4

TIFFANY WEST

 I didn't even bother getting dressed. I donned one of the robes hanging in the exquisite bathroom, heading straight to my hotel room.

 I sent Elena a text while I tried recalling what had happened last night, but all I could recall were fragments. And soon, small fragments began to make a whole. I remembered Elena helping me up to my room and into my bed. God knew I wished I had remained there. But not the case. Somehow I found myself at the party going on in the hotel bar. Everything from there remained a blur from the second I met Lorenzo up until the stroke of my ink on the marriage certificate. It was damned obvious I didn't have a gun pointed at my head when I signed my life away. I had always known my bad decision would catch up to me one day.

 In short minutes, Elena entered the room in nothing more than a pink night dress and jacket like she had just woken up or that was the closest thing she could grab as soon as she saw my text. She raised her brow. “Tiffany what's wrong—”

 “I'm married,” The words came out fast and rasped as I shoved my hand in the air. “Me, Tiffany, married,” This time the words left my lips, maybe almost breathless as I fought the tears burning at the edges of my eyes.

 Elena was frozen for a second, the skin on her forehead folded in a frown and for a second it looked as if she was trying to figure out if this was some joke or I was actually being serious. Maybe soon discovering the latter, her eyes widened in shock.

 “What?” She rushed closer to me, gripping my hand to stare at the sparkling diamond. “Tiffany, how the fuck did this happen?”

 Still fighting the tears licking at the surface of my vision, and the anger burning in my veins, I almost choked. “I was drunk last night. Super drunk and when I woke up, this was hanging there,”

 Still having trouble understanding me, she shook her head in confusion. “I brought you in last night, I ensured you were in bed before I left,”

 The weight of her words made tears form in my eyes. If only I stayed back in bed. None of these would have happened. This was my fault. And that was the truth. I had ruined my life with my own hands. I could only imagine the irrational thoughts that had been swirling in my head last night. Maybe I'd thought marrying Lorenzo was the best choice of punishment for Seline West and Francis Strauss, that was before I discovered Lorenzo fucking Russo had been the one I was sold to. 

 “Tiffany!” Elena's yell brought my attention back to her. Her worried filled gaze stuck on me. “How did this happen?”

 “I don't know, Elena. I had left my room last night, joining the party downstairs. I had more drinks, and then like the devil waiting for his next victim, he appeared. One thing probably led to another, and I made the worst decision of my life,” A nerve cracked and regretfully a tear slipped. I brushed it off with the back of my hand and began pacing in my room.

 “Okay, you said you were super drunk. And the guy, how drunk was he?”

 “I can't remember,” was my response.

 “Okay, fine. Everything would be sorted out Tiffany. We'll ask for a divorce,”

 A frustrated scoff left my lips. “He fucking won't give,”

 “We have the best lawyers, Tiffany. Even if he refuses, I don't mind asking Dimitri for help with this, and trust me this guy will have no choice but to settle for a divorce,” 

 “He told me he wouldn't give me a divorce. I wish you saw the look in Lorenzo's eyes—”

 “Lorenzo?” She cut off my sentence halfway with a confusing look in her eyes. It was then I realized I hadn't mentioned who my unfortunate husband was. “What does Lorenzo have to do in all of this?”

 “This,” I pointed at the sparkling diamond. “This is his ring. Lorenzo is the one I'm married to,”

 Eleba stilled. Every color in her face drained instantly. The look in her eyes filled with fear. “Porca miseria!” What I suspected was a curse word in Italian left her lips. Besides knowing how to work her way with guns, she was also picking up a little Italian from her husband. “Tiffany, this is bad,” She inched closer to me. “Why would Lorenzo Russo get married to you? Lorenzo isn't the type of person to get drunk or worse, make a fucking mistake like marrying you,”

 “He’s the one who Francis and my mother had arranged for me to marry. They owe him a lot and I'm being used as compensation. I can't stay married to him. We hate each other. You've seen the way he looks at me like he can't wait to see how I'll look when he puts a bullet in my head. And I feel the same way. Trust me, it won't take long before one of us acts on it,”

 “Fucking hell, Tiffany. You still don't get it. Lorenzo Russo isn't—” Elena's sentence stopped midway at the opening of the door.

 Our heads whipped to the door to find Lorenzo's large frame covering the doorway.

 His cold apathetic eyes shifted from Elena to me. His gaze narrowed in displeasure. “You're not packed yet,”

 “There's no reason to be. I told you, I'm not going anywhere with you, alive that is,”

 His gaze grew darker. He took a couple of steps forward until he was a step away. His large body was trying to intimidate me, his deathly gaze attempting to ignite fear within me or maybe break me into submission. Before he could inch any closer, Elena stepped into the space between us.

 “Lorenzo, this isn't right. Whatever happened between you and her family doesn't involve her. Don't make her pay for their mistakes,”

 He watched Elena with darkness swirling loose in his eyes as if he was deliberating ways he could hurt her without hurting her.

 “There's nothing I loathed more than meddling, especially where it's not needed. Normally I would address it with a hole in your head,”

 “You wouldn't dare. Dimitri would—”

 “There's only a handful of what you can get away with, even being Dimitri's wife,”

 The tension in the air was strong enough to suffocate.

 I decided to break the tension and maybe the impending disaster that was a second away from happening.

 “Elena, please give us a minute,”

 She flicked a glance at me, and I nodded. The second Elena left the room, Lorenzo's deep timbre sounded. 

 “Get your things together, we are leaving now,”

 “No, I'm staying”

 “My wife will go wherever I go,”

 “I'm not going anywhere with you Lorenzo, and so are you, not until we come to a solution to this madness. You don't want to be married to me, I can assure you. Last night was a mistake, and the only way to make it right is to get a divorce,” I stormed around the room, grabbing my suitcase and stuffing my clothes in it. “I'm going back to New York, and my lawyer will get in touch with you, and once—” My words came to a halt when the sharp sting poked the back of my neck. And then heaviness pulled my consciousness, down… down…

 Until everything was dark.