Bargain Bride: The Billionaire’s Forced Wife

THE FIRST THING THAT greeted Chiara that morning is the sound of her ringing phone. The light of the sun doesn’t even reached her face, but she was woken up by the ringing sound. Still sleepy, she reached for her phone on the bed side table.

“Hello?” she asked with her morning voice and her eyes still closed.

“I hope I didn’t disturb your sleep, signora, ” Dante’s voice echoed in her ear. “It’s already 7 in the morning and I assume that you’re up. ”

Chiara got up and sat on the bed. Her head turned to her husband sleeping on the side. “Too bad, you woke me up.”

Dante chuckled on the other line. “I see, that’s why you sounded like a whale with blocked nose.”

“If you are in front of me, my fist would have landed on your face,” she replied while mocking and doing a sarcastic laugh. “I assume you called to give me updates?” she asked, shifting the topic back while caressing her husband’s cheeks.

“Yes, signora, ” he spoke with confidence. “This is about the list of names you sent me days before. I have gathered enough evidences to prove that they really work for Giovanni.”

Chiara grinned a little bit after hearing that. “That’s good. Give the evidences to me later, ” she replied while thinking what to do to the evidences next. “Shall we just meet halfway or will you go here in the safe house?”

“I’ll just visit, signora, ” he answered. “Wait, aren’t you going to your office today? It’s Monday.”

She shook her head even though he can’t see her. “I won’t. Ezio’s doctor will be here before noon and I want to be there, ” Chiara looked at the calendar, her eyes landed on the date today that has a note about the doctor’s visit. “Besides, I’ll be visiting Sophia later in the afternoon.”

Dante was quiet on thr other line for a short span of time. “About that case, signora, we still haven’t found Mr. Leon. I was thinking of squeezing information from Giovanni himself, but I don’t want to move without your confirmation.”

She thought of the suggestion for a moment, weighing the pros and cons. A deep sigh escaped her body. Chiara was stucked between the choices of doing Dante’s suggestion or not.

“Let’s put that on hold for a while, ” she answered after thinking of it. “If we will approach him this direct, it might put Marco’s life in danger, assuming that he is in Giovanni’s hands.”

She knows how psychotic Giovanni is. She knows that man won’t even think twice of killing Marco once they did a wrong move. The only choice they have is to pray that he wouldn’t to anything to Marco, until they found a sufficient and strong evidence that will pin him.

“I understand, signora, ” Dante replied on the other line. “I will continue the search. Please let me know if there any change of plans.”Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

“Actually, ” she stood up and walked towards the wooden cabinet. “I want you to investigate about something new, but still connected to Giovanni.”

“Sure, signora. Just give me the details, ” he said before grabbing his pen and a notebook.

Chiara pulled out some printed documents that contains news. “I stumble upon something that I think is one of Giovanni’s secrets. I want you to find his relationship with Ariti Gomez. I’ll send you the picturrs of that man, ” she explained while reading the printed news about Ariti’s death.

It was easy for her to obtain those news. Ariti was famous in his country as a businessman. His death became a huge news not just in the business circle but also in the masses. Several news outlets in the country and overseas featured his death. All of those stated the same thing, and that is Ariti died by committing suicide.

When Dante confirmed the details, the call between them ended. Chiara opened the intercomm. “Fara, please bring the breakfast to my room. ”

After saying the command, she went to their master bathroom and prepared a basin with tap water, a little bit of soap, and towels of various sizes.

She sat down beside her husband and removed his clothes before cleaning him up. It is her usual routine in the morning. She will wake up, clean her husband and change his clothes, before starting her own day.

While changing his clothes, Chiara’s eyes landed on the calendar once again. Her heart swelled upon seeing a date that was circled with red marker with some hearts on it.

Their fourth year anniversary is coming in two weeks. It makes her excited and lonely at the same time. Excited, because it will be the first time she will celebrate their anniversary. She has been avoiding and forgetting about it for the past years, throwing Ezio’s effort to celebrate their day of marriage. Lonely, because her husband is still unconscious.

She has a lot of plans on how to celebrate that special day. However, with Ezio still under a coma, she will need to change her plans.

Chiara started feeling the emotion of guilt once again. She blamed herself for not opening her heart to Ezio earlier, for not recognizing his efforts, and for not reciprocating his love on time.

