I picked up the phone, my hand remarkably steady considering the circumstances. "Hey, you," I answered, my voice carefully neutral.
"Baby! Oh, thank God." Stanley's voice was distraught with fear, anxiety, or some other emotion, like someone who was completely innocent of what had happened. There was a stacky rush. "Are you okay? Tell me you're okay."
I took a slow sip of the tea I had prepared. It was excellent. "I'm fine, Mark. I'm having tea."
"Tea?" He sounded utterly bewildered. "Where are you? What's happening? Where have you been?" He asked the questions almost at the same time.
I let out a loud laugh and said, "You panicked," I repeated, my voice flat. "So your solution was to call… Pascal?"
He acted surprised. "What do you mean? You were absent a day before the wedding, Millicent?"
"Hope you had a nice trip to Shaingai, and have you signed the multi-million contract?" I asked confidently.
At this point, he already knew his secret was out. He started pleading, "See, I can explain." "Go on, I'm listening," I said to him.
"The dark web," he whispered, feeling very embarrassed and ashamed. "They were just supposed to make sure you were… unavailable for 48 hours. Comfortably unavailable! I swear! I thought they'd just stage a minor car issue or something. I didn't know they'd… take you to a safe house."
"It's a very nice safe house," I said, watching Tony layer ricotta cheese with the focus of a master craftsman.
"Please don't be mad. I know that's a ridiculous thing to say, but please, just… Don't write me off. I love you more than anything. This was the dumbest thing I have ever done in my entire life, aside from when I once tried to iron a shirt while I was still wearing it."
I took a long, slow breath. The initial shock had worn off after the sex that night, replaced by a kind of bewildered amusement.
"Are you safe?" Pascal asked, his voice small. "Did they… treat you well?"
"Yes, I am safe. I was being fed better than you ever did, and I'm not… annoyed."
"You're not?" The hope in his voice was so pathetic it was almost endearing.
"No. I'm somewhere beyond annoyed, Pascal. I'm in a state of pure psychological mental health at the depth of your foolishness. But being 'annoyed' doesn't quite cover hiring a benevolent mafia to kidnap your future wife."
"I'm so sorry," he repeated, a broken record of regret. "Please, I will come and see you right away."
"My mom would eat you raw and throw your bones to the grave, so don't bother coming."
There was a long pause. I could almost hear the drumming in his heart, turning in his panic-stricken brain, weighing his fear of my family against his newfound, very tangible fear of my kidnappers.
I hung up, placing the phone back on the table.
After the call ended, about three hours later, my mum had stepped out, leaving me alone in the house. Then I heard the doorbell jingling from my sleep. I struggled to get up to see who was at the door, and lo and behold, it was Rocas. The Mafia.
"How have you been, baby?" he said in a friendly tone. I was shocked to my bones; I never gave him the address of my house. I kept wondering how he found his way here.
"Can I come in?" He cut me short in my imagination.
"Yes… you… can," I stammered.
"I was missing you, so I decided to come check up on you," he said, looking straight into my eyes.
I was perplexed. At that moment, I just knew Pascal had dug a hole that would take only a narrow escape to survive from falling inside.
"Oh yeah!!! Thank you." I offered him champagne, some of the drinks still remaining from my supposed wedding.
Just as he had sipped two to three times, I heard another jingling at the door. I thought it was my mum, but to my surprise, it was Pascal standing in front of me. I tried to lead him out of the house, but he demanded to know whose car was parked outside.
Pascal had forced his way in and met Rocas inside.
"Perfect timing," Pascal exclaimed. "You have the gut to show your ugly face here after what you did, Rocas!" Pascal screamed at the top of his voice.
The betrayal Pascal felt was like a knife to the gut.
"You… you paid me to take her," Rocas replied. The words felt like broken glass in my throat.
"You need to leave," Pascal said, his voice low and steady, a stark contrast to the frantic drumming of my heart. "And you will not come back. You will stay away from her. Do you understand?"
Rocas smiled. It was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen-a slow, cold stretching of lips that didn't touch his dead, shark-like eyes. He didn't even look at me. He looked only at Pascal, as if he were an interesting insect that had just dared to crawl across his path.
"The fiance," Rocas answered him, his voice like thunder. "You have fire. I admire that. But you are giving an order to a man who does not take them."
"It's not an order. It's your only warning," Pascal said, and in that moment, I loved him so fiercely for that. It was a physical pain. He was a librarian facing down a tiger.
The fight didn't start with a shout. It started with a low, harsh rumbling sound from Rocas. I tried to stand in between, but Pascal, in a fit of cowardly rage, shoved me aside and lunged at him, screaming, "You ruined everything! My life, my love, and my plans."
Rocas's smile vanished. He didn't signal his men. He didn't need to; they knew what to do. A flick of his wrist, a microscopic nod, and the two mountains flanking him moved.
"Pascal, no!" I screamed, but the sound was strangled in my throat.