Arranged marriage to the princess of the Red Scorpions
Chapter 130 - Only Time Will Tell

By the time the afternoon came, Lena had requested for Romeo to come back when he couldn't replace any additional clues that would help them out. Russo had done a good job of covering his tracks after they left and made sure not to leave much of anything behind that they could use to track them.

The princess had asked Genson if he still had the phone number he used as a contact for when the Vedova Nera had hired him, but the number was no longer in service which lead to another dead end. Even the one that Evalyn had gotten called from belonged to a burner phone apparently  which was no longer in service.

She was already on her fourth cup of coffee by the time her father and uncle had gotten back. Leo didn't think that it was such a great idea since she had smoking too much as it was, but no one was willing to actually voice this. Ryan didn't even refuse her when she asked to keep refilling her cup. She needed something that would help her get her emotions under control and while the caffeine certainly made her shaky, it helped regulate her mood while she tried to be patient and what.

"What's exactly going on?" Zane asked as soon as he came through the door and looked over who was in the room. He didn't recognize Evalyn but had an idea from what Leo had told Julian. He also knew who Genson was but wasn't sure why he had been invited into the estate.

"We don't know. We know the Vedova Nera have or rather a Jovani Conti, but where and for what reason we don't know yet. They haven't contacted us since they took him aside from a recording that was left behind." Lena explained to her father as she didn't bother looking up from her coffee cup as she spoke. Her voice sounded more hollow than it had earlier on in the day.

"How were we not able to replace out he was related to them?" Julian asked. They had done their background research on Samuel's family back when Zane had wanted to go through with the arranged marriage before either Samuel or Lena was born, but he had never been able to replace anything that raised any flags to either of them.

"That's because I erased as much of my past as I could before I changed my name and married Jacob." Evalyn spoke up since she was the one who was behind the answer to that question. Both Julian and Zane looked over at her.

​ "The head of the family is my great uncle and Jovani is my second cousin. I thought that because I was more distantly related to main branch in the family that there wouldn't be any problems if I chose to leave and start over. I couldn't see any reason why they would care if I was there or not since I wasn't going to be the one taking over in the first place." She explained. Of course as she had already found out, that had been a terrible misjudgment on her part.

"You didn't tell anyone at all about this?" Zane asked as he came over to where she was sitting.

"No one who could've taken the message back to your family that you just happened to have a son who was just turning eighteen and would be marrying into the Red Scorpions?" He continued as she gave her a hard look. Even though he hand Lena had gone through the same thing, Zane was twice as harsh as his daughter was because of what he had been through on a different level.

"Hardly anyone knows about that." Evalyn replied honestly as he looked up at him.

"It isn't exactly something you want to go around declaring in the parts where I live. It can cause a lot of unnecessary trouble and there was never anyone in my family that I stayed in touch with after I had left. I didn't care to try." She seemed honest enough to him, but he wasn't quick to trust anyone based upon their word.

"Someone had to leak the information from somewhere and enough so for them to know for sure who you were in relation to Samuel." Zane replied as he turned away from her to fix his attention on his daughter. He could tell that she was hardly doing well and out of everyone, he knew most what she was going through having been through something similar ten years ago.

"I've looked but I haven't been able to replace anything that raises any flags or seems out of the ordinary. No one knew has been around the family recently from what I can tell." Hester spoke up as he rolled his shoulders so that he could pop his neck. Being stuck in front of his computer for so long was rather hard on his shoulders and back.

"Like Julian had thought Jovani is registered in the system as having his own business, but it doesn't give a good address or number that I could use to try and trace him."

"Keep looking, there has to be something useful mix in with everything that we can use." Zane pressured.

"Genson." He then said as he leveled the man with a heavy look. The other matched it but didn't say anything as he waited to see what the other was going to want from him.

"If you're going to be in this house, you best make yourself useful. Regardless of what working relationship you currently have with my daughter, I no qualms about killing you if you give me one reason to." Genson held up his hands in a surrender motion as the other finished speaking.

"Nice to meet you again to. I can see that there's still some hard feelings over what happened in the past." He replied, a ghost of a smirk appearing on his lips as he continued to stare at the other.

"In case you are unaware, I have actually been providing my services whenever the Princess asks for something from me. If there is something further that I can do to be of service I would certainly be happy to extend an extra helping hand." Zane didn't like his attitude, but he decided to leave him alone for the time being since he doubted that he was lying about helping out.

"Lena we need to go talk about some things elsewhere." He told the princess who looked up at him. She already knew what he wanted to talk about, but didn't really want to discuss it with him. She wanted Jovani or whoever it was to already contact to her so that they could get over with whatever they wanted.

"I know." She replied smoothly as she drank the rest of the coffee in her cup. She knew that she would be regretting later, but she didn't care at the current moment in time.

"Leo, Julian- maintain things and only bother us if there's something important that needs to be said." He told the other two members of his family who were present before he started walking towards his office with Lena following closely behind.

When they reached his office, he let Lena enter first and closed the door gently behind him. They both already knew what direction the conversation was going to go in and the princess wasn't going to be the one to start it. Zane already knew that though.

"I know what you're thinking already and you shouldn't be." He told his daughter as he stood right inside the door way as she made her way over to the sofa to sit down.

"You mean about how I was right in saying that I shouldn't bother getting engaged to an outsider who didn't know what he was into and that the engagement should be in definitely canceled?" She asked trying not to come across as frustrated as she was currently feeling.

"You can't just avoid something because of an event that happened in the past. That was my mistake not yours." Zane replied calmly. He knew that it was going to be hard to reason with his daughter.

"I will have to reschedule the engagement party. Perhaps for a week later than planned but I don't intend to cancel it." That was one point that he was going to be firm on.

"Besides, it seems like he's already involved in this world even if he didn't know anything about it until now which-"

"Which makes him not a complete outsider to everything. I know you were going to say that." Lena cut him off with a roll of her eyes. She already knew and thought about all of those things herself, but none of that helped her to feel better.

"Right. And since we don't even know what the end result of everything will be, it's best to just and take it with stride. Julian said that when he met with this Jovani last week for the dinner meeting that he didn't seem like a man with malice intent."

"And uncle gives too many people the benefit of the doubt." Lena sighed as she leaned her head back. She could feel the caffeine induced headache coming on but chose to ignore it as she looked at her father.

"You really think that everything will turn out differently from what you went through?" She asked even though she knew that her father wouldn't be able to give a her definite answer.

"Only time can tell that, but I wouldn't discount anything until everything has played. Samuel isn't completely defenseless himself after all. He has you to thank for that." Everyone was talking about giving it time, but time was the last thing that Lena wanted to give to the situation.