This time, she will make sure to give all of her love and care to her husband, because she is a hundred percent sure that Ezio deserves it more than anyone in the world.

AFTERNOON CAME and Chiara was happy with the doctor’s findings. Ezio’s health is getting back on track and his brain is doing more activities than usual. It’s just a matter of time before he wake up. She just hopes that Ezio will wake up before their anniversary.

“We’re here, signora,” Victor who is under Ezio’s disguise spoke from the driver’s seat when they arrived outside of Sophia’s home.

They saw Sophia walking towards the gate, probably wanting to greet them after hearing the sound of a car parking. Victor opened the door for Chiara and at the same the she stepped out of the car, Sophia reached the entrance.

“Signor Ezio, Chiara,” she spoke. “Good afternoon.”

Victor just nodded at her, copying Ezio’s nonchalant approach to other people. Sophia walked towards Chiara before giving her cheek kisses.

Sophia’s reaction to Victor confirmed her hunch that Sophia still doesn’t know that the person who her husband was accused of shooting is Ezio. And she would like to keep it that way.

“Please come inside, ” she offered to the two.

Chiara spoke for the two of them. “We would love to, but my husband needs to go home now. He has a lot of paper works to finish by today.”

“I see, ” Sophia turned to the man behind Chiara. “Please have a safe trip going back.”

When Victor left, the two women walked inside, catching up with each other at first before going straight to the main agenda of Chiara’s visit.

“Sophia, ” Chiara spoke before putting down her cup. “I went over the things you said and created a timeline based on it. I just noticed a few things.”

“Oh, sure. What are those thing you noticed?”

Chiara cleared her throat first. “You said that your partnership with Armano Darte was on processe since more than a month ago, right?”

“Yes, ” Sophia nodded. “I still have the records. ”

“I see. My only concern is that Armani Darte is owned by Giovanni’s mistress, Isabella, ” she replied while remembering the events, “However, by the time your partnership process with them started, Isabella was detained for trespassing and Giovanni was also on jail that time, waiting for the trial. ”

“The two people behind that brand is not around, so who could be the person your husband is conversing to that time?” she asked.

Chiara speculated that it might be a worker or staff of Armano Darte. However, based on her investigation, the partnership between the two were handled by the owner.

“All I can say is it is a man, ” Sophia answered. “I heard the voice when I was outside my husband’s office. I was about to leave when the representative, I think, arrived to negotiate with my husband. I think that was during their first meeting. ”

Chiara was silent for a moment. She knew that the man can’t be Giovanni, but she has a hunch that this man might be the same one Marco met before he disappeared.

She continued to listen on what Sophia found out from her own investigation. Good thing that she didn’t dare approach Giovanni about it, rather, she waited for something that will really point him.

They just need to know who got Marco that they, and once they found that, they can easily link the person to Giovanni. That’s what these women hope.

On the other hand, Victor was driving back to the Vitali’s mansion to end his disguise for the day. However, he didn’t even reach half of the way when another car bumped into his.

“What the hell is that?” he exclaimed before the same car bumped him again. This time, the collision was stronger that it created a small car in the back window of the car.

Victor accelerated the car. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the car is after him, or after Ezio, rather. He was about to reach for his phone to call Chiara when the car bumped him again.

His head hit the steering wheel. The force was not strong enough to make him bleed or passed out, but it will surely leave a bump.

The car was on full speed yet the other car is catching up on him. He passed several cars who were honking on him. He can even hear police siren from afar.

When he looked at the side mirror, he saw a masked man putting his body out of the window, carrying a gun.

Victor swerved the car to different direction, attempting to dodge the bullets. His first attempts were successful, however, when a civilian car nearly bumped into him, his trajectory was spotted by the gunman.

“Damn!” he cursed and more cursed words escaped his mouth as more bullets rained on the car.

The bullet penetrated one of his car tired, making it explode. Fortunately and right on time, a familiar car of Ezio’s men showed up.

The car went near the driver’s seat while the gun man continued to shoot his tires. One of the back wheel exploded again and the car stopped in the middle of the road.

“Jump here!” one of Ezio’s men shouted as he opened the passenger seat door.

Victor didn’t waste a second and jumped to the other car. Just as before his body is fully inside, another bullet was fired and this time, it hit his arm.

He groaned in pain while preventing it from bleeding. Ezio’s men shoot the car and if he saw it right, the gun man was shot on his head.