by Lylah James
“Shh…I’ve got you, Angel.”
Oh, his voice. Those words. They were exactly what I wanted to hear. What I had been so desperate to hear.
His arms wrapped around me, holding me to his body. He caressed my hair and placed gentle kisses over my face, soothing all the hurt away.
“Alessio, you…found me.” I hiccupped back a sob as he looked down at me with his captivating blue eyes, the ones I loved so much.
“I will always find you.” Placing a kiss on my forehead, he let his lips linger there for a moment. “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting so long.”
My fingers tightened around his jacket, and I shook my head. “You came for me. That’s all that matters.”
Alessio hugged me tighter. “I’m going to take away all the things Alberto has done to you.”
I shivered in his arms at the mention of the devil’s name. “He hurt me, Alessio,” I admitted with tears streaming down my cheeks in a never-ending flow.
“I know. But he is never going to hurt you again,” Alessio said, pulling away from me. He pushed me flat on my back and loomed over me.
“Where did he touch you, Angel?” he muttered, kissing my lips gently and so softly.
“Everywhere,” I whimpered at the thought of Alberto touching me, defiling and humiliating me in the worst way possible.
“I’m going to take it all away,” Alessio vowed before taking my lips. The kiss was slow and gentle. He kissed me with care, as if I was a treasure, a precious jewel, someone who deserved to be loved.
And slowly Alessio replaced Alberto’s touch with his own. He traced my body with his fingers and lips. Slowly, softly, and gently. He explored my body with care and love. So much love.
But my heaven didn’t last for long.
Because I was suddenly thrust back into hell.
My eyes snapped open when I felt a finger probe my entrance.
“No!” I screamed, my voice filled with horror.
“Hmmm…is that for me, love? Are you wet for me?”
Horrified, I froze, and numbness washed over me. Alberto cupped me roughly against my legs, his palm pressing hard against me. I flinched and shuddered in fear and disgust.
He was sucking on my nipple, biting and torturing the skin. Alberto slightly pulled away until he was looking down on me.
The smile on his face made my stomach roll until I thought I was going to be sick. It held so many promises. Dark promises. Every day was painful. Every day my body was abused. Every day my heart broke a little more. Every day I wished I was back in Alessio’s arms.
And every day I hoped for Alessio to find me.
But he hadn’t come for me. Yet. I still hoped. I still believed. In him.
Alberto pulled away and pushed my knees up until I was completely open to him. I bit on my lips to keep from crying or screaming. I had learned fast that fighting only made it worse.
The tears fell down on my cheeks, and I didn’t bother swiping them away. Alberto smirked at the sight of them, and my heart ached.
Weak. I was so weak. Alessio would be ashamed of me. I was ashamed of myself.
I was dirty. Used. A whore.
I was not an Angel. Not anymore.
Instead of moving on top of my body and taking me like he always did, Alberto pulled out his phone. His knees were holding my thighs apart and in place. His torso was holding my hips against the bed. I couldn’t move. No, I was completely helpless underneath him.
He held the phone over me, right between my legs.
His next words sent me over the edge, and I was falling. Falling deep in the dark abyss.
“Why don’t I send Alessio a picture, huh? Let him know that his woman is wet and dripping for another man.”
My breath left my body in a loud whoosh, and I struggled to breathe. No. No. No. Please no. Anything but this.
I shook my head, or I thought I did. I felt too disconnected. Paralyzed by fear and humiliation. My breath was coming too fast, and my blood ran cold.
“No,” I protested weakly, my voice barely coming out in a whisper.
My heart thundered against my chest almost painfully, and my mouth tasted bitter with bile. I was going to be sick. My stomach rolled and tightened.
Tears blurred my vision, and my lips quivered with the effort to keep my cries in.
Alberto only laughed. When I saw the flash from the phone, I was suddenly snapped out of my haze, and I struggled under his body.
