Mistakenly Eaten

46. Irene's Bold Move

Romeo Ferrara, a poor fisherman, belonging to a lower class family, around thirty years ago, was a man full of spirit and jest. His handsome and rugged looks, were able to catch the eye of many women around the small town of Gragnano but Romeo’s eyes were fixated at only one woman.

Monique Romano.

A beauty – as the entire town described.

Boys stood on the road, that led from her beautiful hill mansion up till her high school, throwing flowers her way, with many even offering her diamond rings.

Her sharp features, crystal green eyes, plum lips and her shining tanned skin, always caught the eye of every bachelor in the town.

Her family was quite reserved and strict when it came to her interaction with boys. They made sure to never let any bystander come any closer to their daughter and even selected the boys, that their daughter.

But her eyes knew only one face and her heart lingered for the touch of only one man.

Romeo – her Romeo.

He was an orphaned fisherman, who worked for Monique’s father’s fishery subsidiary. He was obviously looked down upon by the family and only treated merely as a poor worker by them.

But for Monique, he was the king of her world.

She grew up admiring and loving him.

Ever since they were thirteen, she would never let any girl get any closer to him and always be there by his side. She professed her love for him when she was just sixteen and Romeo, couldn’t deny his feelings either.

When they turned eighteen and Monique’s family, started looking for suitable proposals for their daughter, it went off as an alarm in Romeo’s mind.

Both Monique and Romeo knew that the family of the girl would never accept the boy for their daughter.

Romeo, even fought for his love, got beaten up by Gustav and his men, many a time but he never gave up on his love.

There were nights of loneliness for the two, where the two carried in each other’s remembrance but it was only a time of a month that had passed by, when Monique found out that she was pregnant with Romeo’s child.

She knew way too well, that her family would have the child and Monique both murdered but there was nothing else she could do but to elope and run away with Romeo.

The two took exile in a nearby town, getting a small house on rent that was nearby to the shore, making it easier for Romeo to continue his profession all the while he also took care of his wife.

He always understood that his wife came from a rich family and she wasn’t used to of working, that’s why he never let her step outside of the house for labor, even for a single day and Monique also understood that the man she married couldn’t bring her luxury the way her father had.

That’s she also never made any demands from him and the only expectation she ever had from Romeo was that, he would just take care of their children and never let any harm come their way.

And Romeo loved his daughter Althea with all his heart. He forced the life out of every single cell of his body to love and care for his daughter and treated her like a little princess. He would get her the most expensive toy that he would set his eyes on and even if Monique wouldn’t agree with his methods of taking care of their daughter, Romeo would always tell her that he was not spoiling his daughter but instead he was simply loving her, so that she would know what it was like to be loved truly and properly.

When Althea was five, the couple had their second child, Irene and Romeo made Althea promise to always love her little sister, with all her might and even at the mere age of five, she took promises very seriously.

That’s why, when Romeo passed away in a fishing incident, where he went on fish, seeing the high sea levels, getting greedy that his boat might be able to catch the most fish in the sea during the storm, he ended up losing his life, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

Althea had grown up seeing her mother getting weaker by every passing day without her father, making her realize that her father’s absence created a whole in her mother’s heart that weakened her.

That’s why, Althea became the strength that her mother needed. She put her needs second and became the strength that her mother required to survive the cruel world that she had stepped in, after coming back to her home town.

She never let a single wrinkle ever come on her forehead, whenever her mother or sister needed any help, she simply gave up on herself.

That led to her working in her uncle’s restaurant but she still never gave up on her hopes that things would turn around for her.

She was hurt and betrayed by anyone that she ever trusted, just like her uncle, her cousin and Angelo. She had no one but her mother and her friends, Seb and Lur to look up to for emotional support.

Her mother was mostly out busy with work and didn’t know the kind of the problems that Althea went through and that’s why, she only had Seb and Lur, with whom she was quite close to and ran a catering business with.

On the other contrary, her sister Irene was quite the selfish one.

Because of her, Althea became her uncle’s slave and was even against the idea of Irene getting married and even though the townsmen believed that Althea was jealous of her sister getting married in to a rich family but the ones closer to Monique made it clear to everyone else that Althea wanted her sister to be independent, instead of marrying in to a miser and arrogant family like the one that the Como’s were.

Nicholas sighed, ending up reading the entire chapter on Althea’s past and her life.

There was only a very little and a few details on Althea’s personal life and her relationship with Angelo. So, he ended up writing an email to his investigator to find more about the man, since he wanted to know what kind of relationship she actually shared in her past.

