One year. Three-hundred-sixty-five days.
I lost my innocence that year. I lost any hope of a future outside of the family. I lost my will to live. Then Alessandro saved me along with the other girls. It was a cruel joke that I was now tasked with killing the man who saved my life, the man I wasn’t falling in love with because I had already fallen. The man who knew I had betrayed him.
I hiss as the burning ash at the end of his cigarette touches my skin. Alessandro smirks, taking a drag of the cigarette and exhaling the smoke in my face. His hand coming down to rest on the other side of my head, successfully caging me in.
His nose runs up the curve of my neck, his lips brushing against my ear with his next words. “When it’s time for you to do it, drive the knife through my heart. That way I can look into your eyes when you realize that you just killed your only hope at redemption.”
I can’t hold in the sob threatening its way up my throat any longer. I duck under his arm and do the one thing I’ve become so good at.
I run.
I’d be back. I’d have to. It was my apartment. But for now, I jump into the driver’s side of my jeep and I gun it. Not caring where I’m going just feeling the need to drive as far and as fast as the vehicle will allow. Today was another failed attempt to do what I needed to do.
I pull up to a red light, the decision to go right or left staring me in the face. Sometimes it amazed me that life could find little ways of making you re-think everything in your life. Like right now for instance. If I go left it’ll eventually lead to the border. I could be free from my father’s hold for a little while until he realizes where I’ve gone and catches up with me. He’s a mob boss… it’s inevitable. Going left also takes me away from Alessandro. If I choose right, that takes me in the opposite direction. Eventually, it’ll lead to the trans-Canada highway and closer to my father. Either way, I end up losing the man I’ve fallen in love with.
Then there’s a third option. Could I do it? Could I kill the love of my life in order to free myself?
With a decision made I turn right, ignoring the honks from the vehicle I just cut off.
***
With my head held high and a renewed determination, I walk through the front door of my childhood home and straight towards the back of the grand house where my father’s office is located. I don’t bother knocking. I won’t give him the satisfaction of being able to turn me way or making me wait until my resolve to do this today fades. I push open the heavy door and come face to face with my father and uncle.
“Jessika.” My father’s voice booms across the room and I have to fight against the shudder that threatens to race up my body. It’s not the good kind of shudder either… the one that Alessandro always manages to elicit from me.
“Father.” I tip my chin in acknowledgment. “Uncle.”
My uncle stands, his six-two frame somehow more commanding in this room than that of my father sitting behind his ornate desk.
“Nikolay.” he stands from his seat, doing the buttons on his suit jacket before shaking hands with my father then turning to me. “Jessika, you get more and more stunning every time I see you,” he says, placing his hands on my shoulders and then bringing me in for a hug.
There were times my uncle was more a father to me than my own. He wasn’t cold and closed off when he came to visit. He showered us with hugs, brought us gifts, but most importantly he made us laugh. That never changed when I started my training if anything his visits became more frequent. They were the only things that got me through the worst of it. Knowing that my uncle Vik was coming to visit was all the motivation I needed to get me through a week of hell in this house.
“Thank you, Uncle.”
“Don’t be a stranger, Jessika,” he admonishes placing a kiss on the top of my head and then turning to leave. I feel guilty for not going to see him after I was discharged from the hospital two years ago, but after what my father demanded of me and the reality of what my life had become I just couldn’t bring myself to. I wanted to believe that Vik had nothing to do with the family business but I knew that he did. He was the only one my father trusted.
‘Is it done?” my father asks as soon as the door closes shut behind my uncle.
“Hello to you too, father.” I walk towards his desk and stop in front of it refusing to take a seat in one of the chairs. I need every advantage I can get, and it may seem stupid but having to look down on him as he sat behind his desk gives me the illusion of that advantage. “But to answer your question, no, it is not done.”
Anger flashes behind my father’s dark eyes, a vein popping on his forehead as he tries to reign himself in. For a brief moment, I wonder how the hell I could possibly be related to this monster. The only thing that comforts me is the thought that maybe I took after my mother. I have her looks, maybe I have her strong will as well. Amanda sure as hell doesn’t take after our mother. She’s our father’s identical in every way.
Fuck, here goes nothing. I take a deep breath, round my shoulders and do something that could cost both Alessandro and I our lives.
“I refuse to do it. I won’t kill him.”
My father pushes to his feet, his palms planted firmly on the polished surface of the desk. “You will do it,” he seethes. “And you will do it tonight!”
“No,” my voice is firm when I stare my father down.
“You dare defy me!”
I flinch when his fists hit the desk with a resounding thud, but I refuse to back down.
“I owe you nothing, father. I never wanted to be part of this. Alessandro is no threat to you. Let him live.”
Dark eyes narrow like they’re trying to see through me and part of me always thought that they could.
“Ебать! Fuck!” my father swears under his breath. “You love him.” It wasn’t a question but I find myself answering him anyway.
“I do not love him.”