Alberto’s nostril flared, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. He slapped me hard across the face, and I whimpered.
My body was already aching from days of abuse. How long had it been since Alberto took me away? A few days? Weeks? I didn’t know. After all, I was trapped in the dungeon every day. I only knew darkness.
Except today. Today, I was in a room.
Was this Alberto’s plan all along?
I pushed at his chest, but he was unmoving. Let me go, I screamed in my head. My voice was gone. My throat hurt, and I felt dizzy.
Alberto threw the phone somewhere on the bed, and then he was on me. I felt him near my entrance, and I closed my eyes.
My body filled with dread, and my throat was too tight. My chest ached with knowing what was coming. He brutally gripped my body as he aligned himself with me.
“You’re mine,” he hissed into my face.
I looked away from him, moving my face to the side. I thought of Alessio and our happy moments.
I heard his voice in my head, and I smiled.
I just want you to know that you are loved…you matter.
You bring happiness to others. You bring light, Ayla. You have people who care about you.
You are worth more than you think.
You are a fighter, Ayla. So keep fighting. Don’t give up now.
Ayla…do you know how strong you are? You are the strongest woman I have ever met. Your strength shines brighter than any others.
Strong. Alessio thought I was strong. Even Nikolay and Maddie thought I was strong. But they were wrong. I wasn’t. I was weak.
My eyes fell on the lamp, and for a brief moment, I heard Alessio yelling at me to fight.
Alberto pushed inside of me, and my already broken soul cracked further. But still I heard Alessio telling me to fight. Pushing me to fight.
I stared at the lamp as Alberto started moving inside of me. He was slower than usual, taking his time. I shuddered, my body itching with the need to hide and fade away.
Fight, Ayla.
Without thinking, I reached for the lamp. Everything happened so quickly. One minute Alberto was inside of me, and the next, I was smacking the lamp into his head. I hit his head twice, hard enough to make him bleed.
He roared in pain and pulled away from me.
My body felt light as soon as he shifted away, and without wasting a second, I was rolling off the bed. My legs gave out under me, and I fell down.
I could barely stand. My whole body was trembling. I crawled toward the door and was finally able to push myself on my feet. Stumbling forward, I reached the door.
But I was too slow.
Alberto was on me again. He grabbed my hair and wrapped it around his wrist before smacking my face into the door, right over the knob.
Pain splintered its way into my head and my skull. My neck ached with the impact, and my vision blurred.
Was my jaw broken? My cheekbone?
My whole face was hurting, burning like it was on fire.
The pain traveled down my spine until black dots appeared in front my eyes. I blinked, trying to clear them away, but the pain was too much.
He slammed my head against the door again, holding my cheek there. He pressed his knuckles into my skull, and I screamed as the blinding agony spread through my body.
Spots danced in front of my eyes with the searing pain. Red droplets fell in front my eyes. My blood.
“I thought you learned your lesson, but you clearly didn’t,” Alberto said. “How many times do I have to tell
you that you can’t run away from me?”
He chuckled, his chest moving against my back. “And why are you running? To whom? Alessio? Did you forget he gave you to me? He left you here at my mercy,” he taunted in my ears.
Those were the words he fed me every day. But I didn’t believe him. No matter how many times he said them, I would never believe him.
“Why are you running to him, huh? He doesn’t care about you, Ayla,” Alberto continued, his fingers getting tighter around my hair.
I closed my eyes and tried to block him out. But Alberto was a man impossible to block. He was a disease that infiltrated everywhere.
“He is probably buried balls-deep inside another pussy right now. That’s how much you mean to him, love.”
Stop it! I sobbed against the door. My heart cracked open, and the pieces flew everywhere. Empty. That was how I felt.
“Aww, does the thought of Alessio fucking another woman hurt?” he goaded, caressing a finger down my neck. “He can get any pussy he wants. You are not anything special, Ayla.”
