Riccardo POV:The time on my watch showed almost six. Cassandra had left like an hour ago. I guessed she probably had arrived home by now. I had no intention to stop working yet, probably going to stay in the office until midnight.My phone which was in silent mode kept vibrating since morning, receiving calls from Carina. I avoided answering any of those calls because I didn't have the mood to argue with Carina right now. Surely, all her calls must be because of Cassandra. Don Luigi had announced his birthday party, so Carina must have wanted to know who was my plus one for the party later. She probably wanted to persuade me to make her my partner. Hell, no. Sergio said I should bring Cassie to that party. So, Cassie it was.My eyes suddenly caught something unusual on my phone screen. There were just calls before. But now, I saw Carina sent me a message with some pictures attached. That was a bit uncanny. Did she try to blackmail me with some of our intimate photos now? So, I opened
Cassandra POV:Ricky gave no response to my question. He was just keeping his mouth shut and a moment later, he looked away from me. Slowly, I released his arm and pretended to run back to the apartment building."Wait! Where are you going?!" The man got annoyed. I expected him to chase after me, and he did.My steps were probably too tiny, it only took seconds for him to grab my body again. Without words, he just dragged me and shoved me into the black car that sent me home before. One of his men entered the driver's seat without being told and started the engine. Ricky told him to drive a bit far away from the scene, so the driver drove about two buildings away from Rosette Apartment. Initially, the car was parked right in front of the apartment building."Get out. I need some privacy," Ricky told the driver when the car halted by the roadside, leaving only me and him inside."Who's Carina? Why were your men all around the apartment? What's with the bomb? Was that meant for you? Is
Cassandra POV:Ricky didn't answer me. Instead, he gave me his cold look as if he dislike my question. I didn't have the mood to continue this argument. All I wanted was to go back into my apartment unit and continued watching television so my mind could forget what happened. I could sense that he was still following me. I tried to enter Rosette Apartment again but the two police officers that stood by the entrance stopped me, requiring me to give a few statements to them."Miss, I'm sorry to bother you but we need to ask you if you have any idea who might be the one behind this prank. If you know anything at all, please tell us," the first officer said."Do you know any of the former management employees of this apartment? I asked almost every tenant and they all noticed that the management had changed their entire employees this morning, including the janitor. Have you had any idea why this happen? This might help the case," the second officer added.No, it's not. That won't help th
Riccardo POV:We were now sitting in the backseat of a Maybach car, heading towards my mansion. I instructed Dome to be the driver. Cassie was sitting on my left pushing her body close to the car door, putting a clear distance between us. She didn't want to look at me.After the police officers took my side and advised her to follow me back home, she had no choice but to concur. So, here we were, having a silent argument inside this car.She was no longer covered with Dome's suit. It was silly but I felt jealous over the fact that Dome gave her his suit to cover her revealing clothes, a sleeping gown to be exact. So, I took off Dome's suit and gave it back to the bodyguard and now Cassie was wearing my suit instead. Trust me, I wished I was the suit.I tried to circle my arm around her shoulders. But she pushed me away hatefully as soon as my hand tried to reach her. Clearly, she was still pissed off over what happened tonight. Understandable, of course. She just found out that I had
Cassandra POV:Had you ever felt like you'd been kidnapped? Because that was how I felt right now. I was taken away from my home without my will and now I needed to survive this strange mansion that Ricky claimed was haunted.Okay, that was not even the worst part. Let just went back to the time after the bomb prank incident, right after the police officers took his side and advised me to just live in his house for the safety of the other tenants of Rosette Apartment.During the incident, I ran to safety with only a sleeping gown on my body and house slippers on my feet. Nothing was with me other than that. So, after the commotion subsided, I wanted to go up back to my apartment unit. But Ricky disallowed me, saying it was his house technically because he was the dominant owner according to the house ownership agreement I signed before. I told him I needed my stuff up there, at least my phone and my purse. So, he asked me where I put those. I said they were in my handbag. Then, he jus
Cassandra POV:Ricky left the bedroom. The lights were still on but I was too lazy to get up and turned them off. I closed my eyes trying to get some sleep. But my mind didn't want to shut up. There were these hundreds of questions hovering over my head and they were all about Ricky and that Carina woman."Aaissshh!!" I grumbled as I rose to a sitting position. There was an antic clock hanging on the wall and I checked the time. It was twenty minutes before eleven."Where the hell did he need to go this late?" I wondered. Did he meet Carina? No, I hated having this kind of thought. Did he though? Suddenly, I could feel some kind of jealousy surging over my entire soul. I didn't want Ricky to meet Carina. What if they met and then went intimate again?I took a pillow and threw it on the floor. I guessed that was the only way I could vent my frustration. Then I walked to the bedroom door and tried to come out. I only opened it for a tiny peek, but I noticed Ernesto and Verona gazed up a
