13. Gianna
CHAPTER 13
In the three days I spent without Niko, I learned a few important things about myself and the room he created for me. For one, he is the most thoughtful murdering piece of shit on earth. He designed every part of this place to suit my tastes, which makes it profoundly hard for me to hate him.
Two, I’m tired of being alone. I hate it much more than what I claim to feel for Niko. After years of separation from my family and months of being trapped and isolated, if I could never be lonely again, that would be too soon. I have no family left, none at all, and that’s what I want more than anything else.
A house full of children and grandchildren, someone always making noise. When the realization of that dream settled in, it ached so badly that I lay in my bed for hours like I’d taken another knife to my never healing heart. But marrying Niko might provide me an out, even given how tenuous my life has become, and a chance to have those things. Even though he’s agreed to marry me, I’m pretty sure that the loneliness I detest is mine, whether I want it or not.
I spent as much time thinking about the family I’ve lost as the one I plan to gain, to use, and to manipulate for my freedom. My father, my brother, my mother. I cried for my parents and felt better after, but Dante’s loss still hurts as bad as the day it happened. Maybe I’m not ready to know what happened to him, and I convinced myself Niko actually has a good reason for not telling me.
I was raised to believe in the strength and righteousness of my own father, and I did, like the man was God. He was so far from it. He’s killed more people than Niko, he locked me away, ignored me the whole time, and then traded me when it proved a convenient strategy. Niko is offended by the man he chose. The problem is he regarded me as something to trade at all. Stupidly, and with all evidence to the contrary, I thought I meant more to my father than that.
I’m not sure how I should mourn a man I don’t believe ever took me seriously. My father’s love for me was like his Tiffany vase or his 1960s Cadillac, a rare and pretty thing to cherish so long as it behaved. What good was a broken vase to him or a car he couldn’t fix? I was a perfect daughter, or I was nothing, and once Dante was gone, I was just nothing.
While I hadn’t admitted it to myself before, I gave up on the hope that my parents would ever see me, let alone truly love me. They didn’t even put furniture in my apartment when they forced me into it, and Niko has taken everything I ever told him, everything he learned watching me, and crafted something I would love. I’d be in a fucking cage either way, but at least he cares about making me happy. Someone cares without a paycheck attached.
Niko has let me down in so many ways, and I know I can’t ever forgive him for what he’s done. I’m not that gracious. But all the men I’ve loved have failed me. Why should I hold him to impossible standards when I was born into chaos, and that’s what I clearly attract?
In addition to my anger toward Niko, the thought of what he did sends chills running up and down my spine. That black-clad figure killing my parents stars in my nightmares, but the dream is warped, and it’s never him inside. Then my father’s face shifts to Dante’s, and I wake screaming.
I’m not crazy, so I know Niko being the only thing to make me feel safe means I’m cracking in two. Since I locked that door and demanded my space, he’s made himself scarce. The relief lasted all of thirty seconds, and after that, I tiptoed around, wondering when I’d see him, hoping he would open the door instead of turning the knob and walking away.
Why do I want him to force his affection on me?
After what happened with Antonine, I’m praying I don’t need to kill anyone else. There’s been so much death around me, and I’m growing concerned about how little I care about what I did. Shouldn’t his murder star in my nightmares too? It doesn’t. Am I growing stronger or just becoming numb?
I was already feeling strange, lonely, and desperate when I found Niko on the floor, the physical manifestation of everything I keep locked inside myself. He was so beautiful, his pretty lips trembling, his soft curls making him look so much more innocent than he was. I just couldn’t ignore him.
I should have turned away from him, held on to the embers of the dying hate still burning in my heart, but instead, I reached out. The fact that something so real exists inside him at all has me looking at him in different ways. It made me realize what an exploitable weakness he has. I wouldn’t be Stefan Gemelli’s daughter if I didn’t see an easy mark.
Nikolai loves me, and he wants me to love him back. There’s not much you can’t get out of a man when that’s true. I offered to marry him, and I don’t exactly regret it. It’s a wide-open opportunity to have a real life, and I take it. He can give me all the things I realized I want and more. I feel guilty for agreeing to marry him, wondering if my parents are watching and hating me. That’s likely an inescapable part of my life now. But why watch me when they didn’t bother with me in life?
Niko left a few minutes later, calm, looking like the impenetrable person he’s always seemed. But I know the truth now—he’s soft. As stupid as it sounds, I wanted to go with him to that funeral and hold his hand. I stand to gain a lot by marrying him, and I didn’t offer out of love, but I’m not sure who’s playing who in this arrangement. I’ll still love the children we have, even if their parents’ relationship is complicated.
Will either of us even live long enough to worry about those children I want or the fact that I’m Catholic and refuse to divorce him? If I get married, I’m married. It will be him and me forever.
Those moments of connection with Niko went so fast, and now I’m alone again, staring out at his vineyard and thinking it’s really not fair for it to be so beautiful here. Mostly I’m worried about Domalachego bringing the Russians into the area and what that would look like for this slice of paradise Niko built. There’s been enough blood shed without the Russians too. We’re hardly innocent, but we don’t need another warring faction.