He wasn’t the kind of the person, to be affected by someone’s life or their past but someone, he was intrigued to know about Althea’s past.

As he wrote to his investigator to find more on Althea’s ex boyfriend, somehow he ended up writing to find more about Althea’s sister Irene and her fiancé and his family as well.

He didn’t know why but he wanted to be sure about the family that her sister was marrying in to.

After reading that she was concerned about Irene marrying in to that family, Althea tried to stop her from marrying Peter. Nicholas was able to culminate the fact that Althea was actually quite a practical and sensible girl and he trusted her intuition, that became the reason why, he wanted to test how accurate the girl was about Irene’s fiancé and his family.

As he wrote the demands to his investigator and pressed send, the email was immediately received on the other end up a man, sitting on his big yacht, in the middle of the Gulf of Naples, shirtless, tanned and oiled, soaking the sun fresh over his skin.

He groaned, checking his phone, agitated that his boss wouldn’t let him enjoy a small trip in Europe but then again, he was reminded that it was his boss who was also paying for the yacht and the booze that he tanned and sipped on.

He read the email and realized that Nicholas would want immediate results, since he was paying half a million for this investigation and in all honesty, the investigator also knew that the money was nothing but a little spec of dust for his boss.

Still, agitated the guy got up from his laying board and turned around the wheel of the boat, sailing off towards the coast of the town to continue investigating on Angelo and Irene.

Irene, the girl who was not even in Gragnano at the moment and instead in Rome, sitting inside the large living room of her future in law’s mansion, who all gathered around her, sipping on their expensive wine, wearing crystal shiny diamonds, flaunting their Dolce & Gabbana-s.

Irene obviously felt belittled by just their presence and conscious in her Reserved dress that Althea got for her, no special occasion, just randomly gifting her such things.

She always did so, knowing that Irene had friends with whom she hung out every now and then.

Irene was attending another one of the luncheons that her mother in law was holding, in the name of the marriage preparation, stating that she was simply and gradually inviting different members of her different clubs to the wedding. Those luncheons had become very often and were honestly getting on Irene’s nerves, who was not only running out of clothes but also getting annoyed and irritated, when at every other person would ask her which family she belonged to, expecting her to take a big name and she was getting full of guilt, having to take her uncle’s name every time.

She hated how they were all impressed by a miser and an arrogantly immoral man like her uncle, who was out there hungry for money, despite of being one of the richest man of the town. Her heart was still in turmoil ever since, she found out that Althea was spending years in s*****y to her uncle because of the loan she took for Irene and never even let the girl take any stress so that her education never got affected.

She had started to feel ashamed of herself that she was hiding away her true family, her mother and her sister.

Her mother was not even invited to a single luncheon and even if she was, there were zero chances of Monique ever coming to those events, since she was spending her days and nights, crying and worrying about her daughter’s disappearance.

Irene was also disturbed on the inside, ate up with guilt that whilst her sister was still missing, she was out her enjoying meals and luncheons and parties, whilst her mother was being fed by the entire town.

Every other day, the Comos would hold a party for their celebration, laying out grand tables of buffet to feed the already rich. Irene saw how the food went to waste and not even for a single day did the family offered to help Irene’s family neither did they offered to use their connections and look for the disappeared daughter.

She looked down at the shiny diamond ring in her finger. This made her question and wonder if love was worth the price of losing your family for.

Love was supposed to be a safe space, love was supposed to make you feel supported and even though Peter tried his best to show that he was there for her and supported her in the whole situation but Irene never felt that he actually understood her.

And did she even have the right to complain to Peter? Did she actually love him or did she love the bling and the sense of comfort and luxury he brought to her.

Did Peter actually love her? or was she just a nice and shiny and beautiful woman, blessed with nice genes, that would carry his offspring, give birth to them and be a perfect trophy wife.

Did she really want to sacrifice the hard work that her sister did for her for the sake of being selfish and just to secure her own future.

“Smile!”

A sinisterly voice echoed around Irene, making her gasp and look up to find her mother in law standing right above her.

She stood up and watched as the woman scorned with a wistful gaze.

“Smile!” she scolded her again and this time Irene couldn’t take her condescending tone anymore.

“You don’t look like you are happy marrying my son.”

“I am just disturbed because of my sister’s disappearance.” Irene told the woman off, making it stir clear why she couldn’t be a part of her high class bling anymore.

