He's the darkness I didn't need... and yet he's here standing in front of me. In that suit, dark and sexy. His abs were visible even though it was tight.
The white, lace covered dress with the low hanging cleavage leaves me exposed against his heated gaze. Nikolai stands before me like an indestructible Greek statue—tall, white and irresistible.
I bite my lips gazing at him. He's torn me more days and more ways than one with those rough hands. And yet I still want him. Maybe it's out of fear or something else entirely.
He can ruin me countless of times, even take my virginity in blood and I'd still choose him over my family. Another footstep besides Nikolai walks in making him turn–the whole chapel is silent his footsteps.
The groom. The one and only person my father set me up with is here. For me. Jason.
But those steps falter as his eyes land on Nikolai. Oh god.
Jason Ricci that's his name.
His father made a promise–and I agreed, wholeheartedly.
But I told Nikolai his name was Matteo just to be safe.
Nikolai calls out the fake name but he asks who he's talking about.
"You're... not Matteo?" He asks, eyeing him like vermin under his shoe. Well maybe I shouldn't have lied to him.
"Why would I be Matteo? Sierra? You didn't give him a fake name did you?"
Nikolai's head snaps to me. A scream is lodged in my throat. With this many people what the hell is he thinking?
"Nikolai, please... just can... we talk outside?"
I walked up and tugged on his suit sleeve. He doesn't turn until Jason Ricci backed up. My lace was making marks on my body–the entire white dress making me uncomfortable.
I didn't know why I agreed to marry Ricci when he already claimed me more than once and that being three months ago.
***
"Sierra!" Someone shouts to me, and I turn.
"What?"
It was my father, in his expensive suit walking up to me. He had something important to say it seemed like. The whole room of people at the downstairs' ballroom area was waiting. All for me.
Even him.
Nikolai Moretti–one of the most well-known among the mafia. This party, a disguise to flaunt me around like champagne that has been trained to end, might seem ordinary.
He sipped on some hard drink–eyes burning my entire body from where he stood, leaning against the fireplace. And no, it was not lit. Senor Ricci, Jason's father and mine were quite close too.
D'Angelo–we are known but not to Nikolai's extent. As we made our last rounds, he walked up. And no, It was not Jason.
His smirk told me everything and yet I understood nothing. With two glasses of whiskey, or at least that's what I think it is in hand, he saunters right up to me.
I stand tall, composed. "Congrats to the bride to be, although you'll begging for me to take your virginity instead."
"Excuse me...?" I say, in a whisper, trying to not attract attention.
"Dance with me, now," He says, and whistles someone over to take the drinks away before spinning around the ballroom. "If you marry me, I won't kill anyone near you... or you can go against me and find out."
***
I didn't know what that threat meant then, but now as he plays the recording of that night–a half-drunken agreement for him to fuck me till I bled, I know. Fists form at my sides, and my nostrils flare but I resist the urge to lunge at him.
To stop him. Father's fury, now directed at me, defuses something primal in me. It's useless to try and argue.
I've caused enough damage. You can't fix a broken glass, can you? My face went pale.
Jason Ricci is staring at me. Have I done something wrong? I must have because, the next few hours were a blur.
A tornado of chaos. And one thing said after another. "In my car, now."
The only voice I could hear through the pressure in my head was Nikolai's. I didn't do what he wanted me to do–obey his commands like I'm his wife but, the recording is still in his hands.
"O-okay," I replied, and walked toward him. When I get near him he ceases my arm, and pulls me with him until we are out of the chapel. My father and Senor Ricci chose this exact chapel.
He tosses me into the car, after scooping me up off the muddied ground.
Suddenly I'm in his car, speeding towards nowhere, in a white laced chain that's stained with consequences. The seatbelt of his stupid convertible is tight and yet it seemed to push against my lungs–making it difficult to breathe.
Everyone told me lived alone and will do anything to get what he wants. This was it. No going back. Is there?