5. THE BEGINNING OF THE END

I'm not heartless, I just learned how to use my heart less…

FIVE YEARS LATER

After an hour of sitting idle in a moving vehicle, the limo finally came to a stop in front of Italy's renowned five star hotel… Mangia's Brucoli luxury hotel, where the auction was going to take place. If it were for me, I would have never come here but Dr Sanchez was a people's person, he loved attending charity galas and always dragged me along with him. He turned to me and asked “Are you ready??” I nodded, smiling reassuringly at him. Tonight was going to be our first night being seen out in the public together since our arrival here in Italy, a week ago.

Our door opened and Dr Sanchez stepped out of the car. Stopping not that far from the door, he held out his hand to me. Accepting it, I placed my fingers in his open palm and let him gently pull me out of the limo exposing me to the patiently waiting ocean of flashing lights of cameras. Keeping a polite smile on my face, I fixed my gown and hooked one hand around Dr Sanchez's while the other held the front of my dress to refrain myself from stumbling on the silk material and becoming tomorrow morning's headline. 

We walked onto the red carpet and are immediately flooded with questions from different media personnels. Some wanted to know the reason behind Dr Sanchez's sudden departure five years ago and while others were curious about his sudden return to the island. We stopped to answer some of the questions before continuing toward the hotel's entrance and were about to walk inside when someone in the crowd said

“The Magliolo Family is here”

I froze at the familiar name and my blood ran cold in fear as we slowly turned around, as courtesy deemed fit. Truth to the reporter's words, every member of the Magliolo's family… except for their eldest son, were already on the red carpet including their family friends. The cameras that were once blinding us with their flashing lights had quickly moved on to them hungry for headlines. Ignoring them, they made their way toward us. My hold on Dr Sanchez's hand tightened with every step they took closer, digging my long nails into his arm.

“Breathe” Dr Sanchez whispered to me, placing his hand over mine and gave it a gentle compassionate squeeze to relax it “ ...they can't remember what they don't know” he added and that seemed to do the trick. I took a deep breath in and loosened my grip just in time as Lorenz stopped in front of us letting the rest of his family go inside.

“Mr Magliolo” Dr Sanchez said in greeting and held out his hand to Lorenz.

“Dr Sanchez, it's nice to finally meet you” Lorenz said, accepting his hand and gave it a firm shake before letting go.

“This is my daughter, Evangeline… Eva, this is Lorenz Magliolo, owner and founder of the Magliolo empire” Dr Sanchez introduced us to each other, turning the man's attention toward me. I forced a smile on my face and held out my hand.

“Nice to meet you sir” I said, he took my hand and slowly brought it up to his face whilst keeping his eyes locked on mine. My whole body shivered in disgust when his lips touched the back of my hand. 

Letting go, he smiled and said “Your daughter is very beautiful, Doctor” his eyes raking up and down my body with adultery interest. I scoffed inwardly, he wouldn't be the Lorenz Magliolo I knew if he didn't check me out… old habits die hard after all.

“Should we go inside??” Dr Sanchez proposed, sensing my irritation. Lorenz nodded and we walked through the double glass doors, and an usher escorted us to our table. Lorenz introduced us to his wife and son Dino who were already seated at our table and we all sat down.

A few minutes passed and the auctioneer walked up to the podium. He tapped on the Mike lightly with his finger, to check if it's working and cleared his throat “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this year's annual charity gala. Where valuable ornaments and a date night with beautiful young ladies will be auctioned so let's try not to be stingy people” he said. I groaned at the beautiful ladies part remembering that I too was going to be auctioned. It was to bait Dino Magliolo since he's Sicily's self proclaimed playboy, every girl in the island just has to be his.

The first lot to be auctioned was a Chinese vase starting from one million and was auctioned for ten times the price. Next was an apple green jade jewellery set including a three piece vintage carved jade pendant jade ornaments set; a Chinese hairpin stick; a necklace; two bracelets and a ring… all antique. The bidding started at five million, I waited until the was a highest bidder and held up my card number to make my own bidding “50 million”

“50 million going ones, going twice and… SOLD to the beautiful young lady” no one else exceeded my bidding so I won and the set was taken away.

“I didn't know you were into Chinese jewellery” Dino whispered into my ear. I wasn't, the jewellery set just reminded me of the one my mom used to have… dad had gotten it for her as a gift from one of his business trips but Dino Magliolo didn't need to know that.

“There's a lot of things you don't know about me Mr Magliolo” I told him. 

He chuckled softly, leaning back in his seat and said “Oh please, Mr Magliolo is my father and how about we correct that??”

“Correct what??” I turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

“Me not knowing a lot of things about you” I made a face, like I was thinking about it before saying “No thank you” and turned my attention back to the auction.