“Oh, please! Your sister is not a little kid. She is a grown ass woman and also, hasn’t Pete made it clear to you, to leave your petty low class issues back in your stupid little town, people here, don’t want to know about your familial issues because people of our class don’t have girls running away from their houses when they are burdened financially. You need to at least try and act like a woman of our class.”

To Irene it felt like a final blow, breaking her soul and smacking her right on the face.

She couldn’t tolerate all that, that was given to her anymore.

“Women of your class don’t know the real issues of the world and you know what? Screw you and your class. I am f*****g done.”

Irene screamed out loud, storming out of the room, not having the urge to hold herself back anymore.

The entire room looked at the girl with sheer shock, judging her audacity for attacking her future mother in law, in such a horrendous manner and speaking back to her in such an audacious tone.

Peter also rushed out after Irene, watching her dash out of the room.

He stopped her right in the middle of the garden, as she was in the process of getting out of the premises of the mansion.

“Irene! What happened? Where are you going? Why did you talk to my mother like this?” he asked her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back.

Irene snapped her arm free off his grip and stood looking at Peter with nothing but storms in her eyes.

“I am done! I can’t do this anymore.” She stated, taking the ring off her finger and shoving it back in Peter’s palm.

“What? Irene… don’t say this. What happened? Everything was alright and…”

“Nothing is alright, Peter! I am not fine! you are not fine. can’t you see? Your family doesn’t even respect you. All they care about is their rank, their social status and their stupid high class and elite societies and clubs and I can not do that anymore. I am not built for this. My sister didn’t sacrifice her entire life for this. She gave up so much, for me to be independent and for me to take care of my own self. I am sorry, Peter but even you don’t love me. You just love the way I look and the way, I will look as your wife and I can not spend my life like that. I am sorry. I don’t think we should be together. I need to be with my mother right now.”

With that Irene immediately rushed out of the mansion, leaving Peter and his entire life behind her for good.

She grabbed her a taxi and made her way towards the nearest bus station, grabbing the first bus to her town and soon, she reached her hometown.

Getting out of the bus, she sprinted to her house, getting inside and finding the place full of gloom and sorrow.

Althea never let that little house, lose its spark. She always kept the place alive, with her little pots and plants that she watered but currently they were dead, since Monique was tired and exhausted and stressed, thinking about that very daughter of her.

Irene made her way up towards Monique and Althea’s bedroom and found her mother sleeping, with a plate still filled with food placed next to her on the side table.

The room was too small and had a simple 160 x 200 cm bed placed, attached to one wall of the room, leaving space for such one night stand only.

Irene didn’t remember the last time she was inside her mother’s bedroom and the way Monique clung on to the pillow that belonged to Althea, it showed Irene how depressed her mother was and how much she truly missed her daughter, whom she slept every night hugging and cuddling with.

Tears pooled up in Irene’s eyes, who walked closer to her mother and perched down on the floor next to her bed.

She gently touched her mother’s face, noticing that the curves of her face had became more prominent and the appearance of the big and round bags around her eyes, made Irene’s heart drown in further guilt that she lived such a careless life, ever without caring about her mother’s situation.

Althea on the other hand always took care of Monique, never let her miss their father and was the real man of the house.

Irene felt ashamed of herself, as she began crying out loud and her cries disturbed Monique out of her sleep.

She immediately got up and sat straight, pulling Irene in for a hug.

“Hey! What happened? Is everything alright? did you have a fight with Peter? Did he say something? Are you okay?”

In that condition, Monique was worried about her daughter and this made Irene realize that she didn’t deserve her mother and her sister’s care.

She was an extremely selfish woman and this made her cry even harder.

“I am sorry, Mama! I am sorry for never being there for you and Althea! You guys deserve better. I don’t deserve you.”

Monique smiled softly, realizing that her daughter had returned back to her and to her true home.

“No! don’t say that. Althea is such a giving girl and God gave you her a sister, because He knew that you needed her in your life. That’s why, Althea exists in our lives. I am sure, she will come back home. Just like you, she also got strayed away. She will come back. Don’t worry. She will.”

Monique also broke down in tears and Irene got up, hugging her mother even more tightly and holding on to her.

Monique slid Irene next to her in the bed and the mother and daughter duo, sobbed silently in to each other’s arms.

But Monique finally felt hopeful, that if her one daughter had returned back home, the other will as well. She will have to, Althea had no place to call home but Monique and that small house of theirs. She will come back home, in every possible way.

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Well, what do you guys think about Irene?

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