Cassandra POV:"Ricky... no..."I think there was a problem with Ricky. He was obviously someone who couldn't accept rejection. I was quite sure that last night I said no to him. But here I was this morning, sitting in bed, totally naked and only covered with a comforter. Ricky was nowhere to be found. He probably had gone to the company.My sleeping gown was on the floor, torn into pieces. Clear proof of how rough and violent Ricky was last night. Maybe his soul was a beast. The part between my thighs was still throbbing. I didn't know what his problem was last night. The last two lovemaking we had before were not this painful. Did he try to pull some kind of revenge on me?I pondered alone without even bothering to check the time. I knew it was still early but I had no mood to leave bed. I didn't have any clothes to wear anyway. Ricky probably didn't even think about that. How inconsiderate.It was just seconds that I judged him but the man suddenly appeared and entered the bedroom
Cassandra POV: "Are you sure he won't make me pay for these later?" I asked Verona for confirmation. The maid seemed hesitant but she still nodded. Even Ernesto and all the boutique owners nodded along with her. "If he does, I'm going to snap his dick into two," I said unthinkingly. Those words came out of my mouth pretty naturally like when you cursed someone you resent. But the rest took it literally. Now everyone stared at me with their eyes widened in shock. "I'm just kidding," I tried to brush away their worries with a laugh. They really thought I would do something like that to Ricky? That was fairly impossible. Ricky was obviously stronger than me. It would be really easy for him to avoid any attack from me. At last, I ended up just choosing some clothes from the boutique owners' collections. Verona took all of them upstairs to be put inside the wardrobe. I meant to go out after and had a thought about changing my clothes to a new ones. But as I stared at my reflection thro
Cassandra POV:Seven years of heartbreak and hell, and now seven years of heaven later. I gave birth to my son safely and he was six now. We named him Rafael. I knew not really a cute name. But it brought great meaning, which was, healed by God. I hoped his life would be much better than the one that I and Ricky had.Oddly, there was nothing much I should do after taking over the Rossi region. As I requested, Ricky took down the Rossi's mansion to the ground and built my very first art gallery on the land. Because of my anonymous identity in my painting business, I was able to continue it even after the cathedral case. So, I lived by making my own million dollars selling paintings til today. Certainly, a lot more companies began offering me collaborations too.News about my parents and Christopher? Well, nothing much. My father found out that he had stage four lung cancer and Christopher got a woman who was way older than him pregnant, forced to be married to her and now he was doing
Riccardo POV:If that was what she wished for then I won't stop her. She deserved to have all the happiness she could get now. No more Carina to shadow her from living her life to the fullest. Cassie can now finally live the life she deserved. I would make sure it stayed that way as long as I lived.The next day, I returned to the company again after a long break. Today was important because all the Mafia Dons along with some of their future successors would be having a meeting with me inside my office room. With the whole Rossi family gone, the Rossi region was left without any leader now.Everyone expected the leadership to fall into my hands. But I just didn't feel right taking power over half of the country's region. I just didn't feel like being in that much power. Carina's effort to overthrow me before had left a trace of sense in me that people would start envying you if you had too much power. But then again, the whole Rossi family members were dead now. Giving their land to o
Riccardo POV:I never would have expected that Cassie's relationship with her family was this bad. I got it that they weren't talking anymore but I never had the idea that they were treating her this disrespectfully.She just got out of jail after shooting Carina, had her dream wedding turned into a tragic incident of bloody red event and instead of comforting her, her parents just chose to annoy her even more. Not to mention the extreme entitlement her younger brother had over her, demanding a job from me because I married Cassie without their consent. The audacity."Leave... And stop bothering my wife again. If I see anyone of you try to step foot on my property again, I won't hesitate to sue for invasion of privacy and have the police take you all away. Don't even try to test me. Ernesto, tell Dome and Marco to escort them out. Put them on the blacklist. Don't let them enter my mansion again."Cruel? I bet Cassie would want it to be worse. I'm being kind enough that I let them leav
