The maids came to help with her shopping bags and headed to her bedroom with them.
Her eyes caught that no one was in sight as she made her way inside the kitchen, with her heels dangling on her fingers.
She grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator with her free hand and took a long sip. Humming as the cold washed her burning insides.
She left the bottle on the island and walked past the halls, past Antonio's office. But it was the mention of her name that made her feet halt, and her eyebrows furrowing.
What the hell? She said in her mind.
Taking careful and silent steps back, she pressed her ear to the door.
"One month? One fucking month? Are you playing games with me, Antonio?" The deep new voice and the topic made her ears perk up.
"I don't bite the hand that feeds me, Enzo, relax. She is already troublesome as it is, and if we pressure her, she might—anyway, it's not even that long. Please be patient." Antonio uttered.
"How the fuck am I supposed to be patient when my client is bursting my ears demanding her?"
Chiara's mind stopped. Demanding who? she thought.
"Antonio, I paid enough to run your entire election campaign. Don't even think for a second that I am incapable of ruining things for you either," drawled the named Enzo.
"Jesus! What's so special about her anyway?" His voice went high-pitched.
Her hands clenched into a fist, thinking; These assholes. What nonsense were they talking about?
"I guess a man like you and me, we'll never know. Furthermore, not my business or yours. If my clients demand, I give them what they want. And my client happened to fall for your daughter's charm or whatever, and that's exactly what I will give him." Enzo said.
Chiara undid the top two buttons, feeling sweat pouring down her neck.
Her lungs were deprived of air, and it was the walls that supported her as she quickly dragged herself to her bedroom, locking the door behind her.
Her back was pressed on it with her head hanging low. The heels slid from her grasp as her entire body began to shake.
Thoughts flooded her mind.
Client? He said… a client demanded me?
That son of dick wasn't going to marry me, he was going to sell me off. No. Antonio sold me off! She processed in anger.
Breath was taken right out of her lungs. It felt like they were burning in its absence. Her heart raced like she was in a marathon and more sweat poured.
"That devil! How did I miss that?" She said.
She should've known that Antonio was up to no good right from the start. He didn't just want her out of his house, but out of their lives entirely. To think that he was her mother's husband and the father of her only sibling.
She chuckled bitterly, pain flared in her throat. Her body slid to the floor.
She should've known, because Enzo was a well-known human trafficker and nobody could touch him.
Her stomach began to churn. She blew out a series of short breaths, trying not to let control slip from her. Her hands thoughtlessly grabbed her hair, knotting the ends and cutting it off. Her eyes darted around, and suddenly the room was closing in on her.
She should've known that she was just a puppet on the chessboard, yet again.
Her chest tightened as she practiced breathing normally again. "Your'e okay, We're not there anymore, Chiara. We're not there anymore. You're okay." Her body rocked back and forth as she chanted those words over and over again.
She lost track of time.
She stood up later, taking off her coat with her shaky hands and slammed it down. Then her shirt followed. Everything under this roof was suffocating her.
She sat on the edge of the bed in just her suit pants and bra, staring blankly out the window.
Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall, making an oath to herself.
"I, Chiara, wouldn't keep being a tool in their treacherous games. I would become a player instead, playing alongside them."
She knew, neither the greedy piece of shit Antonio, nor that bastard Enzo could seal her fate. She would do that herself.
She grabbed a flower vase from the nightstand and flung it. The window shattered, setting the alarm off in the entire mansion.
She guessed she would continue to do what she knew best, destruction. Only that this time, with extra force and without any mercy.
Our entire lives, if there were three things my stepfather was obsessed with, then it was money, power, and reputation. And I was planning on tainting and ruining them all, because that was, in fact, my obsession. She thought.
After another round of mental breakdown for the day, she placed down the mascara and retouched her lip combo, wiping the corners with the tip of her pinky finger.
She was informed to prepare for a date night this evening with her fiancé. And as usual, she was given no chance to say a word about it.
So she came back from work, jumped to the internet, and dug up some particulars about the man.
She was convinced, the more she learned about him, the more it would help her figure out how to get him out of her life.
There were Jensen, Matteo, Rico, Mario, and many others before him. They all went with the wind, and some had to face her hand when they played hard to get or forced themselves on her.
Enzo wasn't the first stumbling block on her path.
His text notification pinged as she tied her strappy heels. "I'm already here." She mimicked his voice as she read it, before placing the phone in her silver-stoned clutch with a sneer.
The black long-sleeved dress fell as she got up, revealing her olive-skinned thigh through the high split with each of her steps out of the bedroom.
"Son of a dick, here I come." She said.