“God I like you” he said under his breath before adding “We should go on a date sometime”

“The offer is intriguing but I’m gonna have to say no” I told him, keeping my eyes on the stage.

“Why??” He asked, genuinely curious. I turned to him and looked him straight in the eyes before saying

“You're not my type”

“I'm every girl's type” he arrogantly stated, just as the auctioneer announced

“Now… moving on to the last item on the agenda, Miss Monell join me on stage please” he called the first girl to be auctioned, a gorgeous petite blonde stood up and made her way toward the stage. She stopped next to the auctioneer and the bidding continued, one after another the girl's went up the stage until it's my turn and the auctioneer called my name. I sighed, pushing my chair back a little and got up. I made my way toward the stage, feeling Dino's and Lorenz's burning gaze on my bare back as I ascended the stairs.

“Now which fool wouldn't want to go on a date with such a beauty??” The auctioneer said to the bidders when I stopped next to him and smiled shyly at the crowd.

“For this beautiful non-judgmental successful young lady, whose devotion is to help people function the best they can in their environment. We'll start the bidding at €500 000”

“€650 000” a middle-aged man said, making me frown at him. Doesn't he have children my age for him to want to go out with me??

“One million euros,” another man said. The digits kept increasing and increasing until

“Ten million euros” Dino said and everyone in the hall gasped, my eyes narrowed suspiciously at him. For someone as attractive as him, surely getting with any girl he wanted wasn't a problem so why was he bidding so much money on just one date?? What was ge planning?? I looked at Dr Sanchez and he too had the same surprised expression on his face, we had planned for this to happen but we didn't think he would actually participate in the bidding.

“Ten million going once, going twice…” the auctioneer looked around the hall, giving the bidders a last chance to decide but no one wanted to bid higher “... and SOLD to the young Mr Magliolo” he closed the auction and I went back to my seat.

“You know, if you wanted me to pay you to go on a date with me. You should've said so instead of playing hard to get.” He said as soon as I sat back down next to him. My hands clenched into fists under the table as I tried to restrain myself from lashing out and disturbing the auction. How dare he insinuate that I was an escort, I wanted to punch him eight in the face and watch as his nose bled but I couldn't… not now at least.

“Don't flatter yourself Mr Magliolo, if it weren't for the charity event… you and I would've never met” I told him before turning to Dr Sanchez and said “I'll be right back” then left the table and went to the bathroom. Walking in, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding all this while and leaned my back against the door. Sitting that close to Lorenz and not being able to do anything was infuriating abd that arrogant son of his… I was going to celebrate his end.

I took deep breaths in on calm down and pushed off the door. I walked over to the sink and turned the faucet on to wash my hands. I winced when the water touched my skin. Frowning I turned my hands around to see what was causing the pain and saw red semicircular marks on my palms seemingly caused by my nails. I groaned, I was so angry I didn't even notice when my nails pierced my skin.

I dried my hands with a towel and retouched my makeup before heading toward the door. Wrapping my hand around the doorknob, I pulled the door open and stepped back onto the empty hallway. I was heading toward the banquet hall but halted in my steps when one of the hotel's staff members bumped into me, the glasses he was holding on a tray fell down and shattered into a million pieces as soon as it touched the tiled floor.

“Oh I'm sorry ma'am, I didn't see you coming” he quickly apologised.

“It's okay” I said, stepping over the glass shards.

 “Are you okay??” He asked worriedly, I nodded “...Oh good” he said and pulled out a gun from under his shirt. I frowned, confused at first at how fast his demeanour had changed from that of a timid person to a cold one. But my breath soon caught up in my throat out of fear, when he pointed the dangerous metal at me

“ ...now let's get going” he added, walking around me and stopped behind me. 

“You don't have to do this, I'm sure there are other ways to get what you want” I tried to negotiate, with my hands held up in the air to show him I wasn't resisting.

He rolled his eyes and said “Says the rich princess, get moving” I swallowed hard when I felt the gun on my lower back and shut my mouth. We continued toward the hall, and wrapping my fingers around the two doorknobs, I pushed the doors open. And hesitated in my steps as my eyes swiveled over the hall. Everyone was happily chatting unaware of the pending danger they would soon find themselves in. My eyes stopped on Dr Sanchez... the only person that mattered in my life, I couldn't let him get hurt.

“DAD!!” I yelled to warn him, which of course the man standing behind me didn't seem to appreciate.

“Bitch” he cursed and a pain seared through my skull a second later. Letting out a painful cry, I fell to my knees and reached back with my hand to touch the back of my head where it hurt most. I frowned when felt warm, fluid with the pads of my fingertips, I brought my hand back to look at it and my fingers were cover in blood...  lots of it

"Evangeline" I looked up and saw Dr Sanchez's worried face before everything turned black.