Mafia's Planner Unplanned| COMPLETED

•29• Focus

•Romina•

I hear voices graze past my ear sounding like they're coming from a distance. When in reality it's just assholes talking to me about assholes getting married. Their bodies are so close, smiling and occasionally gently rubbing on my arm. Yet I drown their voices out so much all I can hear is the thumping sound of my agonizing heart beating.

I nod and smile occasionally as they come and go. Like they always do. I look at Ana who looks at me. We look at each other. There was one thing I absolutely despised more than losing; not seeing it coming.

I look at her with new eyes like never before, analyzing every aspect I might've missed before. Maybe it's the way one of her ears looks like they're a hologram from a mile away. Or the almost eggshell white foundation and painted brown lips clearly covering up craters of bad skin and freckles. I couldn't put my exact finger on it. So I think about how I met her. How did she meet me?

If it weren't for Chris I wouldn't be here. If it weren't for Ana I wouldn't be here with Joseph. However we all had a common factor in it, that damned Winston.

"Another successful wedding." Chris says coming up by my side sipping on a glass of complementary champagne cut with grape juice. The bride may or not be expecting? For simple reasons she thought it would be better to have half alcohol rather than none.

"What do you see when you look around this room?"

She looks at me before looking around. Scanning the faces in the crowd and their interactions. "Power. I see power."

"Ana said uncertainty was a risk I wasn't willing to take."

"Uncertainty has nothing on you Mina girl. You are a risk" I give her a fake smile and head tilt.

My actions are predictable but my choices are not. I know how to play the game but Ana's been playing me? She-

She doesn't even fucking know me?

I walk off from Chris hearing her call my name. I turned around to wave her off then turned around to keep walking when I walked into someone.

"Fancy meeting you here." Joseph grins, placing his hands on my elbow. I tap his chest "not now"

"But they're about to make the toast" He spins me to face the stage. The couple got married in a lovely chateau house so there was plenty of space to have an outside

His hands snake around my neck, locking me in his embrace as I rest my head on his shoulder facing a bunch of checkbooks for me and nobodies to him.

"What are we doing Joseph?" I asked, feeling slightly annoyed and suffocated. Not by him, but by the situation. My adrenaline was pumping and I felt like a ticking time bomb.

tic

tic

tic

"You need breath, you're trying to focus on too many things at once." I literally have to fight back the intense urge to roll my eyes.

I shake my head in rebuke "Joseph I assure you, my mind is only set on one thing." My hand strokes his arm. He places his head on top of mine. He knows he will have to let me go soon.

"Which is?" I fix my mouth to speak but my attention is drawn to the stage Joseph so desperately wanted us to watch.

"As you know my dear friend Ana took the liberty of placing my now husband and I in contact with the wonderful ladies who made this wedding what it was. She asked that she be given the chance to make a small speech so here it goes." The entire time this woman has been yapping I didn't give her an ounce of my attention until now.

I watch Ana approach the stage yet she looks different. More fragile in a way. Her beautiful painted lips now left with nothing but a small smudge underneath her lips and her once neat blonde bombshell hair now disheveled.

Tic

I underestimated you. Looking in her eyes, which gave me the smallest squint showing a glimmer of pride.

"It brought me such joy watching those women create the wedding of your dreams, knowing you and your husband's union would be treated with such care and precision? I knew I had to give you the wedding I would only dream of for myself. Seeing as mine was a ploy." There's a certain way she's talking now? I mean I never picked up on it before, such a subtle difference hidden with a bunch of high class slang when talking yet so noticable.

A wave of shock passes through the crowd and I remain staring at her with a blank face. She's got nothing to lose or hide anymore. The lights cut on, as the sun starts to set. Workers begin walking outside lighting the tiki torches.

"Winston used me and my family, then took almost every single dime I spent my entire life working for. Son of a bitch actually disappeared so who knows if i'll ever see him again. It was with this lesson I knew with my remaining money I had to spend it on making sure my best friend's wedding would never end up like mine. A mistake. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade! Sweetie, I just hope your daddy can hook me up with one of those divorce lawyers he spends so much time talking about!"

Everyone looked absolutely mortified. People stared with confusion and dismay. I could actually feel the pity some felt for 'poor ana'.

"Looks like you dodged a bullet with him." Joseph's voice sends a chill down my spine as I remember he's standing behind me.

My body tenses up and I think he realizes it because his hands drop from my neck and wrap around my waist. "You alright?" he asks me and I Swallow a huge gob of saliva. I look at him and smile. I nod my head before walking from his grasp and going to a table with a chair. I needed to sit. My mind was racing with too many thoughts. Somehow they all led back to one person. Which no longer had any connection to Winston himself. He was a small pawn in a much larger game.

I began to compose a timeline in my head. Grappling through the sudden whirlwind of emotions and memories. Joseph walks over to me and sits in a chair behind me. I know his eyes are on me. I can feel them practically burning a hole into my back. I tried to push him out but I don't think that it really worked.

Ana booked our service. Ana knew who I was, I didn't know who Ana was. Chris knew who Winston was but didn't know who Ana was.

The dots clicking yet? No, we need more.

Chris and I arrive in a part of Italy where I meet Ana and Winston. Also reuniting with Joseph who didn't even live in that part of italy. So why did he pop up at a dinner for a couple he had no connections to? But Joseph knew winston? I sent him an invite to what would've been our wedding. I shake that thought out of my head. No Joseph said he was there on business...

I glance over my shoulder to meet his eyes. He's slouched in the windsor chairs we decorated with ribbon and silk. His glasses rested in his hands which sat between his spread legs. Still looking at me. The sweet boy whose heart I've occasionally broken and mended together. whose proposal I turned down. The man I invited to my wedding years later to another man. The crazy motherfucker whos been kind of obsessed with me since I was 16?

I turn my head and bite back a smile. I didn't give him as much credit as he deserved.

The man was dedicated.

Should I be mad? Should I be upset? I need answers.

Yet somehow that seems like an issue for another day. Right now I just-

"Ready to go home?" Joseph's voice travels to my ears over the music and I stand up ignoring the familiar feelings stirring between my legs.  "Yeah, let's go."

What? It's not like I'm in danger.

I wrapped my hand around his arm as we began to walk out. I looked at chris on the way out the blinked at her three times. She knows we'll talk tomorrow. Jospeh opens the door for me and I walk through. "Joseph would you do anything for me?"

"No of course not baby, I have limits" He grins and kisses my cheek.

I grab his face before he turns to keep walking and kiss his lips."Of course you do" I say in a singy song teasing him. "Of course I do!" He replies with the same tone as me and opens the car door for me to step in.

I am going to fuck his brains out tonight.