Make Them Regret It Chapter 03
I saw that smile.
No one else in the room did.
My father lifted his wineglass and asked my older brother, “Is everything at the chapel taken care of?”
My older brother nodded.
“Thermal blankets, backup generator, first-aid kit—I had my men take them over. The guards are loyal to me. They won’t let Nonna and the others suffer.”
My second brother added, “Mother hasn’t been well. I told the family doctor to wait outside. At daybreak, he’ll go in and bring her out.”
My father relaxed.
“Good. Nonna is pragmatic. Once she understands the situation, she’ll scold us, and that will be the end of it.”
“Gia’s a sensitive kid,” my older brother said with a smile. “I’ll buy her a few more boxes of candy tomorrow. She’ll forget all about it.”
They had already decided who would pick up whom in the morning.
My father would get my grandmother. My older brother and my second brother would retrieve their own wives and my niece.
Colton would come for me.
He said he had a beach house ready in the Hamptons. Once I’d had time to cool off, he’d take me there for a while.
Suddenly, Isabella looked up, her eyes instantly welling with tears.
“What if my sister refuses to sign?”
Colton’s grip tightened on his glass, his knuckles turning white.
“She’ll sign.”
“Blythe cares about family more than anything. If she thinks the Romanos are in trouble because of her, she won’t gamble with their lives.”
Tears slipped down Isabella’s cheeks.
“You still can’t bear to let her go, can you? None of you can. So why are you all here pretending to comfort me?”
“When she comes out tomorrow, Father will feel guilty that she suffered for a night, my brothers will blame me, and you… you’ll go right back to her. You’ll still marry her.”
My father spoke at once.
“No. Isabella, we will do what we promised.”
“Once Blythe signs the papers, I’ll send her to Switzerland for a few years. When you feel secure, I’ll let her come back.”
Colton took a silver flash drive from his jacket pocket and set it on the table in front of Isabella.
It was the key to his family’s trust. He never let it out of his sight.
“I promise you. Once the engagement is broken, I will not marry her.”
The tension in the room eased.
My second brother even laughed as he mentioned his wife.
“She’s been so sleepy lately. I just thought she was tired. When she gets out, I’ll have the doctor give her a proper checkup.”
He didn’t know she was already pregnant.
She had planned to tell everyone at my wedding.
I stood at the terrace doors, a bitter cold seeping into me.
I wanted to rush inside, to grab each of them by the shoulders and tell them just how cold that chapel really was.
But my hand passed right through my father’s body.
He shivered, shifted a little closer to the fireplace, and took another sip of his wine.
There were no thermal blankets.
No generator.
No first-aid kit.
The men my brother sent with supplies were stopped halfway there by Isabella’s maid.
That night, the chapel was cold enough to split stone.
And only three people entered it.
Three strangers carrying Isabella’s keycard, who slipped inside just after midnight.