Shattered Vows: An Arranged Marriage Standalone Romance (Tarnished Empire)

“Mario Armanelli screwed your grandmother.” Ronald leaned on the window frame of my food truck one day and shook his head. “Didn’t she tell you any of this?”

As I wiped down the foot truck counter, I felt the bone crushing weight of the city, of the well being of children, of everything I didn’t want bearing down on me. “That’s not true.”

“Look it up. We had a spill five years ago. You remember the one?”

Everyone remembered it. We even had animals brought into Dr. Nathan’s office. We were a humane society but it was all hands on deck. I’d just started volunteering and I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.

Not until I had to use whatever soap we had in to scrub the oil off the animals. Ducks and baby gulls and turtles all washed up on the shore. I remember my hands, how I couldn’t get rid of the smell and how I washed a turtle for hours and hours only to find out it died overnight from poisoning.

I’d been young but I’d known the toll it took on the Gulf. We couldn’t surf, the shops couldn’t sell because we’d lost tourists and vacationers, and my grandmother had cried.

She’d cried and cried and I thought it was for the city, but maybe it had been something more.

“That was Mario Armanelli and your grandmother’s doing. She was coerced, just like you are being. You want to make her same mistakes? Do you really love that man, Morina? Did he make you fall for him?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about that question but it was the first time someone had asked it out loud.

“He wouldn’t do that to me.” I stood tall but found my black bracelet for strength. This time, I didn’t turn the ring on my finger, didn’t touch it for any sort of energy.

“Sure. Sure. Except he was in Texas a little over a month ago shaking my hand and the same oil refinery’s hand about more oil coming in. Have you asked him about his plan for the illegal imported cargo we still get?”

“You need to leave.” I glanced back at the parking lot where I had told my security guy to stay. He’d finally started to listen to my commands over the past few weeks. He was on the phone, not paying attention to the truck. We both stood in plain view, though. Ronald merely looked like a paying customer from afar.

“Bastian plans to phase oil out for clean energy. That’s what he’s telling everyone, right?” Ronald’s bright white teeth flashed like a shark’s. “Then why make a deal with the oil refinery in Texas, Morina? Ask yourself that question. I’m making no deals except with the government to expand. I’ll pay you fair for those shares and you know it. Add on ten percent.”

He slid the check over the window counter and I stared at all the zeros. So many.

Money I didn’t care about but my eyes still flared.

“Just consider it. Ask some questions. My deal stands for as long as you need it to.” He left me with the check and walked away, his head held high like he was doing the right thing.

I closed the window, the wood slamming shut harder than I intended it to.

Had I been naïve? I’d read the file. I’d asked questions and listened to the answers.

But it was his packet and what if they were just fluff answers? Was he just charming me and was I as gullible as I had been all those years back when my parents had done the same?

Love made you weak. Relying on others made you vulnerable.

Someone strong would always be able to prey on that.

I sped home, not sure I wanted the answers to my questions, but sure I needed to ask more. My city wasn’t big; oil would clog it, destroy it along with the clean waters we’d taken so much time to purify after the spill. I needed reassurances and answers and more understanding.

Moonshine whined when I walked in and I petted her head before I took her for a walk. I texted Bastian as I waited for our dog to go to the bathroom.

Our dog, as if this was a completely normal marriage.

What had I been thinking?

Morina: I need you to come home. We need to talk.

He didn’t text me, he called. “That sounds ominous, ragazza. What’s wrong?”

“I talked with Ronald today.”

“You what?”

“He came to the food truck and–”

“Where was security?”

“That’s not the point.”

“He shouldn’t be anywhere near you. So, that is the point.”

“Why shouldn’t he be near me? I can have a conversation, can’t I?” My paranoia lashed out.

“Of course.” He spoke slowly and quietly like he was assessing the situation. “I’ll be home soon, ragazza.”

With that, he hung up. Bastian knew how to de-escalate and he wanted to be here in front of me to do it.

My mind ran away with itself in those moments. I put Moonshine in her room so I could google oil spills and illegal imports and links between them all as I waited. In the corner of my phone screen, my horoscope app said something about heeding warnings.

My stomach twisted, the urge to throw up building and building as the conspiracies online tied the Armanellis to trafficking and drugs. Their partnerships with every big company in the United States suddenly felt questionable instead of respectable.

“Morina.” I jumped when I heard him in my doorway.

“You scared me,” I said, my hand to my heart.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said, walking over and kissing my cheek like he normally did now. When I didn’t respond, he studied me, his hand in my hair. “You want to talk, love?”

