Shadows of the Vow (You Fuck With Darkness, You See Shadows)

Antonioni’s POV

When I returned, I noticed she was sobbing hard, and unlike me, I felt pity for her for the first time. 

There's something her fragility does to me that I just can't explain.

But then, feeling pity is not my style. It's a dickhead weakness for all I care about! 

I had to snap back to being a real man. No one has ever made headway in life by being pitiful.

I checked the time for the umpteenth time.

“We'll be on our way now, Edward. Word will continually be sent to you as to how the marriage is going. Goodbye, man.”

I left, while my men took Annabelle, following behind.

She sobbed even more, pulling backward and making all of us stop. 

For a reason I couldn't explain, I hated to see her sob—I hated the fact that she was being dragged unfairly. 

But the problem was that the little stronghead would try to run if we had left her. That's the kind of show women like to put up, and I had little or no time for that drama. My boys and I had an important business to take care of, and then after that.

We were made to leave, and my eyes caught and locked with Edward's eyes, but that, too, has got nothing on me. 

The bloody old fool might now learn to stop gambling when he has no substance.

Daddy's girl cried further, looking at her father to save her. 

There's something about this girl that I'm yet to place. 

I am ruthless and have no feelings for the folks I hurt, not to mention being moved by tears. But here I am, feeling some sort of thing that I can't even explain, for this girl. 

I held myself and refused to be guilt-tripped by her tears. That's what women know to do best after all.

I looked at my men, and they understood the assignment. Side by side, they moved her forward. 

At first, she resisted and continued to seek rescue from her father, her cry this time, loud and uncontrollable.

“Father, please say something! Don't allow them to take me away, please!”

This time, we truly left without looking back.

As soon as we stepped outside, the outer guards who had lined up, strategically positioned in different corners, started coming out one by one. Each of them bowed in respect to me as I walked past them. 

I nodded charismatically in return.

Annabelle’s cry was becoming louder and was almost beginning to attract the passersby. 

She didn't seem to care about the people who were watching.

Maybe it was because she was lost in a cry and tears blinded her eyes. 

She was being pulled along, as she stumbled forward. That was the only way she could walk. 

I started going backward as I had walked many kilometers past them. 

As I got to them, I made an effort to shut her up, but as I went closer to pinning her lips, she fell, not to the ground yet, because I had caught her by the waist and tried to pull her up.

At first, I thought it was a deliberate move for her to run.

My men had given way since the time I had come closer. Then the rest had gone closer to their different rightful cars to take, still waiting for me.

I held her in my hands, like a prince in shining armor. She felt so soft and vulnerable in my hands. 

Then came those maddening feelings again! 

I won't lie. Holding her in my hands and the feel of her face close enough to mine aroused me, and it was crazy! 

I took her scent in, slowly licking my lips.

“Who's this girl?!” I thought to myself. 

Unlike me, I never feel a genuine yearning for a woman, but this particular one makes me feel it. But then, and I'm not about to lose my guard for a chic! Never! All of them are betrayers!

“You don’t get to run because I will find you. Do you understand? You are coming with me tonight. You dig? You are all mine from henceforth…” I informed her in case he had forgotten, abruptly letting go of her.

I was also going to inform her that in my world, I make all the rules, and nobody dared to challenge me when I saw a look on her face. I was trying to read that look.

Surprisingly, she seemed a little lost, gaping at me. 

Uh, uh, maybe I was wrong. She spoke up stubbornly.

“Where are you taking me to?” I heard her ask. Her breathing was glitching from the cry.

“My hom…! Now you just come with me and stop asking brainless questions, little girl.”

Where did she find the confidence to question a Mafia lord like me? Nobody else talks to me the way this girl does. 

What nonsense! 

What followed after that from her words made me crave her blood, literally.

“Then I'm not com… ”  

“...stop resisting. I don't like repetition, and you won't like what may follow if my fellas get impatient.” I had interrupted her because she was stepping on my patience.

Again, I looked at my men, and they understood what the look meant. 

Over the years, I had taught them how to communicate with me just by taking note of my gestures.

I also observed that they craved to discipline her for talking to me disrespectfully, but were laid back because I hadn't given the order.

The men pushed her into the car, into the back seat. Then they sat side by side with her. 

I wanted to order one of them to sit rather at the front so I could stay with her at the back, but I didn’t want her to think too highly of herself. Instead, I sat in the front with the driver.

The two other cars we had come with also started almost at the same time and eventually took off behind us.

En route, I pulled down the rear mirror in front of me just to observe her and know what she was up to. 

She was looking outside through her left-side window. Unbothered. 

How can she dare to ignore me like my presence meant nothing to her? I fumed secretly. 

If she dared to disrespect me in the presence of my homies, I swear, I will skin her alive.

The city blurred past the car window beside her. “Must be a twisted reminder of how fast her life has been ripped away from her little comfort trenches.” I scorned her in my thoughts.

The car ride continued like a funeral procession.

I couldn't help but continue looking back like someone was suddenly going to open the back door and run away.

There she was. Annabelle. Sitting stiffly in the backseat of my sleek black Rolls-Royce, her hands clenched together in her lap.

I decided to distract her a little. 

Across from her, I lounged like a king, fingers lazily drumming against the leather dashboard in front of me.

I paused and listened to her heartbeat. 

I could feel it from where I was. Her pulse hasn’t slowed since we left her father’s house.

“Daddy's girl,” I cursed under my breath. I thought she heard me, but it appeared she didn't.

Without a warning, my phone rang out loud…

It was Diego, one of my right-hand men—the one in charge of training, weapons, and ammunition.

“Hello, Dee. Oh yes, the plan hasn't changed. We're already on our way to the Park. Please get the other boys ready, really ready, and we shall be heading out once I step in.”

“Okay, boss, noted.” Diego had answered from his end of the line.

I just knew that by the end of that operation, we would all be either dead or alive, luckily.

Either way, I wasn't going to let that baboon Lorenzo put his fingers in my eyes.

My phone kept on beeping with calls throughout the journey.