Betrothed To The Mafia Lord

Chapter 29

Luca’s POV

“What happened to him? He showed up with fight wounds?” James asked and I made my way towards

the car and opened it immediately before sliding in and starting the car.

“Worse. He was floating on molly and some other shits.” I replied to him and glanced sideways as the

bodyguard who usually rides with us in the first car tugged the door open and slid into the passenger’s

seat.

“Jesus. This early?”

“I can fucking relate, man.” I replied as I started to slowly ease the car out of where it was parked.

I ended the call with james after exchanging a few more with me and dropped the phone into the

console as I drove the car towards the gates which slide open after a few seconds of me waiting behind

it and I drove out of the compound immediately, easing into the busy roads and navigating through the

traffic as it permitted.

I wasn’t used to driving because I always had a driver on me almost every time, but that doesn’t mean I

didn’t know how to drive. I might not be texting my driving skills very frequently but I still knew how to

drive a car just fine. It was like a bike. Once you learnt how to ride one, it doesn’t matter how long

you’ve rode one, that skill was forever in your brains and veins… that was the same with driving a car.

I wished I had at least calmed down a little and prepared a cup of coffee assuming I had known

beforehand that I was going to be driving the car to the office this morning myself. Now I was feeling

half dead and with barely enough sleep as I handled the wheels like a pro that was.

I finally pulled into the company’s premises and parked the car in its usual spot in the part marked out

for only really important people. I noticed James’ Ferrari parked a little space away from mine as I

alighted the car and slammed the door shut. The one in control of all the cars came around and halted

in his spot for a few seconds on seeing me stepping out of the driver’s seat today.

“Good morning, Mr Ricci.” He finally greeted one he regained himself as he remained a few steps away

from me. ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“How are you, Henry?” I inquired as I ensured my phone was deep in my pocket before I slammed the

door shut and locked it with a button on the car’s key.

“I- I’m fine, sir. Very fine.” He replied almost immediately, a little bit too fast and too rushed with gave

away the fact that he was a tad bit afraid of me, and also nervous around me.

Everyone was just so afraid of me, it gets annoying sometimes.

“Here are the keys.” I said to him with the keys raised up and he reduced the distance between us

before reaching up and collecting the key from my grip. Henry was a young adult of either twenty one

or twenty two years of age but had the height of a teenager.

He accepted the keys, muttered his ‘thank you’ and was whirling around and away from me almost

immediately. I made my way into the company and into the elevator, all the way to the highest floor

where my office was located.

Making my way into the office, past my three secretaries which consists of two men and a woman, all in

their early and late twenties who were currently huddled over a particular file they were trying to figure

out, and into my office.

James lifted his head up and stared at me before going back to the files he was currently counting on

one part of the first shelf in the office.

“Hey man, good morning.” I called out to him as I sank into my seat and quickly dug out my

handkerchief to wipe off the perspiration that had gathered on my forehead, or tried to, because I

relaxed at the last second that I was without any.

“You have an handkerchief with you, James?” I called out as I stifled an unexpected yawn that tumbled

into my mouth from my throat.

“Oh yeah, look into my suit jacket’s pocket.” James called out and I stood up and turned around to pick

up his jacket which was currently handing on its usual spot which was the back of the chair opposite

mine. I checked the first pocket and found a fresh handkerchief there, before tugging it out with a

relieved sigh and using it to mop my face almost immediately as I made my way back to my seat.

“Gosh, I need coffee so bad, I might faint if I don’t get one in the next few minutes.” I said aloud as I

picked up the new set of files my secretaries had sorted out and had submitted here for me to go

through, sign and stamp. I couldn’t do any of that shit now without getting coffee into my system.

“Call the secretaries and have one of them bring you coffee, to wake your brain up.” James' voice

started to get closer before he came to stand at the side of the table and stare down at me.

“You look like shit, Luca. Is this because you drove yourself to the office this morning?” James

murmured with a slow grin and I puffed out a breath and flipped him off before picking up the wired

connected phone on the wall beside my table and put a call through to the room after mine, which was

the secretaries’ office.

One of the two men answered the call and I requested to be brought coffee. He agreed to go get it

immediately and I ended the call immediately and placed the phone back on the wall, hooking it up

carefully so it wouldn't fall off the wall after a little while.

