Creed of the Leviathan II

04 | M

Mattia

"Will you be joining us for dinner?" My sister opened the door to my home office right when I was about to walk out.

"I'm not sure. I have to take care of something really quickly."

"Come on. It's her first night back. Let's have dinner as a family." She pleaded with her hands folded in front of her chest.

"I'll see what time I get done."

"Are you going to see Tobias?" Her facial expression changed.

"No." I exhaled. "I'm having lunch with Leighton."

"Okay." She forced a smile upon her lips. "Tell him I said hi."

After Marco's death and Nuelle leaving, Marissa and I were forced to find a middle ground to work through our emotions. Especially, considering the shock and guilt she was left with after James' arrest. Despite having to deal with my own fair share of problems, I tried to put my ego and anger aside to focus on her mental health. I had already lost so many people in my life. Besides my trusted employees, my sister was the only family that stayed. I could not afford to lose her as well.

In the years that passed we had manage to see eye to eye when it came to a lot of things regarding business, our family and the those who haunted us. Slowly, I had to learn to trust that she would be able to deal with the truth. And though I still tried to provide her with protection by keeping most things to myself, step by step I had started to open up and alert her about the things— the people that threatened our whole existence.

I glanced at the clock which showed that I was about half an hour late to my lunch with Leighton, because Marissa asked me to pick up a few things for dinner. I could have easily done it after lunch, but the constant nagging of my sister which I could probably never get used to caused me to make the hasty decision of stopping at the supermarket first. This was just her tactic of making sure that I would be on time for dinner.

From a distance I could see Leighton sitting at a table located on the terrace of the restaurant, constantly checking his watch. "You can stop checking it now." I pulled back one of the chairs and sat down. "My apologies for being late. I had to stop for groceries."

"GROCERIES?" Leighton pretended to be shocked. "I thought you had people for everything. Groceries? You really have changed."

His comment put a smile on my face. "Are you going to tell me why we're here? Cause you made it sound like it's a life-or-death situation."

"Oh, it will be if this doesn't go as planned." He took a sip of his drink.

"Yeah? Who do we have to take care off?" I leaned back in my chair.

"Not a person, a thing."

"A thing?" My eyebrows scrunched out of confusion. "What thing?"

"My wedding." He flashed his teeth.

"Wedding? That's, that's really great news. Congrats to you and Liz."

"She finally popped the question." He joked in a serious tone.

"Right. She popped the question." My head fell back from the laugh I let out. "I had to listen to you talk about Elizabeth for the last two years but sure she asked you."

"You know that's right! But" he paused. "In all seriousness. There is another reason why I asked you to come here. I didn't want to do this over the phone." He changed back into the serious person I was used to.

"I'm all ears."

"I want you to be my best man."

"Me? Wow." I was both, surprised and delighted to hear him say this. "The arrogant patient you had to deal with. Your best man?"