Chapter Four

Bianca

I storm through the kitchen into the hall and down to Niko's room, teetering on the edge of the boundary line his office door poses. I don't want to go inside, but I also don't want to go and find one of Luca's men to ask if there's a spare room in this godforsaken house for me to take respite in.

He angered me so much with his words but even more so because his nostril flared with need whilst his eyes looked between my legs with that look of sexual frustration that nearly enough every man I've encountered since I turned thirteen and sprouted breasts for them to fantasise over has given me. It's sickening, and what's worse is my father condoned their sexual desire.

Why does he have to look to me with sexual need like that?

Why can't we just be friends? Friends with a mutual desire to get out of the nasty situation we have found ourselves in.

I'm not stupid; I know he's a victim of Don Dimitri, too. I might be young, but I see things for what they are and that every decision men around me make is fucking wrong.

Drugging people.

Selling women.

Prostitution.

Not to mention gun and knife crime endorsed by every man who sells marked products within these organisations.

It's a rat race to be the one mentioned in the inside fucking news.

It's as if they feel a need to have their organisation's name tied to the tragic outcome.

Shaking the chills from my bones, I make a decision, walk into Niko's office, and storm through to his bedroom in a huff. It seems fate left his door open for me to just allow myself into his space, and I hate that. It would have been easier to find his office door locked, so I had no choice but to find another place to rest.

I throw myself at his bed and scream into his pillow, which smells just like him. Punching the mattress as I lay facedown in his crumpled bedding, I allow my frustration to be an outlet for the first time in a week.

Only when I calm down and roll to my back do I note that his bed is obviously unclean. His room is different from what I'm used to, with daily changes of trivial things like bedding and towels.

Niko is a man's man, and he smells masculine—his own unique smell of body odour and aftershave.

It's sickening, it's enticing...I like it.

I feel like demanding he find somewhere else to sleep. On the other hand, that small childish part of me living deep within calls for me to keep him around to protect me. Nightfall scares me at the best of times, but lately, the nightmares daren't leave me alone.

Disassociation beckons me, and I allow my mind to wander down the dark paths of the past. Hands touch me, lips kiss me, teeth nip me. It hurts, and then my legs are spread—.

Swallowing, I push the past away, slipping a new face on for the sour mood that's risen from the sordid memories I try my hardest to erase; I sit up, look around his room with disfavour and note I have nothing.

Only the clothing on my very back and there's no way I'm sleeping in a short dress and lace underwear tonight.

So I snoop. I look through Niko's drawers on either side of the bed, finding an abundance of clothing, from underwear and pyjamas to joggers and T-shirts. I snatch a pair of grey joggers, a crew-neck top, and a pair of his boxers in electric blue.

He might think he has the upper hand on me, but let's see how he likes me taking over his bed, clothes, and bathroom.

His life!

I must ask Emma to gather my things. I'll need them here after all, which means right now is the time to make room for them.

Taking one drawer out of the right-hand drawers, I dump his clothes on his side of the bed—the same side he slept on beforehand. Then I dump the second drawer, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and finally the sixth, making the right-hand drawers solely for my use.

Smirking, I walk to the drawers under the TV.

Finding neatly folded smart shirts and jeans, I empty half the drawers and dump those on his side of the bed, too. A heaped pile of clean clothes is soiled by his unchanged bedding.

There, that's much better. A girl needs some room around here.

A laugh bubbles up my throat, and I cackle aloud deliriously.

What a way to start a fucking relationship, pissing off your significant other before you've even married or consummated such idiocy.

Grabbing the clothes I've kept for myself, I head into his bathroom, washing away the stickiness of my nightmares from last night.

Dimitri had woken me early and refused to let me wash before dressing, so the nastiness of my dreams still clings to me.

I scrub, scrub so hard I swear I might see blood, but looking down, I don't see anything but red, raw, dirty skin. I'm never clean. I'll probably never be clean again.

I'm damaged goods.

That may be why I hate men looking at me in the same way Niko did in the kitchen.

If only he knew what I am...who I am.

What I'll never be.

The lack of ability to give him that side of me to pleasure him will only enable him to hate me for sure. Our marriage is doomed before it even starts.

Sighing, I give up on washing away my secrets and climb out of the shower.

Fuck! My sutures.

Glancing at the mirror, I turn around and look over my shoulder to my back. Dimitri had his doctor remove the branding his son left on my skin.

A long line from hip to hip holds together clean lines, hiding the depravity with which Luca treated me.

I suppose it's a good thing; I'm sure Niko wouldn't have liked to see his best friend's name scorched into my skin if he ever did fuck me from behind. But shit, the doctor said to keep them dry for at least ten days.

It's barely been a week.

Grabbing a towel, not caring how dirty it might be. I dab the wound—drying it to prevent the stitches from displacing or whatever the doctor said would happen.

Turning around, I look at my perfectly imperfect body head-on.

If only Dimitri had removed the other branding buried underneath the pubic hair I hate but keep to hide the other name burnt into my skin by a man such as my brother-in-law.

When my fingers stroke the marred skin, it hurts, even to this day. Pain lances through me at the touch of sensitive, raised skin.

"You're pathetic, Bianca," I mutter before turning around again.

Dressing quickly, I hide my body under Niko's loose-fitting clothes. Then I return to his bedroom, climbing into his bed, where I use the two pillows on his side to create a border between us.

Sitting against the headrest, I stare at the door unwaveringly, hoping he'll join me soon. I'm tired of falling asleep alone.

But as the seconds turn to minutes and minutes to hours, my eyes start to droop, and a chill fills me from the inside.

Where is he?