Love Does Cost A Thing

Book three: Chapter seventeen

So I just realized today is the second day of a new month🥳 which means LDAC has to come to an end before the end of this month at most😩

Luigi's POV

Cladded impeccably in my jeans and cashmere sweater, I opened the door for Zuri to step out of the car. She got down, buttoning her oversized blazer she had paired with cream suit pants and wore her glasses before holding my hands. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to me as we made our way towards the grand court where the trial of my mother was going to be held.

All along I thought Carlotta was cunning and shrewd but she's proven to be dumber than the word dumb. Unlike Paris who pleaded guilty to the charges against her in order to lessen her sentence, Carlotta pleaded a nolo contedere. She's so stupid! She tried to flee out of the country last Sunday in order to lie low for a while after the police issued an arrest warrant against her for her involvement in drug trafficking aside the conspiracy to murder and murder charges against her. She was dumb enough to enter a no contest plea not knowing she's facing felony charges and her plea is as good as a guilty one.

She's the reason we're here today, the reason Zuri had to get up from bed after being told by the doctor to get rest for a week after suffering from severe food poisoning at work yesterday.

Since this was a high profile case, media men and women were stationed at the entrance of the court. They didn't waste time in firing questions at us when they saw us approach. However I refused to answer any question or speak on the matter, with my hands wrapped protectively around Zuri, we fought our way through them and successfully entered the courtroom then took our seats beside Fia at the back.

"Hey."

"Hi." She muttered, looking away. I sighed, much as she disliked Carlotta, Fia was affected by what's happening and I am too. She wasn't a mother to us, she never cared for us or loved us but she's still our mother after all. She has that title in our life though she never deserved it, I still feel some compassion for her current predicament bad or not.

She has not only brought disgrace on herself, she also has on her husband, we, get children who're going to bear much of the consequences for her action and the entire Gianni family. Yesterday we partied, mingling with high and affluent while we held our heads high but today we're being scorned, looked upon in judgment due to the greediness and evil of one woman.

We can't go anywhere without people looking at us with accusing eyes, hands discreetly pointing at us and some people have started questioning our wealth, our business is on the verge of being confiscated by the state just because of Carlotta! Thinking about that makes my blood boil, it makes me livid and I want to strangle the greed and wickedness out of her. I can't though I want to, her fate is in the hands of the court which is why we're here.

I pecked Zuri, asking her if she was good to which she replied with a faint yeah and a nod.

"Do you think they're going to slap her with a life imprisonment sentence?" I followed Fia's line of vision to see Carlotta sitting beside her lawyer at the front.

How the mighty have fallen! So this is the end of a great vicious woman. A woman who never walked around the house looking sophisticated today is sitting in a courtroom wearing ordinary criminal jumpsuit and in a cookout she hated too, orange.

It was weird seeing her without her waist length hair that she mostly leaves loose, the fake lashes she always batted in anger to drive fear into people, nose ring and all the jewelries she adorned her neck with. I bet the policemen ordered her to remove her anklets too.

I shook my head, she was looking rather pitiful sitting there with her head dropped into her palms, for someone like her I doubt she's feeling remorseful. "I can't say much cause I have no idea but looking at how things are, I won't be surprised if they do." I finally replied her after tearing my gaze away from her.