Good Cop Gone Bad ~ Rewritten

58| connection

•Aria Marino•

        As the wedding wraps up and we head back home, I am so freaking tired. I might as well pass out on these stairs, and my feet hurt so bad I'm pretty sure I have blisters from these heels.
        As we are leaving, Lia Emma stops me, "Wait, Aria!" she says. I turn around and walk to her, Matteo standing there waiting for me. "Thank you so much for today. You saved my wedding from falling apart at least three freaking times, from dealing with the caterers to sewing my dress to keeping all the bridesmaids from falling apart, you were just amazing." she says, with a smile and hugs me.
        Yes, today was fun, but it was also chaotic but helping out was no problem for me. "Of course, Lia. I knew you were already stressed and I did not want it to get any worse."
        She pulls away from the hug smiling. We say our goodbyes and I turn to look at Matteo to see he is already smiling at me.
       "Let's go, melodia," he says, squatting down, then picking me up in a bridal carry.
        I sigh, leaning against him. I feel myself being placed into a car and a kiss pressed to my forehead. I hear the seatbelt buckle, then the door shuts.
Matteo grabs my hand and soon I fall asleep in my seat.

•••••

I look at all the centerpiece options our wedding planner gave us. There's one that I really like but I want to make sure Matteo agrees with it. It's his wedding just as much as mine so I don't want him to hate it.
"Which one do you like?" I ask him. I didn't think one question could cause so much chaos. He wouldn't tell me which one he liked until he knew which one I liked. "Okay you have to point when I count down." I wait for a nod of approval before counting down from three.
We both stick our hands and point a finger at a centerpiece at the same time. I look to the table and see we picked the same one.
       This process worked for a while and we seemed to agree on a lot of things. We got so much freaking planning yesterday, it's insane. Today was just the small things like the centerpieces, the small details. It's barely 11 am. Quite literally the only thing I have left to do is pick out my dress, so Matteo went to work.
        I have an appointment in half an hour, so I have to go pick up Laura, mamma, Lia, and Sofia. My mother-in-law, and my two bridesmaids. Lia straight up just told me that she didn't want to be a bridesmaid at my wedding because she is pregnant and I respect that but she is still coming with us and I love her.
        Allegra is busy right now but she can't come with us, I did invite Inessa but her and Luca are still in Russia but she said she is definitely coming to my bachelorette party.
        As we arrive at the dress shop, I am overwhelmed with how many options there are. They're all beautiful, however some of them not exactly my taste.
        The woman attending to us is very kind and helped us pick a few options for us to try on.
       "Would you like to take a look at our headpieces? We have a wide variety of tiaras," she begins speaking, however Mamma stops her.
       "Grazie, but there will be no need," she tells the woman politely. She nods and turns to the rack on the other side of her, hanging all of the dresses on it. "Tesoro, there is this gorgeous tiara in the family vault, over a century old, covered in gorgeous diamonds, I used it for my wedding as did Matteo's grandmother, and her mother before her. It is heavily insured and protected so you do not have to worry about something happening to it. I would very much like for you to wear it at your wedding." she tells me sweetly, walking me around the shop by interlocking our arms together.
        I smile at her, "Of course, mamma. I would love to." I tell her. I love how much mamma wants to include me in their family, and I am not one to break tradition especially knowing how important it is.
       I start to try on the dresses we have so far. The first one was okay but the sleeves were very uncomfortable. Although they were gorgeous lace sleeves that went all the way down to my wrists, they were itchy and I am not willing to have itchy arms my entire wedding day.
        The second dress was also pretty I just very much did not like the way it looked on me. It made me look short and I don't know how but the shade of the dress made me look almost washed out and sick. It will look amazing on another bride.
        The third dress was satin and beautiful but it was honestly too small for me, yet somehow had way too long of a train for my liking.
       It took me another four dresses before I found the perfect dress for me.
      The seventh dress. It is a white satin dress, with off the shoulder sleeves that led to a sweetheart neckline. The front is long enough to cover my feet and the back has a train that isn't too short to look awkward but not too long either.
       I stared at myself in the mirror in front of me as I admired the dress and the way it looked on me. "Oh, tesoro," mamma sighs, coming up behind me. "You look gorgeous." she says. I smile at her, my eyes almost filling with tears.
       "Grazie, mamma." I tell her, turning around so everyone can see the front of the dress.
       "Aria, that dress looks fucking perfect on you," Laura says, smiling widely.
       Sofia looks at me adorably, continuously rocking Angelo back and forth. Aless offered to take care of him but Sofia wanted to bring him and Aless stayed with only Vittoria.
       "Aria, that dress was made for you," Sofia says. I smile at them all.
       Once I change out of the dress, we follow the worker to go pay. I have Matteo's card because he hid mine from me and told me I am not allowed to use it anymore. He also said 'Even if you are able to figure out where it is, you still will not be able to reach it,' which I was a little offended, but it did make me laugh.
        I was also told that if I don't spend a certain amount of money per month, I will be accompanied by my fiancé himself to go shopping - when does he ever not go anywhere with me because he is overprotective - and he will buy me anything I even dare to show any interest in.
       These things sound sweet but the way they were presented honestly sounded like a threat.
       Anyways, I payed for the dress and we made our way out of the store, our guards leading us back to the car.
       "Are you nervous, tesoro?" mamma asks me as she sat next to me.
        "Kind of. Mostly excited. I just hope everything goes smoothly." I say and she smiles, nodding at me.
       Everyone gets dropped off at their houses except mamma, she comes with me to our estate.
        I want to make dinner tonight. Ever since I began living here, the kitchen staff works less. I say kitchen staff but it's just the main chef and the baker who makes our desserts. Then we have the ones who come in on special occasions like Christmas Eve dinner. They are a team of chefs who work brilliantly together and always end up providing amazing results in their work.
       Anyways, I told the chefs to go home for the night. They made us lunch but I want to make us dinner so they went home early and I began making food with mamma.
       We begin talking about anything and everything, then there is a long moment of comfortable silence, which I break, "I just wanted to thank you. I never had a great relationship with my mother, you have witnessed it yourself, she is not the best person a lot of the time, and you just welcomed me into your family like nothing, and always treated me like your own. I cannot thank you enough for it." I say to her.
        She smiled at me, "I knew from the first day that you would be an amazing person, especially for my son to be with. And tesoro, your mother has caused you so much pain, I never wish to inflict that level of sadness upon anyone. You thought you were hard to love, I could see it on your face. Every time Riccardo or I said anything kind to you, showed any affection, you looked at us in disbelief, as if you had never experienced that before. But you are easier to love than breathing, and if there is ever anyone in your life that does not treat you as such, mother, sibling, friend, anyone, then they do not deserve to be in your life." she says, hugging me.
        I hug her back, almost wanting to cry. She's right. Everything my mother did was horrible, and I know now that I don't deserve to go through that again. Maybe my mother did not care for me, but my fiancés mother does.
        We continue preparing the food until we hear Matteo come in. "Melodia?" He calls out when he walks through the door.
"In the kitchen!" I scream out. I hear him walk into the front kitchen which is smaller and doesn't have any natural sunlight, only artificial lighting. I prefer the main kitchen that has tons of huge windows, glass doors that lead to the back of the house, it's overall a very pretty kitchen and I love it.
        He walks into this kitchen, hugging his mom first because she was closer then hugging me, placing a kiss on the top of my head.
        "How was your day?" I ask him as he carries the plates for us to the dining room.
        "It was okay, I have not have a lot of work to do recently. How was both of yours?" he asks us as we sit down to eat together.
        Mamma starts off first. She talks about how spending the day with us was so amazing and fun. She says she wouldn't have wanted to spend it any other way.