“You looked really rough man, like you had a really bad morning. Did something happened? James

inquired in a voice void of all playfulness this time. I ran my fingers through my hair and moved the

finger down to the veins on the back of my head to massage it slowly with my fingers.

I was in desperate need of a thorough muscle massage at this point.

“I don’t know, man. I haven’t been sleeping that well for the past few days as well so I guess that was

part of why I feel like shit at the moment.” I explained to James, staring straight to him now that he was

finally sitting in the chair before me, a bunch of files in his hands which he settled on the table and

pushed it to the other side of the table and placed a couple of pens on it the way we always do to avoid

mixing up files that shouldn’t be mixed, together.

“Why haven’t you been getting enough sleep? Is it because of your little wife?” James demanded,

narrowing his eyes at me and I rolled my eyes at him as I made to supply him with an answer.

“It wasn’t because of her, she didn’t do a thing.”

“Are you sure?” He demanded and I nodded my head immediately in a quick move. “Positive.”

“But this not getting enough sleep of yours literally only started after you got married, five days ago.”

James started to say and I sighed a little as I silently begged the secretary to return with my coffee as

fast as possible.

“Man, I’m really getting more and more convinced to steer clear of marriage,” James continued to say

and I completely ignored him as I started to massage my shoulders muscles with my fingers.

A knock sounded on the door and I quickly gave whoever it was permission to come in because I was

sure it was my coffee. The door got pushed open and in walked Loki, one of the two men amongst my

secretaries. Loki was in his early twenties but was smart as fuck.

He walked into the room and placed the coffee on the table before asking me if there was anything else

I’d like him to do for me. I dismissed him, reassuring him that there was nothing else I needed from him

and started to loosen the whole packaging given to the coffee even before he was out of the door and

was swallowing a hot mouthful of coffee a moment later.

I leaned against the back of my seat and slowly savoured the taste of the coffee, loving the way the hot

liquid slightly burned my tongue. That was part of the trill of drinking coffee early in the morning. While

it is going to be doing its job in waking your system up in the morning, the burn it would leave behind on

his tongue alone would snap your brain awake.

“Where to first?” I asked James once I already had almost half of the liquid in my system and I could

already thankfully start to feel more like a human and less like a zombie.

“The diamond gathering. It’s pretty stupid as to why a gathering is set this early in the morning, if you

ask me.” James said with an eye roll as he started flipping through one one of the files he was

searching for when I came in here, some time ago.

“It doesn’t sound that important, is it really, really important?” I asked with a small grimace as I quietly

swallowed a mouthful of my coffee and allowed it to slowly slide into my throat this time.

“It is and it isn’t. It depends on how you look at it. Looking at it from our perspective, it’s important to us.

It’s about an auction and we’re all going to be bidding for diamonds.” James paused and I leaned

further in my seat as my mind started to pick out where I had heard about this particular thing before.

“We received an invitation to the gathering about a month ago, right?” I asked, the thought still feeling

foggy as fuck in my head.

“You received the invitation a month ago, yup.” James clarified and I rolled my eyes and massaged my

hands against one another on the table.

“So we have to go bidding for a diamond we have no use for?” I demanded and James cracked a smile

before shaking his head and leaning forward in his seat as well.

“First off all, a lot of high people are going to be there. In Fact, I heard The Manzo mafia were also

invited, which means a lot of other huge mafias around the whole of Italy were probably invited.” James

paused and reached for my coffee, which I picked up and downed the remaining content without

missing a beat.

James continued without making a fuss, as if he didn’t just try to casually drink from my coffee.

“It also means every mafia is going to want to prove a point that they were the richest mafia in the

whole of mafias invited by bidding and bidding. It means we’re also going to bid and bid and not give up

until we get one of the most priced diamonds there.”

“Wait.” I paused and rolled all what he just said around in my head. “All that just to prove a point? Who

cares if we’re seen as the richest or not?”

“A lot of people do. If we don’t emerge as one of the best there, we’ll loose a lot of respect and some

dumb people might get into their head to directly come attack you after a while.” James explained on

and on and I nodded my head, finally seeing sense in what he was saying.

My mafia was one of the most respected of the Italy and I wouldn’t want that to change, to avoid us

falling to the bottom drastically.

“So, how are we going to do it?”