Chapter 15 - Aleksei
My body immediately presses against Bianca’s, instinctively putting myself into position to be able to maneuver out of the vehicle quickly. She stumbles out of my lap, a frenzied look on her face. She’s seizing up from the adrenaline, a look I’ve seen countless times, but I remind myself to keep her calm and in the moment. I needed to keep her present so we could move fast to safety. The car screeches to a halt after turning a sharp corner, Bianca using the moment to pull her dress down to cover herself.
“Look at me, we’ll be okay. Hold my hand and whatever happens, don’t let go.” I squeeze her small hand in mine. The door swings open, neon lights of the stores and streetlamps illuminating the curb. I move out, turning swiftly to help Bianca shuffle out of the vehicle as I run a quick cursory glance over the street. Our chauffeur must’ve lost the shooters, but it won’t be long before they’d be on our trail again. It’s a situation we had protocol for, the driver accelerating as soon as the limousine door shut closed. He’d now meander through the streets in the hopes that the assailants would follow the vehicle, none the wiser to us exiting.
I notice a small alleyway, one I recognize as leading to a parallel street down the block. I look back at Bianca to send her a quick nod and a reassuring squeeze of her hand, her eyes searching mine for the next steps. I move forward, and she follows me, running to catch up with my long steps. The path through the alleyway is dark, not lit at all, and I start to feel a swell of something I believed was long lost to me. Fear. It isn’t fear for me. Self-preservation was something I learned to negate within me long ago, learning that in situations, I’d have to run on pure instinct, even when contrary to the notion of self-preservation. This time it is much worse, a biting, bitter, sensation, fearing for the survival of a person I loved.
The darkness is almost like a presence now, ominous in combination with the attack. I know Bianca is terrified, remembering her paralyzing fear of the dark, and I keep trying to keep her present. Now, at my side, I put my arm over her shoulder, massaging circles into her right shoulder, a small gesture I know she finds soothing. Her body is shaking, but as we near the end of the alleyway, I turn to her, still walking.
“We have a safehouse nearby. We don’t use it often—almost ever—but it will be a fine enough place today. Until we’ve secured the safety of our main estate.” I brush the stray hair sticking to her forehead out of the way. We’re almost out of the alley, a mere meter from the hustle and bustle of the street we’re aiming for.
The rest of the walk to the safehouse is fast and quiet. I keep glancing around us, noting that this street has less passerbys, but I’m still on high alert nonetheless. My thoughts wander to my brothers—I’ll have to contact them as soon as we’re inside. I hope they don’t get caught in the crossfire. But for now, the focus is on keeping Bianca safe.
The doors seem inconspicuous, an old gray wooden frame—this is how most of our safehouses are, to keep them from prying eyes. Instead of a key, I take out my phone to scan at the touchpad next to the doors. The lock clicks open and we enter inside.
The stairs leading up to the door of the apartment are spiral-like and steep, Bianca in front of me so I could catch her in case she falls. Her legs are still shaking with adrenaline. The same process follows as before, scanning my phone on the door, the lock clicking as it unlocks.
The air in the foyer is stale, a testament to the fact that we rarely use safehouses. Bianca takes her heels off, sighing as she winces. I notice the red, angry marks on her feet, realizing just how fast we were walking while she was in the stilettos. Walking up to her, I reach up for her shoulders so she looks at me. I position one hand under her thigh, the other still resting on her shoulder.
“Don’t get startled,” I whisper, before picking her up, bridal style. She huffs in surprise, letting a light laugh escape. It’s airy, almost like she’s allowing herself to laugh after the situation we just faced.
“Didn’t peg you for such a softie, but thank you.” She places a chaste kiss on my jaw, and I feel my mind ease a little. I turn back, entering a walk-in closet already prepped with all our clothes. Placing her down, I rummage through the different compartments to look for something comfortable to change us into. I turn when I hear the soft shuffling of footsteps behind me.
“Who’s are these?” She questions, looking at the racks of female clothing, hands lingering on the material.
“Those are yours; I had all our properties fitted with your clothing too, just in case something like this would happen.” I look at her, trying to gauge her reaction. Something akin to relief washing over her features. She smiles, a mischievous expression slowly forming on her face.
“I thought these were…” She gets quiet, suddenly looking at anything at me. I shut a drawer closed, spare t-shirt in hand as I quip a brow at her.
“One of your past lover’s.” It’s even quieter.
“You’re my wife . No one else matters now. They never will.”
She looks through the clothes, picking out a comfortable brown set of a shirt and joggers. She turns to change, a fact I find amusing, considering we’ve both seen each other completely bare. It’s endearing though, her shyness making me want to tease her, to bring out the redness that so easily appears on her plump cheeks, sometimes even reaching the tip of her ears.