My father rounds the desk and walks towards me until there’s nothing separating us. He grips my chin hard, tipping it up until I’m looking straight into eyes as black as his soul. “Do not lie to me. You love the Italian.”
I don’t answer him this time but whatever he sees in my eyes must be answer enough because he takes a step back right before his palm connects with the side of my face leaving white-hot heat in its place. My father grabs me by my throat and squeezes. My hand’s paw at his wrists, nails scratching against his skin.
“You owe your life to this family. You will do as I say or you will die alongside those Italian scum.” He releases his grip and I fall to my knees, panting, trying to suck in as much needed air as I can.
“Love is for the weak, Jessika. I’ll make it easy for you though, daughter. Either kill the Capo or I’ll kill you. Now, get out of my face and go do your job.”
I scramble to my feet, tears blurring my vision as I race out of his office and out the front door of the house, not stopping until I’m in my car with all the doors locked. I’m such an idiot. What did I expect? That I could go there, stare my father down and he would just accept my demands?
You owe your life to this family.
I was stupid to think that I could ever earn my freedom from this family. My father had no intentions of letting me walk away, regardless of if I killed Alessandro or not. He would just find another reason why he needed me. One more job. One more hit.
Love is for the weak, Jessika.
Maybe he had a point though. Ever since I gave in to my body’s demand for Alessandro I’ve gotten soft. Before meeting him I would’ve had no problems with killing someone after fucking them. It was just the way the game worked. But now… now the game has changed.
I’m taking my life back, starting with Alessandro.
***
ALESSANDRO
The fucking Bratva. She was the daughter of the Russian boss.
Betrayed.
Humiliated.
The fucking tattoo on her thigh should’ve given her away but every time I got close to i
t, she was naked and I had a different mission in mind. But the tattoo… it was a Bratva tattoo, one that meant the bearer has killed before.
I drop down on the leather sofa of my new living room, the ice clinking in the glass as it dangles from my hand. I was in love with a fucking Romanov. The vilest crime family. They make the De Luca’s look like angels.
Angel.
“Fuck!” I roar, my glass flying across the room. I didn’t bother getting up to clean it. The glass tumbler was slowing me down anyway. I pick up the bottle and take a healthy swig and then another until there’s nothing left. All while ignoring the ping of various text messages coming from my phone.
The alcohol was effective in luring me into a deep sleep, but I still dreamt of Jessika. The way her body felt against mine, the way her emerald eyes lightened to an impossible shade of green when she laughed. And I knew that despite her wanting to kill me, her love for me was real and I would love her until my last breath until she pulled that trigger.
JESSIKA
I COULDN’T TAKE it anymore. The pressure. The guilt. The gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be. I either needed to kill him and get it done or fix it. Loyalty to my father said to kill him, but my heart… my heart was begging me to fight for what we wanted. To fix us. I was stuck between family and love. A decision that no person should have to make.
I wanted to go to him right away after I left my father’s house but I didn’t want him to see me bruised and bloody from the hands of my father. So, I waited only long enough for the bruising around my throat and my eye to fade to a point they could be covered with makeup.
“How long?” I ask barging into Alessandro’s house, finding him in his kitchen. Jeans slung low on his hips, a dress shirt hanging open revealing hard ridges of muscle and a smattering of dark hair on his chest.
He ignores the question, cracking open a new beer and lighting up smoke. He looks relaxed, unaffected by the fact that my family sent me to kill him because he was De Luca’s, right-hand man.
“How. Long?” I ask again, my hands tightening around the blade until my knuckles turn white. I didn’t want to kill him but self-preservation had me bringing my weapon of choice.
“How long have I known you were to kill me?” He leans against the kitchen counter, ankle casually crossed over the other, cigarette dangling between long fingers. Fingers that have done unimaginable things to me. I swallow hard and force those images down.
Alessandro unhurriedly brings the cigarette to his lips, slowly inhaling a drag and blowing it out toward the ceiling. “Known for a while. Have to say, I was surprised when you didn’t try pushing that blade through my chest that first day you stumbled into my apartment, but then you put out so easy and I figured why not have a little fun first.”
“You bastard,” I seethe, charging toward him. Not realizing until his strong grip is wrapped around my wrist suspended in the air that I had raised the knife as I rushed him.
“What happened, love? You get a proper look at me and decide to climb me like a tree before doing your family’s dirty work? You wanted a taste of my dick first? Got more than that, though, didn’t you?” A cocky smirk pulls at his lips.
My other hand shoots up in a fist ready to pound into his chest, but he catches that one too. Spinning me around so fast, the wind gets knocked out of me when my lower back connects with the hard edge of the granite countertop. Alessandro wrenches the knife from my hand, pinning both my wrists behind my back in one of his.
“I-I never…” I try to swallow past the lump in my throat but it’s no use. Tears threaten to spill but I will them back.
“You never what? Never wanted to kill me? Never wanted to fuck me? Which is it, Romanov?” His face is turning red, his eyes morphing from their usual grey to the darkest black I’ve ever seen, a vein pulses on his forehead. How did I royally fuck this up?