I sobbed harder, my head and body too heavy to do anything else. “Are you imagining it right now? Another woman’s legs wrapped around his waist as he fucks her?”
For the first time, I begged.
“Stop it. Please…Please…stop…pl…please,” I begged. Everything hurt. Even my soul was aching, screaming in pain.
Alberto gasped, but it was fake. “Are you begging, love? Well, isn’t that a first. I’ve never heard you beg before. So beg. C’mon, beg me to stop.”
“Please…”
“Alessio doesn’t care about you,” he whispered. “He doesn’t. Because if he did, he would have come for you by now.”
I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t.
“Of course, he isn’t coming. He has probably forgotten all about you.” He laughed, and I cried.
“He isn’t coming for you. Forget him. Whatever hopes you have, it doesn’t matter. Because he doesn’t care. It has been more than a month.”
More than a month? No. This couldn’t be true.
More than a month and Alessio still hadn’t come.
He doesn’t care about you.
He isn’t coming for you.
Alberto’s words rang through my eyes, and the tears blinded me.
What if I was holding on to a hope that wasn’t even there?
“You are a ghost, love,” he whispered before dragging my body away from the door. He dragged me by my hair and pushed me onto the bed until I was face down. I didn’t fight him.
My body had given up as I slowly started to lose consciousness, the pain unbearable.
Alberto mounted my body, and as he slammed into me, I didn’t make a noise. No sound at all. I thought about Alessio.
As he drove into me faster, Alberto taunted me in my ears.
But I didn’t listen.
As I sank deeper in oblivion, I only thought about Alessio. My Alessio. My savior.
You’re my Angel.
His voice was a mere whisper in my head, but I heard it. It was the only thing keeping me sane. Keeping me alive.
I lived for him.
Because I knew he was coming for me.
Where are you, Alessio?
Chapter 36
Alessio
2 weeks later
I stared at the pictures in my hand. Stared at them longer than I should have.
The pictures were shaking only because my hands were trembling. Anger had been a constant emotion inside of me since Ayla had been taken away. I lived on the anger inside of me. It kept me going. It kept me grounded enough to find my Angel.
But now, I was raging. There’s a big difference between anger and fury. Anger was enough to make someone go insane. But fury, it made people psychotic.
And that was exactly how I felt.
I was past making sense. I no longer felt anything except deep loathing and fury. Nothing else mattered. The little humanity left inside of me was gone the instant I laid eyes on the photos in my hands.
Fury boiled inside of me as I imagined the multiple ways to mutilate Alberto’s body.
My fingers tightened on the pictures until they crumbled in my fist. Closing my eyes, I threw the photo across the room, not caring where it landed. I just needed it out of my sight.
My jaw ground with the effort to keep myself under control.
Ayla’s face flashed behind my closed lids, and my body tightened as a wave of pain coursed through me. Under the layers of fury, my heart was aching.
It ached so much I was suffocating under the pressure.
But the pain was nothing compared to what Ayla was going through. The thought was enough to drive me insane.
Through my rage, I heard the door open. My eyes snapped open, making contact with Viktor’s as he stepped into my office.
He stopped in front of the door, his eyes moving to his feet. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and he bent down.
Viktor grabbed the photo firmly in his hands and stared at it. I knew what he was seeing.
The image of Ayla bare, her legs spread, her eyes frightened, filled with tears was forever etched in my memory.
A second passed. And then another. A full minute passed before Viktor finally reacted.
His face was red with anger. “What is this?” he growled.
“Alberto sent us a gift,” I replied numbly, my voice a little hoarse from built-up emotions.
“I’m going to fucking cut his dick off and feed it to him,” Viktor snapped, standing up to his feet.
I sat straight in my chair and leveled him with a glare. “He is mine to kill.”
Taking a step forward, he stopped in front of my desk, his stare unflinching. “You are not the only one who cares about her.”
“He. Is. Mine. To. Kill,” I hissed, getting to my feet.
