got no response to my calls, and when I still attempted to ask her what she meant by the text, I got met with nothing but silence. Like she has suddenly had enough of me for now and wasn’t going to bother responding to me any longer for now.
After waiting on a response for over an hour, I knew I wasn’t gonna be getting a response for the night, and that made the hole in my chest deepen even more.
I had barely been able to properly function throughout today, which is why I decided to still not bother to show up at work just yet. I had a whole lot of important things to do at work, but they were not as important as winning my wife back.
So, they’ve got to wait.
With a resigned sigh, I shoved my phone into my pocket and dragged myself to the kitchen. I’ve been yet to eat a dime since the night Sofia left the house, but Armani had urged me to put something in tonight because he reasoned that it wasn’t gonna be of any good if I end up losing strength or falling sick from starving myself for days.
Nothing looked appetizing to me and I grimaced as I looked into a pot of freshly cooked food which Matilda had definitely prepared some hours ago.
Matilda definitely knew that things were not alright between Sofia and I, and I absentmindedly wonder what she currently thinks of me. As quick as that thought appeared in my head, I was able to shove it away because that wasn’t something I was supposed to be caring about.
Not now, not ever. Whatever people think about me is most certainly my business. The only time I should consider that; is when it involves Sofia.
And right now; it does, in so many ways.
She definitely thinks of me as a liar, as a cheat, as someone she couldn’t trust, and of course she was completely right, I’m all of those and so much more. I just want a chance, just one chance to make things right to her.
I ended up abandoning the cooked food because I had a feeling I might end up puking it out, and instead chose to settle on munching on a couple of bananas, at least that was better than depending on nothing but alcohol and oxygen.
The feeling of my phone vibrating in my pockets made me jolt a little that I almost dropped the fruit I was forcing myself to eat. I fished my phone out as fast as possible, eyes hurriedly ghosting over its screen and filling up with shock at the icon on the screen.
It was Sofia.
She had actually sent a text.
A fucking text, when I had already resigned myself to getting nothing but radio silence from her until tomorrow, and of course, that made me elected and a small breath eased out of my chest as I thumbed my phone open and opened her message box.
The first text I read made my breath stumble in my chest.
“You’re a fucking hypocrite.”
I let my eyes slide close for a moment while my teeth grind together for a few seconds. When I eyed the rest of the text again, an unpleasant feeling settled in the pits of my stomach as I continued to read the rest of her texts.
“You cheated on me, did you not? Why are you so against the thought of me returning the gesture?”
“I’m clearly not about to do something that you haven’t done to me before. I’m just doing the same thing you did, so that we’d be even that way.”
I instantly began to type back, while the pain in my chest began to twist tighter against each other.
“Sofia, I’m sorry. I really am, I swear it.”
Her response surprisingly entered only a few seconds later.
“I’ve heard your apology, Luca. Although, I’m not gonna accept it.”
“Unless I cheat back, because I want us to be even.”
I saw red after that.
Red, hot anger swam through every inch of my body that my hands shook from the force of it. The thought of Sofia with someone else that wasn’t me left not just a bitter taste in my mouth, it left a huge hole in my guts. Imaging it alone alone was enough to bring me pain intense enough to make me want to drop to my knees.
That suddenly made me wonder just how much pain I had inflicted on Sofia from the moment she had discovered that I had cheated on her. Had it felt this intense and painful for her?
I let out a low growl and thumbed my phone open, fingers moving fast on the screen as I typed in a response.
“Don’t do it, Sofia.”
I had already sent the text before I realized that I had made a huge mistake, because I had typed the words like they had appeared in my head. Rereading it right now made it appear like an order, and I cursed under my breath and hastily attempted to delete it, but almost immediately, I realized that it was already too late because she had seen it.
A moment later, she was typing a response.
“It wasn’t a request, Luca. I didn’t have to inform you before doing it, but I just felt like doing so because at least I have the courtesy of giving you a heads up.”
My heart broke even more as I reread her text over and over again. The chilling coldness in all her texts made my blood feel extremely cold in my bones. This wasn’t the Sofia I was smitten with, and it pained me that I had been the one behind her waking up this brutal, ruthless side of her that I didn’t even know existed.
I texted her a string of apology after that and didn’t get a response.
Feeling drained to my bones, I head into the sitting room with a bottle of alcohol, already prepared to drink the entire night away.
Two mouthful into my drink, a text came in, making me hastily reach for my phone. I took in the content of the text in a single glance.
The text was from Ryan, which prompted me to sit up even before I fully read the text.
-‘Boss, your wife is on her way to a club.’
-‘One of the most dangerous ones in the state.’