We walk out and enter the bedroom. This apartment is old enough to have a fireplace, though renovated, situated behind a glass screen. I open it up, starting the sparks and throwing a few logs on top, moving them around with a poker, before deciding it’s enough to keep going on its own. Bianca sits propped up on the bed, looking at the fire.
She looks gorgeous, her soft features illuminated by the warm light of the fire. There’s something in the air now, maybe the aftermath of everything, now being in a place we could both relax. It’s odd. The scene feels oddly familiar and domestic, more so than any of our other interactions, even back at the mansion.
I walk up to her, observing how her eyes focus on me as I get closer, prompting her to give me her hand. There are a few perks of having these safehouses, one being it’s always stacked full of whatever we might need. It feels like an escape today, being in a world where it’s just the two of us.
There’s an enclave near the window containing a small collection of wine, glasses, and an opener. The glass is kept polished, and I note to tell Dmitri to give our cleaning staff bonuses for keeping it up in such good shape despite the lack of usage. Once poured, I sit back next to Bianca, noticing her shapely body filling out the clothes so well despite them being loose. Focus.
There’s a crackling audible now, filling up the room otherwise occupied only by the sound of our breaths. The sounds of the city are imperceptible, making the whole moment seem more like a dream and less like reality.
“Aleksei.” She starts, fidgeting with the glass in her hand. “There’s something I saw today. I—I wasn’t sure at first, I thought I was in shock and that I imagined it but—” She looks up at me, her gray orbs suddenly glossed over.
“I saw them through their windshield before they opened fire.” She shook her head, as if attempting to shake her thoughts back in order. “When I was in your lap. The man who shot at us was one of my father’s men .”
I feel my muscles freeze, liquid rage flowing through them now. What the hell was that old bastard thinking? If he was making an attempt at my life, was the life of his own daughter worthy collateral?
I take a deep gulp of the wine, not really savoring the taste, feeling disappointed by the sensation being so unfulfilling. I’m thirsty for blood, I realize, for Lorenzo’s blood in specific, and the feeling is almost cathartic in a way—one I’m much more used to than the fear I felt for Bianca’s safety.
“I knew I recognized that face, Aleksei. It’s my sister’s personal bodyguard. That’s so fucked up.”
The tears flow down her face freely now, hands coming up to shield her face as she sobs. It feels instinctive now, the urge to comfort her. The urge to murder her heinous father, who would bet the life of his daughter if it meant he had a shot at revenge. He may have heard plenty about me, might even think he knows me, but he has no idea what I am capable of to protect those I care for.
“Come here, I won’t let anything happen to you. He’ll have to get through my dead body to touch you.” I cradle her against me, her cries only amplifying my rage. We stay like that for a while, my hold on her easing when I feel her shakes ease up. She shuffles out of my grasp, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. She looks down at the cup of wine now placed on the small conference table before us. She picks it up gingerly, lifting it towards me with a defeated smile.
“To fucked up families.” She scoffs bitterly, drinking down the whole cup in one go. I mirror her, eyes on her as I gulp my wine glass down.
“Tell me more, I want to hear more about you,” I say, needing to know more. It’s not just to pry, but rather a need to know her more. Our introduction was brief, and it’s beginning to dawn on me that despite all her quirks growing on me, not to mention her electrifying appearance, I don’t know anything about her . Not beyond the dirt I’ve accumulated on her father, or the brief intel we found on his family, which was much too little . It’s like she didn’t exist at all prior to us meeting at Inferno.
“I don’t know. I was never wanted in the Rossi family—I guess that’s all there is to it.” She breathes a deep sigh, bringing her legs up against her, propping her chin on top. “I always knew my mother was a nobody—everyone made that known to me very early on—but the most pain was caused by just how little my father cared about how the rest of the family treated me.”
I inch closer to her, wanting to touch her, comfort her. But I need to know more.
“Why didn’t he protect you? You were still his daughter.” It is more of a rhetorical question than anything else, both of us knowing there is no answer. There is no way a caring parent would do that to their child. There are many things about our family that I despise, but we grew up with all the love from our mother, and the necessary stronger hold that was our father. It was always to guide us, often in ways that outsiders to our world might frown upon, but it was never to torture or humiliate us. That has no purpose other than to take sadistic pleasure in the pain of those who are meant to be closest to us. My thoughts go back to Anya, the wound on my soul reopening. I wish she was still alive. And the damn Rossi is willing to have his own blood die if it means ending me.
“I used to go to Church each week, my stepmother forcing me to repent for hours. It’d just be me and the priest, with her standing nearby. I had to apologize for hours on end just for my existence, and then be beaten by her at home when no one was looking.”