“I think we need to.”

“Okay, let’s go in the living room. I’ll make some food.”

I followed him out like a woman trudging to her demise. I told myself I should have hope, that we could work through it all. Yet, a little voice screamed to run and run fast.

“Why don’t you sit? What do you want to eat?”

I shook my head. “I’d rather stand. I’m not hungry.”

“Ragazza–”

“Did you fly to Texas to meet with an oil refinery in the past month, Bastian?”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s very specific. I fly everywhere and have partnerships with everyone, Morina. Whatever Ronald told you–”

“Please answer the question.” I held up a hand because I knew he would try to coax me down from my anxiety again. “Be honest. Did you shake a man’s hand and say you would up the amount of oil at our terminals?”

“That’s the plan first, Morina.” He nodded cautiously. “I can give you details on that.”

I spun the bracelets on my wrist. “You can give me details? You don’t think that would have been a good detail to disclose early on?”

“I don’t think it matters how we get to the end goal, Morina. We need to move things slowly with partnerships to maintain a good relationship. I intend to allow for this one time around while we confirm government participation in our green energy plan.”

“And what if we don’t get that participation?”

“We will.” He said it like he had no concerns.

“You can’t make that promise. And then you’ll be tied to pushing those terminals again. Again, Bastian. You know why I’m saying again?”

“Morina–” His tone was consoling, for the child he must have thought I was.

“Did you know your father pushed my grandmother into voting for more oil at the terminals and it caused a spill?”

He glanced away and his dark chocolate eyes, the ones I loved seeing rake over my body, showed guilt. It was all I needed to confirm the answer.

“Let’s take a moment, Morina,” he said like his quiet voice would soothe me. He even stepped over to my salt lamp and turned it on like that could change the damn mood. “Do you want to sit here?”

I knew he wasn’t trying to mock the way I was. He wouldn’t do that. He seemed to enjoy that I thought each crystal and salt lamp brought some peace into life. Yet, Bastian calmed and accommodated. He was trying to fit everyone into a box and make us all happy.

“Bastian Armanelli,” I sneered his name as I approached the lamp. “You think you can have your cake and eat it too? You think you can have the shares and still be partnered with a refinery that pushed my city to the brink? What happened to Sebastian, the man who could rule an empire and do exactly what he wanted?”

I grabbed the salt lamp and raised it over my head. “You charmed me instead of being honest and being there for me.” I threw it down and the crystal crashed on the floor, sending shattered fragments everywhere. “A marriage of convenience becomes a marriage of disaster.”

“Morina!” He reached for me, but I jumped back. “You’re overreacting.”

“Quick decisions. My grandmother said to make them. Do you know how quickly I decide to overreact or indulge in my feelings, Bastian? Normally, it’s faster than this. Normally, I just go with what I feel. I stopped that with you. I went even though the path felt foolish.”

“That’s not true. You went down a hard path for once because you saw the risk but also the reward. It may have been a dark path, but–”

“Dark, unknown, and therefore stupid, Bastian. This was all so stupid.” My heart galloped in my chest and suddenly, it ached. It ached like someone was pressing against it and the pressure had the potential to bleed me out.

“You can’t overcome the darkness and reach your reward if you don’t go down the path and find out what’s there, Morina. We’ve got so much going for us.” His brows knitted together but he slid his hands in his pockets like he wasn’t going to fight me or fight for me. I wasn’t sure which.

“You go searching for secrets, and you’ll always find them. These secrets are too big, Bastian. These lies and omissions of truth aren’t worth it to me.”

“What are you saying?” he whispered.

“I love you.” I took a shaky breath, my eyes stinging from the tears I knew were going to come. Saying those words shouldn’t have been like this. There should have been rose petals on the floor instead of shattered crystal. There should have been love in the air instead of mistrust. “I really, really love you. I thought I found someone who could accept my quirks and the fact that I run ten different directions at one time—”

“You did.” He said, a frown on his face. “I’m standing right in front of you.”

I shook my head. “But I can’t. I believe you but I don’t. I want you but I won’t.” I shook my head and my wavy hair fell over my cheeks. I backed away from him as the tears streamed down my face.

I left him in the living room around shattered crystals, shattered vows, and a shattered marriage. I went to pack my suitcases.

I couldn’t trust him and he couldn’t put me first and fight for me instead of his companies like I wanted him to.

We were broken before we even began, and if I didn’t leave, I’d be lost to him forever.