Viktor shook his head with a sigh. “I will never take that right from you. When we find him, he is yours to kill. But the rest of us will have a hand in it too.”
We stared at each other. No words were spoken. The air around us filled with tension. It grew colder and heavier under our need for revenge.
“Fair enough,” I replied. Viktor nodded and sat down on the couch, placing the heavy file he was holding on my desk.
“All the names that are connected to Alberto. His right-hand men. Their families are also listed. Everything there is to know about them,” Viktor said, nodding toward the file.
I sat down and pulled it toward me. “We already got so many of his men. Nobody knows a thing. He was smart enough to keep his hiding place a secret. His men are a bunch of cowards. If they knew the truth, they would have told me for a chance to live.”
“What about Enzo?” The same question had been brewing in my thoughts, but it was another dead end.
“From Nikolay’s information, he went into hiding, too. He’s Alberto’s second in command. He knew he would be our target,” I said, sitting back against my chair. The muscles in my neck were aching. Pressing my fingers against the back of my neck, I massaged the muscles, hoping to relieve the tension.
My body was weak from fatigue. If I kept going like this, I would be no use to Ayla when she was found.
“If we find Enzo, then it’s another step closer to finding Alberto,” Viktor muttered, a thoughtful look on his face. “Alberto has gone off grid, and his second in command is nowhere to be found. His empire is vulnerable, and he knows that. Even if Alberto didn’t tell Enzo anything about his hiding place, he will have to contact him.”
“His only communication to his empire is through Enzo,” I added, sitting forward in anticipation.
“But we have to find Enzo first,” Viktor said through gritted teeth.
If we couldn’t find Enzo, there was only one person who would lead us to him. Or bring him to us. “His wife,” I suggested.
Viktor shook his head. “She’s out of the country.”
“When will she be back?” I wondered out loud.
“
I don’t know. She left the same day Ayla was taken away. It was probably for her protection.”
At the sound of Ayla’s name, my heart stuttered, and another wave of pain crashed through me. My hands tightened in fists until my knuckles turned white.
I stared at the file in front of me. “One of these men, at least of one them, should know about Enzo’s whereabouts. Or even Alberto’s. This is our only option.”
“We’ll get to them. All of them. Everyone in this list will be questioned. We won’t stop until Ayla is found,” Viktor promised.
No. There was no way we were stopping. Ayla would be found. Today or tomorrow. Or the day after. But she would be found.
“What do you want to do after they’re questioned?” Viktor asked. But he already knew the answer. He only asked because he needed confirmation. He needed a push, a new purpose again.
I stared at the photo frame on my desk. It was a photo of Ayla. Maddie took that picture a few days before Ayla was taken away from me.
She was laughing, her face had lit up, and her green eyes shone brightly. Her beauty, her smiles, her laughter, they were all mesmerizing.
“Kill them all,” I whispered, still staring at Ayla’s picture.
None of them were innocent. There was no innocence when it came to Alberto’s men. I still remembered when Ayla was telling me about her abuse. How Alberto’s men would rape her while the sick bastard watched.
I was going to avenge my Angel the only way I knew how.
I was going to destroy the Italians. One by one, until they bowed down to me. To Ayla.
Reaching forward, I touched Ayla’s cheek through the photo. Wait for me, Angel.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when the door banged open. I looked away from Ayla to find my father and Isaak walking in.
Lyov was fuming, his chest heaving with each breath he took. “The Families are questioning your capabilities as the Boss.”
Viktor swiveled around to face them. “What?” he growled, getting to his feet.
Lyov ignored Viktor’s outburst. Instead, he leveled me with a glare, daring me to reply. But I had no answer. I knew it would come to this.
“While looking for Ayla, you forgot that you are the Boss of four Families. You are not taking care of the business or anything else. When there is a problem, you send them to Viktor. The Families have every right to question you as their Boss,” Isaak added as he came to stand beside Lyov.