•••••

        The next day went by quick, Matteo went to work, Aless and Sofia came over with Vittoria and Angelo, I baked a cake.
         Now as I sit in the sunroom watching a movie, I receive a text message from a random number but it is very obvious as to who it is.

Unknown

Unknown: Aria, why the fuck did you block my number? I did so much for you and now you won't even talk to me. If you wanted me to do any better you should have been a better person so I would treat you better. It's not my fault you're such a difficult person to deal with.

        I throw the phone down on the bed and roll my eyes. I know I am holding back tears but I really shouldn't let her affect me. She's horrible and she always lies, I know that.
But then I decided not to hold the tears back. Matteo and I have talked about this so many times and I always tell him not to hide his emotions, so why am I trying to do the same thing.
I cry to the point that Bean comes over to me and sits next to me with his paw on my foot. He's weird, I don't know what to do with him.
Matteo gets here and as soon as he sees me, he comes over to me. I laugh and it sounds weird because I am crying but I don't know how else to react.
       He lets go of the hug but holds my hands in his, "Sweetheart, what happened?" he asks me.
       I look down at our hands and see that his are bruised and bloodied, "What happened to you?" I ask him, inspecting his hands.
       "That is not important right now, I want to know why you are crying," he says, kissing my cheek.
       I get off the bed and pull him into the restroom. The sunroom is smaller than our room but it's so perfect. I only hear mumbled complaints from him, but I ignore them. I am going to clean his hands up even if he thinks he doesn't need it.
        I take the first aid kit out from the cabinet then sit on the bathroom counter, taking his hands and pulling them to me. I start to clean off his hands by getting a cloth and wetting it, wiping everything off before continuing with the ointment and bandages.
        But while I am doing this, I tell him, "My mom texted me," he looks at me confused.
        "I thought you blocked her?" he asks gently, still letting me tend to his hands.
        I nod, "I did. She texted me from another phone I guess. But she just wanted to say shit like she always does. It's no big deal, it just makes me a bit emotional." I say, shrugging at my own story.
       I finish bandaging his hands and hold both of them in mine, looking up at him to smile. "Sweetheart, it is of importance if it makes you cry," he says, kissing right under my ear, then hugging me.
        I smile. I love his hugs.

•••••

just a reminder, from here on out, it will be mostly happy, maybe only one incident, someone may try to unalive her but other than that, it's gonna be happy for them

anyways. bye bye

~elle 🌸