When she entered the dining room, Armand was already sitting at the end of the long table. He had a solemn look on his face, and was contemplating on something.
Her heart raced, but she had to play cool. She walked over to him with a smile, and handed him his wine. She tried to hide her nervousness with a kiss. “Laura is almost ready with dinner.”
She then walked back to the other end of the table where she always sits, way across from him. She sat, and drank her wine.
“I was on the phone with Pasquale,” he said. He put the wine glass on the table without taking a sip from it.
“The Messina’s are preparing a lawsuit for defamation … they claim to have proof that my father was the one who ordered the attack on our wedding day,” he continued.
Ari creased her brows, “But that’s preposterous? Your father was a victim himself … can they do that?”
Armand’s eyes sharply looking at her, he shrugged, and finally sipped on his wine, “They won’t be able to do it, they say they have witnesses … they’ll be dead before they can take the stand.”
She cocked her head to one side, “What? Are you saying there’s truth in that accusation?”
Her hands were sweating from looking at Armand taking a big gulp of his wine.
“It’s just us now, Ari, this is our lives now … you’re all I have left, I need to be sure you’re on my side … or otherwise this will never work.”
“What are you saying, Armand? Are you saying your father had something to do with the ambush?” her tone was raised.
He sat back on his chair, “He was greedy, you know how he was … I didn’t agree to it, he had my mom killed at our wedding.”
Armand swallowed hard, his mind was taken back to that moment he saw his mother laid in the pool of blood. Ari could see he was holding back tears.
“I shot him,” he said through his trembling lips. “I thought he had ordered to kill you too … I shot him on the head … he didn’t die instantly … I hate that man so much,” he clenched his teeth and finished his wine.
She gasped, partly from hearing her husband’s confession, another part was from worrying there might be some residue left on the bottom of Armand’s wine glass. She came over him with the bottle and poured some more wine into his glass.
He looked up at her, “Will you forgive me?”
She stood frozen looking into his eyes holding a bottle in her hand, “You’re saying you knew your father was planning to kill my parents? And you shot him?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her stomach, “I had to … he won’t stop … I can’t take it anymore … but he’s gone now, it’s over, I realize that when I watched you sleep … you’re the only one that matters to me, Ari, you’re the only one who really loves me … and I don’t want to live without you, I don’t want to do this without you.”
Deep down in the heart of her heart, she knew he must have had something to do with everything. With the kind of life their family led, the kind of person he was, of course she knew. But there’s always that tiny speck of hope that maybe he wasn’t as bad as she thought he was. He may not order the kill, but he knew about it, and he let it happen. Whatever he did after, didn’t matter to her, not anymore.
She dropped the wine bottle, it broke on impact. She covered her mouth with both hands. Diego was right. Her gut feeling was right, yet she chose to ignore it even to that moment.
“I couldn’t tell you the truth, and I’m sorry … no more lies from now on, Ari, I swear … we’re going to have a child soon, I have to make this right, I don’t want to be a father like him … I see that now,” there were tears streaming down his face when he looked up at her.
She recoiled away from him, “What kind of family do you think you can build from all this madness? A child? What will you tell them about their grandparents? That you killed them all?”
She was filled up with emotions, it was hard for her to control her heavy breathing. She put her hand on her forehead, she shut her eyes trying to process everything she just heard. “What is this hell I’m in? I don’t even know what to say anymore … I don’t want this anymore, Armand, no!”
“I didn’t agree to it, Ari, I swear … I didn’t have any choice, you know how my father was … I’m sorry … you have to believe me … I shot him because I want this to stop too.”
At that moment, Armand looked as sincere as he ever was in her eyes. He was full of remorse, and the burden of having killed his own father, even with all the hate he had in his heart, he wished he hadn’t done it. Even though he couldn’t have prevented the murders of his in-laws, he wished he had. He was opening up to her, he wanted to be honest and start anew.
But it was too late, he had done too much damage to whatever was left in that relationship.
She was too angry to even think clearly.
He held his head, “I don’t feel so good,” his eyes were closed when he said it.
She remembered, she had drugged him and it’s starting to take effect. She stared at him trying to figure out what to say, what to do.
“I need to lie down … what’s wrong with me?” he was drowsy and confused.
“Do you want to go to the bedroom?” she didn’t know how to pretend to care, not when she was furious at him.
He nodded, “Can you help me?” he reached out his arms to her.
She came over to him and helped him up. He was still able to stand up and walked to the bedroom by leaning over to her shoulders.
It felt like a long walk to the bedroom with his weight on her shoulder, with the burden in her heart. She thought about her parents, about what Armand had done, about Cossimo and their demise. It was jumbled up in her head, and she asked herself, what the hell was she still doing in there?
When they get to the bedroom, she let him drop to the bed. She was breathing fast as she looked down on him lying on the bed. He was pale, his breaths were shortened.
“It was me …” she told him, tears started to fill up her eyes.
“What?” his senses were not functioning normally.
“I did it … I planned my own kidnapping … to get away from you and your crazy family …” a tear fell on her cheek.
He creased his brows trying to capture what she was saying, “What?”
“I didn’t want to marry you, Armand, but I didn’t have a choice … I’ve been blind all these times, I tried to convince myself this was the life I have to live … I have always had a choice, I can choose to stay or leave, and I always chose to stay … not anymore …”
He heard it, he understood what she said. He was silent, his eyes were sharply looking at her for a brief moment. “Did you put something in my drink?”
She looked at him defiantly, she didn’t answer.
Her eyes widened when Armand’s eyes flipped and turned white.