My Stepsister Ran From the Wedding, So My Stepmother Sold Me to the Man Who Hates Her Mother novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Leaving

I packed my sea-bag the next morning in nine minutes.

It held two dresses, my mother's badge, a pair of work boots and my roll of carving tools.

Agata had wrapped the tools in a clean dish towel.

I did not take the sundresses somebody had laid on my bed in the first week.

I left those on the quilt, folded.

Marcello was in the kitchen when I came down, standing at the counter with his coffee, and he put the cup down when he saw the bag.

"You're going to Bolivar," he said.

"Tomorrow. Today I'm going home."

"To the Scalise house."

"To my father's house," I said. "I want to see what Carmela keeps in it."

I shifted the strap on my shoulder.

"I'm not leaving you, Marcello. I'm leaving this house."

"The clause," he said.

"I know what the clause says," I said. "It says the bride resides in the Bellanca household."

"It says it so the lease holds," said Marcello.

"So I'll be in breach by lunch."

I watched him think it through.

He was fast, and I saw him get to the end of it and come back.

"Leave," he said. "The lease stays."

"You can't say that. You signed it with her."

"I signed it with a woman who has been lying to me since the day I put my name on it."

He came around the counter.

"The clause binds the dock to the household. It doesn't bind you to this kitchen. If anyone says it does, they say it to me."

"Marcello."

"You said you were done with other people deciding," he said, low. "Then decide. I'll open the gate."

I stood in the middle of Agata's floor with my bag on my shoulder.

The first rule came up in my mouth before I could stop it, and I let it out.

"You told me I eat where you tell me," I said. "And that I go where the driver takes me."

"I did."

"I'm told nothing now."

He did not smile, and he did not flinch.

"No," he said. "You're not."

He walked me out through the front hall himself, past the housekeeper.

She looked at me with her whole face for the first time.

At the gate the guard's hand was already on the chain.

Marcello took the key from him and opened it.

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