“I never wanted to kill you,” I whisper, the fight draining from me. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend that he’s just another job, that he doesn’t mean anything to me. “I’m so sorry, Alessandro. Please, believe me.”
“No? Then why the fuck did you just charge at me with the blade pointed at my fucking chest?”
His fingers curl around the handle of the blade laying on the counter behind me, his other hand fisting the hair at the nape of my neck, tugging my head back until my throat is exposed. The edge of the blade coming to rest just above my collarbone.
I close my eyes and will my heart rate to slow. “Please, Alex,” I beg. “I didn’t want any of this. They made me -”
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Jessika,” he interrupts me, pressing the blade further into my skin. “Why should I trust anything coming out of the mouth of a Romanov anyway?”
I wince at the sharp pinch and trickle of blood from under the tip of the blade. “I-I…” I take in a deep breath, as deep as I can with a knife pressed against my throat and try again. If he’s determined to kill me then he has to know the truth. I was done with the lies. “I never wanted to kill you. I begged them to leave you alone. To spare your life. They told me that either I had to do it or they would send my sister. I… I couldn’t stand the thought of her…” I blow out a frustrated breath, meeting his steely eyes. “I thought if I could at least get close to you I could try and protect you for as long as I could.”
That’s bullshit. I know it. He knows it. Alessandro didn’t need protection, especially any help from me. He can handle himself better than anyone I know.
I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction. He laughs. I just came clean about everything, with a knife pressed to my damn throat - against the fading bruises might I add- and he’s laughing. Placing my hands, palms down on his chest I shove him, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, his fingers tighten around my hair and I yelp at the sharp pain at the base of my skull, then tears start flowing down my cheeks with the new pressure he’s putting on the blade. More blood trickles down my chest.
“I can protect myself, Angel.”
I want to protest that while that’s true he doesn’t know my family, but then the blade’s gone and his head dips, seconds before his tongue licks up the top of my breast, along my collarbone, and up my neck. His lips come down on mine moments later, his tongue running along the seam of my lips until they part for him. The metallic taste on his tongue surprises me at first but then it gives way to the taste of him I’ve come to love and I moan into his mouth, my hands curling into fists around his open shirt.
I hear the clink of the blade falling against the stone countertop at the same time Alessandro’s hand curls around my hip, pulling me flush against him. I push him away and before I allow myself any time to think, I grab the knife from the counter holding it out in front of me. I’m surprised when my hand doesn’t shake under the pressure I’m putting on the handle.
Alessandro smirks, stalking towards me. He hits the knife out of my hand but he doesn’t stop advancing. His one hand curling around the nape of my neck, his lips descending on mine in a bruising kiss.
“Stop.” I shove him back again not realizing my hand’s moving until my palm connects with the side of his face.
But that doesn’t deter him, not even for a moment. Alessandro keeps coming. This time he wraps a fist around the hair at the nape of my neck, tugging my head back, his other hand wrapping around my throat as his licks his way into my mouth. My knees go weak, threatening to give out from under me but his hips pin me against the counter, his cock twitching against my lower belly.
“I love when you fight me, Angel,” he says biting down on my lower lip and I whimper from the mixture of pain from the old bruises and pleasure Alessandro’s hand wrapped around my throat provides.
“I’m no Angel.” I shove him off me again, watching as he barely catches himself against the breakfast bar, arms bent at the elbows, fingers curled around the edge of the stone. He looks like every woman’s fantasy with that knowing grin plastered on his face.
Oh, fuck it. What would
it hurt to use him one last time?
I move toward him on shaking legs, gripping his shirt in my hands and shoving it down his arms until it lays in a pool of black behind him. Alessandro pulls my shirt off, dropping it to the floor with the remnants of his dress shirt. His hands graze down my sides, around my back and continuing their way down until they curl under my ass and lift me, my legs wrapping around his waist, my hands curling around the nape of his neck as Alessandro slams me back against the wall separating the kitchen from the living room.
“Fight me,” he growls, his fingers curling around my throat.
“No,” I squeak out.
“Fucking fight me,” he snarls, bringing my face closer to his by my throat before slamming me back against the wall again.
I don’t answer him, my fingers fumbling with the zipper on his jeans as I try to grind against him. I need to feel his skin against mine, need to feel his hard body caging me in.
“Jessika,” he groans when my fingers wrap around his hard length. His breath coming in pants against the curve of my neck.
“Fuck me, Alessandro. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to fight. I just want to feel you moving inside me.”
That seems to be all the encouragement he needs. He swats my hand away from his cock and pushes into me in one deep thrust, my body bowing off the wall from the sheer force. His hold around my throat doesn’t waver, his other hand gripping my hip as he leans down to grunt in my ear.
“Is this what you want, Angel? You want me to fuck this pussy so hard that you don’t know where I end and you begin? So hard that you won’t be able to walk outta here?”
Dark Betrayal (Famiglia Book 2) Page 9
