Chapter 125
“I’m sorry, Niko, I’m sorry I let them take you, I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” his voice was so low, so hushed, it barely skimmed the edge of my hearing even though his mouth was right next to my ear. It wasn’t just soft it was broken, like a confession he didn’t know how to make.
My whole body trembled, breath ragged and shallow. His warmth pressed against me and it was suffocating.
“No! You are not sorry!‘ I choked out through my sobs, my voice hoarse and raw. “I know I don’t matter to you, I know I don’t mean anything to anyone, least of all you!” The words spilled out like a wound tearing open, years of pain behind them, aching to be heard.
“Shh… I’ll make it alright, I promise,” he whispered, a vow carried in his breath.
I tried to shake my head, tried to shake off the fantasy. “You can’t! You can’t.” My voice cracked on the last word, brittle and hopeless.
“I will, I need you to trust me, okay?” he murmured, his lips brushing soft kisses against my temple, like he could press away the damage.
“I hate you!”
“I know, I’ll fix it.”
“Nothing can fix this, nothing can fix me!” My voice rose, cracking under the weight of everything I was trying to suppress.
“I will, Niko, I promise you.” His voice was steady, like stone, but I could feel the desperation creeping beneath it.
“I hate you so much.”
“I know.”
“I mean nothing to you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I don’t want this, Alessandro.”
“I know.”
“You scare me too.”
“I know, Niko, I will make it alright.”
“I don’t want this, Alessandro. I don’t want to be here.” My fists clenched at my sides, shoulders tight and trembling.
“I’m not letting you leave ever again.”
I cried harder, my chest heaving with the force of my sobs. “Why?”
“I just don’t want to,” he answered softly, as though that was reason enough to hold someone prisoner. His voice sounded final.
1/3
Chapter 125
I don’t want to get abducted again.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
I shook my head violently, squeezing my eyes shut as fear twisted my insides. “I don’t trust you.”
I’ll gain your trust back.”
You can’t…”
“Tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen, I promise.”
Rage poured through me like molten lava. My fingers dug into my own arms as I opened my eyes and glared at the wall before me, a blank canvas that absorbed my fury.
“I want to hurt them. I want to hurt the people that did this to me. I want them to beg for mercy just like I did. I want them to feel powerless just like I did. I want them to feel violated! I want them to feel weak, worthless, I want them to die!”
A silence dropped over the kitchen like a thundercloud. He took deep, measured breaths, like each inhale was dragging back something dangerous inside him. The tension hung in the air, thick and pulsing. Then, without a word, he kissed my temple again, slower this time, almost reverent, before trailing his nose down the curve of my neck where he lingered drawing in my scent like it anchored him.
“Is that what you want?” he asked, voice dark and unreadable.
Let go of me!” I said, snapping back to the cruel reality that an engaged man was holding me.
I struggled again, pushing against the solid heat of his body. This time, his grip loosened just enough and I stepped out of his embrace, my skin still burning where he touched me. I turned my back to him, forcing each movement to be precise as I reached for the plate I had earlier thrown into the sink.
Water splashed as I turned on the tap, my hands trembling under the stream. My heart thudded loudly in my chest, a wild drumbeat that wouldn’t quiet.
“Nikolai…” he called my name, the sound of it sliding over my skin like a knife. My muscles stiffened involuntarily.
“Please, don’t touch me again…”
“What?” His voice sharpened instantly, the softness gone, replaced by something sharper, harder. It carried the disbelief of a man not used to being refused.
It was astonishing to me how a single touch from Antonio had the power to unravel me completely, yet Alessandro, with all his brutal possessiveness, could handle me like this, so intimately, and I didn’t shatter. He showered me, dressed me, held me, and somehow it didn’t ignite that same panic.