Sasha Rossi. A poised woman, strongly religious from what I can remember. I file a mental note to ask Dmitri to compile some more information on her. I was so consumed by revenge towards Lorenzo that all of the intel we gathered on the other family members is only in relation to how much loss we can cause Lorenzo through them, leaving us with only barebone facts.
“You never deserved that treatment, and I can promise you one thing—time will come when you will be able to avenge all the things done to you. Whatever that means for you.” I lift my hand to caress her cheek and she leans into it, closing her eyes.
“Usually in our line of work, families tend to run a little… odd to most people. But that doesn’t excuse abuse. We only shed blood when we need to, and never our own.” It feels like a confession. An admission of the relative morality we have might seem fickle to most, but it guides us and we abide by it strictly.
“You know, her name is Rosa. She’s worked with us for years. She confirmed what my men failed to—that my brother, Maksim, is safe. That’s all that interaction held. She’s just a colleague to me.” My tone is apologetic, but I don’t mind it. I want Bianca to know that I wouldn’t betray her trust so easily, even if what we have is an alliance fueled by a need for revenge.
“Thank you.” It’s a simple phrase, but falling from her lips it almost feels like a confession. Like she trusts me, which means far beyond any other gesture.
“It’s weird, you know. I never thought I’d make peace with any Rossi, ever. But you’re different. I may hate them, but not you.” She laughs at that, more of the sweet sound that is like music to my ears. It’s so easy. Despite knowing so little about each other, her presence feels like comfort; like home. It’s warm.
“Well, I do still hate you.” She gets closer, until she swings her leg over mine and climbs into my lap. She laughs when my brows furrow, looping her arms around my neck as she gets closer to my face. “But there’s also a few other things there. I like you sometimes .” Our lips connect, electrifying the air around us.
I respond with a hum that vibrates through our kiss. She pulls back to look at me, eyes traveling down to my lips and back to my eyes. She looks hungry and needy— delicious . Then she quips her brow mischievously. “Do you want this?”
I know she’s teasing, echoing my need for a vocal partner. I like them when they beg for it, the little vixen must’ve noticed that.
“I do.” I smile back at her.
“Good.” Her answer is curt and breathy, but only because our mouths are much too busy fighting for dominance to be talking. She places her warm palm on my chest, feeling my heartbeat for a few seconds before pushing me down to lie on my back. I obey, curious to see where this will go. Bianca stands up from the bed then, sliding off the shirt from over her head, looking straight into my eyes as she does so. Her joggers and underwear follow suit, exposing her full curves, begging to be touched. I sit up too, tossing my shirt over my head and somewhere on the floor.
In a flash, she’s back on the bed and straddling me, bending down to kiss me while grinding herself into me. I reach out for her neck, grabbing tentatively to see how she responds. I smile into the kiss when her response comes in the form of a resounding moan.
She palms me through the fabric, and I grow impossibly harder at her touch. Bianca pulls down the waistband, my cock springing up.
“I’m gonna fuck you hard, Aleksei.” She announces resolutely, almost more to herself than to me. Her attempts at reclaiming control and dominance are so endearing. I want to see her try.
“Knock yourself out, baby. Show me what you’ve got.” By the time I spit the words out she’s already aligning my tip with her entrance, sinking down in one motion.
“So big.” She breathes out, but I can tell she needs some time to adjust to my size. “Fuck.”
She’s warm and tight, and I have to fight the urge to turn her over and fuck her into the mattress. If she wants to—no, needs to , by the dazed look in her eyes—be the one in charge for a few minutes, then I respect her wish. Instead, I glance down to where I disappear inside of her, groaning when I realize she’s so wet that she’s dripping onto me and down onto the linen of the bedsheets. My hands reach to slap at her breast, fondling them to massage the sting away. Bianca’s mouth is agape, pretty and red and raw from all the violent kisses we shared.
“Do you hear yourself, baby? Look at you, dripping like a slut for me.” I coo to her, feeling her clench around me in appreciation. Her pace speeds up, growing to new heights, and I find that I need to calm down before I blow too quickly. I grab her by the waist, turning so she’s under me. I give her an appreciative squeeze, liking the softness of her curves. She hisses when I enter her again.
I begin pounding into her again, feeling both our highs very close.
“Look at me,” I whisper into her mouth, taking her jaw to position her face so we’re looking into each other eyes. Her eyes are blown out, our pants heavy and breathy as we both close in our orgasms. “You’re the only one I want, Bianca.”
It’s then that we both undone, her shortly before me, but when I feel her velvety walls contract around me I know I’m done for.