"For the last time kid. Speak before I make you speak" the man in the dark room threatened.
She was drugged and tired. Her eyes could barely focus on him in the dimly lit room. She shuddered in the cold and the smell of dead fish further made her feel suffocated in the small room.
She was strapped to a chair with her hands and feet bound to it.
"Speak!" he slapped her across the face.
She wanted to pass out and go numb from the pain her body was in, "Either way, my father will find you and kill you," she told him confidently.
"You asked for this," he said and punched her in the stomach.
Pain shot through her gut and she gasped for air and her eyes snapped open. She coughed and tried to gasp for air.
"Gia," Alvan called her name and patted her back. "Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. It's alright. It's just a dream," he coaxed.
How wrong he was.
Her unfocused eyes searched for the source of the voice and she saw him, kneeling by her side.
She managed to steady her breath and Alvan tried to wipe the sweat from her forehead but she held his arm to stop him from touching her.
A muscle in his jaw twitched and a strange emotion flickered in those icy blue eyes but he gave her space. "We will be landing in ten minutes," he said and went back to his seat which was opposite hers.
The rest of the journey was awkward. It was the closest thing to intimacy that the couple had shared since getting married. He always avoided her like a plague and he didn't understand his need to care for her.
"Thank you," she said, finally gathering the courage to look him in the eye.
He gave her a half-hearted smile and just nodded his head.
The jet landed at a private airport and when they got out, two bodyguards were there with a Lincoln Continental already parked there. One of them handed the keys to Alvan and two guards placed their bags in the trunk of the car. Gia got into the car while Alvan spoke to the men there.
She watched him through the rear mirror while he bossed them around. Sometimes she imagined how things would have been for them if they had both stayed in Prague. He was a control freak. Something she liked about him at first but hated over time.
After getting cleared, Alvan drove off with Gia sitting still with her eyes closed shut.
"Are you about to puke in my car? I think I should warn you that this is my favorite car," he warned her.
She wound the window down so that the night air could hit her face and possibly drive away the nausea she was feeling, "I'm good."
The two stayed silent for a long time until Alvan cleared his throat and spoke again, "It wasn't just a dream was it?"
No, it wasn't.
Gia glanced at him before speaking, "It's my first time in an aircraft since_" she hesitated before speaking again. "I'm just scared of heights. Been a while since I've been on a plane."
"Oh."
That was all he could utter. He could tell that she was lying. She was always so tough and he was seeing her so shaken up for the first time and he didn't know what to do.
He glanced at her before speaking, "That night at the pub, you and your brother were there for Bubba Jenkins, weren't you?"
"We went to sell meth to Dimitri," she replied casually. She still had her face turned towards the open window.
He snorted, "It didn't make sense to me why you two were there for meth sales. Bubba Jenkins was there that night. My father knows more about this than he's letting on."
She turned to him with a blank look, "So why don't you ask him?"
"Why is your family after him?" he asked instead.
"I wish I had the answers you seek," was all Gia said and turned back to face the window.
His jaw clenched and his grip on the steering tightened. He remained silent as he drove for almost ten minutes.
"Can we stop somewhere to eat? I'm starving," she said. It was the only thing she could say to fill the silence between them.
"Sure," he said and swerved into the parking lot of a restaurant after a few minutes.
"O'Marts," Gia muttered the unfamiliar name of the restaurant. "Sounds like the name of a store."
"Stands for Omri Martinelli," he explained the meaning to her as he stepped out of the car. "It was actually a mall and the restaurant is just an extension of it. The mall is that huge building just behind it."
"I didn't know you family owned restaurants or even malls in New York too," she said as she stepped out as well.
He shrugged his shoulders. The two headed towards the exquisite restaurant. It was the first time they were having a meal together on their own.
Gia sat down anxiously while Alvan ordered. There was an awkward silence between them while they waited for their food. The food arrived just in time and Gia couldn't be more grateful. The heavenly taste of the food threw the initial awkwardness out the window.
Alvan silently watched her eat and he couldn't help but admire how beautiful she was. She was without any form of makeup and he could see the tiny scars on her heart shaped face. There was a tiny c-shaped one just above her left eye brow, one end encroached a tiny bit into her brows, another above the first, it was just below her hairline. She had a chrysanthemum corsage tattooed on her right wrist. The flower was at the anterior aspect of her wrist and the band wrapped around the rest of her wrist like an actual band would.
"Why chrysanthemum?" he finally asked the question on his mind.
"Huh?" she stared at him a little confused.
"The tattoo on your wrist. Why the chrysanthemum of all the things in the world?"
She subconsciously glanced at it, a ghost of a smile on her lips, "A family symbol."
There was a far away look in her eyes, like there was more to it that she still had on her mind.
"And you chose to tattoo yours on your wrist. Why is that?" he asked genuinely intrigued.
She tucked some tendrils of her hair behind her ear and he just observed her every movement. "There is a scar underneath. A stubborn scar that refused to go away."
He wondered how many scars and tattoos she had on her. He could tell that she had been through so much and just like the beautiful tattoo on her wrist, she covered it up so well.
He remembered seeing one on her shoulder the first morning after their wedding.
"What about the one on your shoulder? What does it represent?" he asked.
"I got it after Prague," she held his eyes as she spoke. "It represents a rebirth."
"Rebirth? What happened to you?" he asked, wondering what she meant.
"It has everything to do with Jace and Dana, a topic I'm not ready to revisit. So please stop asking me questions about my tattoos," she said, her tone firm and absolute.
"We don't need to try to be friendly, it's a contract we were both forced into. If it were up to me, I'd stay as far away from you as possible."
The corner of his lips quirked up, "I didn't say nothing about being friendly, I was just curious," he looked at her with a faint smirk on his face.
She glowered at him and tightened her hold on the fork in her hand.
Alvan's eyes looked down at the fork in her hand and travelled back to her gray eyes. He arched a brow at her challengingly.
She dropped the fork in her hand, carefully wiped her mouth with the napkin before her. "I think I'm full. I'll wait for you in the car."
She stood up and left, leaving him speechless. He could barely touch his food after she left so he just left too.
The ride to the hotel was quiet. There was a lot of tension between them. They took the private elevator straight to the penthouse on the top floor. Gia picked up her bag without any help when Alvan showed her to her room. She slammed the door shut and bolted it from the inside.
His phone rang while he was staring at her door unsure of what to do.
"What am I doing?" he scoffed to himself and turned around and went to his room with his phone still ringing in his hand.
"Figlio, how are you doing? How is Gia? Why are none of you taking any of your calls? Do you know how worried I was?" Valeria bombarded him with questions.
He knew she was calling because of Gia and not because of him.
"Gia is fine. She just went to bed and I'm about to go to bed too," he said to her.
"Are you two getting along?" she asked the question burning at the back of her mind.
"What do you expect mam? We will talk tomorrow, madre."
"Goodnight. Make sure you take care of your wife."
He cut the call without waiting to hear any other thing that she had to say.