Cassandra POV:I didn't know what my family was trying to do by coming here to meet me after my court case had ended. It seemed like they were waiting to see if I was really innocent about it or not. They started showing how they cared about me. So for once, I thought maybe they were being real this time. I invited them to sit in the living room and I told Verona to go serve some drinks for them. My parents just started looking around the mansion and checking out every stuff their eyes could see."I have some work to do upstairs. Why don't you just have some private talk with your family first," Ricky said and I just nodded in agreement.Honestly, I could sense that they were having some ulterior motives to come here. But I tried to think positively and went to sit together with them in the living room. Maybe it would be different this time. Maybe they really wanted the four of us to be a real family now. The thought of my mother admitted that she never loved me when I had the phone c
Riccardo POV: When I woke up again, the doctor told me that I had been out for three days. Sergio, Dome, Leo and Franco were all around my bed. But Cassie was nowhere to be seen. "Where is my wife?" I asked firmly to them. I really thought that I was going to die but now that I'm wide awake and felt strong again, my heart just instantly searched for that one woman I loved the most. I turned to Sergio as he was the one responsible for everything if I ever was not fit to be in power. He looked down to avoid my gaze and started apologizing. "She's in jail. Convicted with first-degree murder of Carina at the cathedral," Sergio said timidly. That just instantly made me angry. "What do you mean she's in jail?! It was self-defence. You all saw it. Carina shot at us first. How long had she been in there?!" I asked fast and Leo told me it was ever since I was hospitalized. I sighed hard in frustration and my chest started feeling hurt, the effect of the gunshot wounds I got. They all star
Cassandra POV: When we arrived at the hospital, Ricky was pushed to the ICU instantly. I, Leo, Sergio and Dome were asked to wait outside. We waited for hours before the doctor came out and told us that Ricky was fine. The bullets had been taken out from his body and lucky enough none of them hit his internal organ. He just lost a lot of blood but was estimated to be in full recovery within two weeks. I finally could breathe normally again when the doctor said that. Everyone looked glad and maybe this was indeed going to be my happy ending, right? But who was I kidding? Not even a day passed but a few policemen had arrived at the hospital to take me in. "I'm sorry. Are you Miss Cassandra Moore or should I call you Mrs Xavier instead?" A police officer talked to me. "I'm her lawyer. Don't say anything," Sergio came forward and warned me to shut my mouth. He was ready to deal with the police in order to protect me. "We received multiple reports stating that a murder had happened ins
Cassandra POV: I couldn't believe that this was happening. Of all the days she could have come and attacked me, she chose to do it on the most important day of my life. My heart just shattered entirely the moment Ricky chose to use his body to shield me from the gunshot Carina fired at us. He instantly fell to the floor and I could only see death was coming to get him. My mind went insane at once and I could feel my whole life would be over if Ricky died. But I no longer wanted to live in fear if Carina was able to escape again. She must die today no matter what happened. With all my logical thinking going disarray, I just did whatever crossed my mind. I knew Ricky had a gun right now, so I went to get it. "I killed the Godfather! I killed the Godfather!" I heard how Carina was screaming happily to celebrate her success in shooting down Ricky. It enraged me so badly that I lost my sense of humanity for that split moment. "You're a f*cking monster! I'm going to kill you! I'm going t
Riccardo POV:"Do you take Cassandra Moore as your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?" The priest's voice echoed all over the cathedral as he spoke on the microphone."I do," I replied solemnly without a single hesitation. I had been waiting to say those two words my whole life for Cassie."Do you take Riccardo Xavier as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?" The priest repeated the same to Cassie."I do," she too seemed to be confident saying those two words for me.Then came the time for both of us to exchange wedding rings. We faced each other, looking dear as soon enough, we would be officially husband and wife for good. Actually, in legal law, we were already married as I had registered our
Riccardo POV:Cassie just automatically turned sad at the mention of Nicola. Now that she saw the heels Nicola made for her wedding, she just couldn't help whimpering at them. Maybe the memory was too horrible for her. I remembered how she was there too when we found pieces of Nicola's remains on the hill where her car was bombed by Carina. Cassie fainted that day and she was so taken aback to lose Nicola that way.How she had convinced me so much about Carina's wicked intention. If only I had trusted her that time. This memory just reminded me how stupid I was in the past. Now, it hit my feeling hard too. I quickly held Cassie tightly in my arms and kissed her forehead a few times."I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." I couldn't stop apologizing as the memory flashed in the back of my mind. It suddenly made me realize how lucky I was that I managed to make things right again with Cassie. To be able to come to this point again with her, it was somewhat amazing how the universe worked his mi