Chapter 4 A fa ade

Chapter 0004|A Façade

Smiling trophy wives in the arms of gruff looking men with the bulge and outline of their pistols barely covered as they drank from tall wineglasses, pretended to be enjoying making little talks even while watching their backs and their supposed friends and acquaintances through the rim of their glass. Tough crowd.

"I told you I'm here to scope out this Amelia and figure out how to use her to my advantage to hurt her father." I crane my neck searching for her while ignoring the doubtful suspicious look, Tristan was throwing my way.

"Look I won't judge you if you're a bit infatuated with Romania's daughter. That girl's beauty is almost ethereal and her ravishing pure blemish-free skin___"

"That enunciates just how hard it'll be for her to grasp the concept of hard work and not getting things handed to her even if it hits her square on the face."

"You know her name is Amelia for a reason. She is nothing like her father."

I scoffed a bit angry that Tristan was taking sides.

"The fact that she appears oblivious and innocent doesn't make her pure. Looks can be deceiving, you of all people should be aware of this."

"Most people turn out to be better humans than their fathers." He retorted and I gave him a wry look aware that I had walked into that one by myself. "You should know that." He gave me a pointed stare and I fought the urge to ruffle his black hair like I did when we were much younger and he was being cheeky.

"I don't see the need to go back and forth with you in a banter that is completely useless to what I need to do tonight especially when I have a pressing matter to deal with which involves finding the lady of honour,"

"You still haven't told me what you plan to do with and by her."

"Because I haven't figured it out," I said ignoring his disbelieving scoff. "I'll know when I see her."

He held my gaze for a while and whatever he saw in my blank face made him sigh. "Things aren't always what it looks like. Don't judge a book by its cover, Jason."

I opened my mouth to probably tell Tristan to shut his but it remained hanging as I saw her. The blue-lit spot where she stood highlighted her perfect face and almost like an artist's thoughtful image which he spends countless sleepless nights on, every feature, every crease caused by a frown, defiance shining brightly in her eyes and mouth in a tight line expressing an equal measure of displeasure and anger, every little detail about her was fascinating and alluring.

She was a beautiful woman, I couldn't deny and her body was supposed to be for sin especially with the way she carried herself showing that she knew she was the spotlight, the reason why all these leering ogling men were here and as I expected, the demure little missus on the newspaper was a façade to hide the arrogance I could now clearly see but I have met drop-dead gorgeous women in the past that did nothing for me and couldn't hold my attention longer than the minutes spent pinned underneath me but with her, I stared.

Perhaps what held my attention more wasn't just the beauty everyone was fixated on, it was the frustrated unhidden 'I would rather be anywhere than here' look that was beneath her sugary sweet smile that I could see from feet away, but the kid who was supposed to be making her a wife soon and had his hands possessively all over her couldn't take notice of, it was the amusing way she discreetly rolled her eyes whenever a couple approaches them like she couldn't deal with keeping that too wide a smile on her face for much longer. I bet her cheeks must be hurting.

And then there was the occasional glimpse of a child in a woman's body who didn't exactly fit into this world of guns, power games and, crimes. She just had this bit of sunshine ray to her that was hard to miss regardless of how much you wanted to hate her, how much she hated being here and, even I couldn't pretend to be blind to that even though the man who brought her into this world was a scheming Bastard.

I should leave.

I shouldn't be sexually aware of an almost child who is ten years my junior but I couldn't help but notice the provocative dip in front of her gown that revealed a glimpse of two beautiful youthful mounds ...

I blinked wondering what the hell I was thinking and what was so special about this kid that was making me lose complete control of every self-control with women that now comes instinctively to me.

I was snapped out of my thoughts as she leans into the ear of her fiancé and then left the room. I found myself quickly mumbling what was supposed to be a good enough excuse to Tristan that was barely coherent and ended with girl.

Then I followed Amelia, crouching on the floor a multiple times when she turns like she couldn't afford to be followed which intrigued me more and made climbing the grand staircase that must have cost a fortune to remodel since I could tell the tiled spiralled staircase was nothing like the original rickety one, since it was the historical grand "Apleninca pinnacle" after all, that I had spent most of my childhood and naivety gaping in awe at every picture of it I could find featured in one of the fashion magazines my sister usually keeps that made me entertain thoughts of how grand it'll be to live in a house that had lots of undiscovered rooms and you'll need a tour guide and a map not to get lost in. But now I was realizing that there was nothing grand about breaking a sweat because of the fleet of stairs you need to access because houses like this don't come with the luxury of elevators and I'll have to agree that the chiming of one of those would make the Apleninca lose its charm and grandeur.

Grateful that Romania's daughter did have a destination in mind in her almost endless journey, I ducked underneath the bend of the staircase as she looked behind her shoulder before passing through a double door entrance and disappearing.

I made to stand up but remained in that position as the door creaked open and she resurfaced but there was something off about her that I couldn't place my hand on. She was wearing the same dress, the damn tiara that looked like a dress-up costume but her shoulders were stiffer, her footsteps slightly faster and noticeably not as graceful.

Apart from the fact that Amelia had not given enough thought to finding somebody as her body double who had the exact curvy waist that her gown clung to and the ample amount of cleavage but had been more focused on things like her eye colour, hair and height made me realize she was less smart than I gave her credit for but remembering that her fiancé was too wasted to care and wouldn't mind conversing with a beanstalk as long as it was draped in a dress and could resist the urge to yawn as he bragged about his lofty claims I could bet he has been making all night, I shrugged.

I waited till Amelia's body double was long gone before I carefully made my way to the door and opened it carefully after pressing my ears to it for seconds ignoring how ridiculous I must look, I was immediately assaulted with bright colours, to be more specific an amount of pink colours that should not even be allowed and encouraged in the room of a 6 year old. The only thing that gave a clue that this room might belong to someone who wasn't 4 and obsessed with Barbie amongst the pink thick cover diary with a lock on it, the hairbrush, and long collection of Fresno dolls were the tube of lip-gloss arranged on top a dresser that was surprisingly antique and not pink, with a makeup kit and, nail polish.

I groaned in chagrin, so much for not judging a book by its cover, she was truly a spoilt overgrown three-year-old who still believed in unicorns and prince charming.

The shower wasn't running I observed with a crease in between my brows the minute I was done getting over the state of the room that looked like a glitter princess threw up all over it.

What the hell is happening here? I thought to myself as I was quite sure that Amelia entered this room and wasn't the one who walked out minutes ago so where the hell was she? because the last time I checked being a Slovakia didn't earn you the rights to disappear and appear at will...yet.

I stood in front of a full-length mirror that swivels, Yes, you heard me right and was about to walk out of the room realizing how much of a creep I was coming out to look like, but my eyes caught something so insignificant yet I walked closer to the huge intimidating frame of a Russian poet that screamed wrong and misplaced in a room that ticks all the boxes of all Barbie would want in her room if life could be sniffed into her.

I touched the top and like I thought there was dust but not that much of it which was weird since a girl like Amelia struck me as the type that would see to it that her maids work out the full value of their wages which meant only one thing, she had instructed no one to move it so they couldn't discover her...

I brought down the large picture frame and there it was an intricately patterned hidden door which explains why the frame wasn't covered in dust.

She moved it consistently which means she used this exit I doubted Romania was aware of every single day.

I walked inside the room which made me impressively surprised, shockingly she hadn't turned it into a bling-bling identical version of her room instead it was illuminated with fire torches on iron stands that I bet she had just lit. Fire Torches were one of the reasons I was infatuated with the billion dollars ancestral home of the Slovakia even as a homeless boy in the trenches who pickpocketed to survive.