They’re already here, though. My father brought them, and there’s no way in hell I’m marrying Fyodor Domalachego even if he wasn’t this supposedly awful man. He may not respect Niko’s claim, but it will ruin my appeal for a man like him, and call any potential children into question. No man wants people to say his enemy fathered his children.
I throw up more than once as I wait for Niko to come back and wrestle with the decision I made. My grief versus how happy I am for this potential life, how excited the teenage girl inside me is to marry Nikolai Bouchard. The time ticks on, and I hear nothing. How would I? I don’t have a phone, and no one is ever inside the house. I wouldn’t dare go out. It’s just like being in that apartment again with nothing to do but wait. There’s this sensation of my world narrowing. What would I even do if he didn’t come back?
It’s dusk when the gate opens, and his car pulls through. I’m a strange combination of relieved and furious. Did he actually make me worry about him? I’m in the living room, waiting to see if he comes through the main or side door. He seems to switch back and forth on which he prefers.
When he enters through the side, I turn on him, ready to throw hours of stress and anger at him, but I freeze at the bags under his eyes and the lines of stress carved into his forehead. Niko left a younger man, and I have the strangest urge to hold him.
“Are you down here waiting for me because you changed your mind?” It’s clear he’s been worrying about this all day, fretting about my choices when he was laying his father to rest. Again, he’s thinking of me when no one else is. I blush and hope he doesn’t see.
“No, I’m down here because you should have been back hours ago, and…” The anger seems silly now, and I’m not sure how to explain it when I’m a literal kidnap victim. When I’m supposed to hate him and I’m not sure how much I do.
“You were worried?” Disbelief and awe, then this trepidatious little smile breaks out, melting what’s left of the ice on my heart. “You’re still planning to marry me, and you were worried about me because I’m home late?”
The heat burns my cheeks, and I wish I never came down the stairs.
“I’m assuming your men have orders to keep me inside, Niko. What the fuck would I do if you didn’t come back? I’m guessing you didn’t tell them who your hostage is.”
He’s quiet, like this is his first time considering it. I’m not surprised that me having a life without him never crossed his mind.
“So you didn’t miss me?” And while his expression doesn’t shift, his energy does. Why don’t I want to hurt him anymore?
I don’t say anything because the lie would be just as loud as the truth.
“What took so long? Drinks with your brother or something?”
“No, he’s acting weird. Disappeared into the tree line after the funeral like a creep. I think he’s got a thing for one of the nuns, which won’t end well for her.” He looks at something off in the distance, speaking as if the eventual death of this woman of God is nothing of import.
I gasp because the idea that Pax is all grown up, killing nuns, and Niko isn’t going to stop him is hard to swallow.
“What are you going to do?”
He meets my eyes, pulling him back from wherever he went.
“I made the monastery his territory. My brother won’t kill them if they’re his responsibility.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not really.” He shrugs. Once again his honesty blows me away. I’m not sure if I should resent it or kiss his feet for it.
“So it doesn’t matter what he’s doing?”
“That’s a question for your priest, not me.”
“Does it matter to you?” I decide to push the issue. His brother kills people and not like my father or brother did, but he murders for his own pleasure.
“Yeah, it does, but loyalty matters more.”
Did he mean for that to land so heavy?
He’s still standing across the room, and I decide it’s time to make a move. A little wave and he follows me to the kitchen island. His dubious expression drags out the most reluctant smile. Does he think I’m leading him into a trap? Am I?
He sits, watching me like I might stab him this time instead of Antonine. I strongly consider it and think I might enjoy it, but I decide against it. I’m just making my fiancé a drink.
“Thank you,” he says, staring at the glass like it might bite him, but he finally takes a sip.
“So what took so long?”
“Is this how we’re playing it?” His gray eyes storm over his glass.
“Playing it?” I cock my head to the side, the picture of false innocence as I rest my ass on the island.
“You, Gianna Gemelli, are my fiancée,” he says it like a hypothetical.
“Your fiancée, Nikolai Bouchard.”
He nods, laughing to himself in a way that would be insulting if I didn’t know he’d had a very hard day.
“You’re just going to meet me at the door, pour me drinks, and ask me about my day?”
“I rather felt like I was questioning you about your day, but leave it to you to give it a more positive spin.”
“We’re going to ignore everything else?” Niko’s voice rises, betraying he’s edging on manic rather than amused.
He’s always had this unpredictable side to him that’s waiting to explode at any time. I’m immediately nervous and turned on by the intensity of that energy. Everything in my life has been cold for so long, and Niko is this strange combination of what I know and what I need, hot and cold, chaos.
“I’m not ignoring anything. I just thought that after your father’s funeral and agreeing to marry you, I could lay my weapons down and be civil for one evening.”
He doesn’t trust a word I say, which is smart. I’m full of shit. At least I’m partially full of shit. So much of this is real, unfortunately.
“So you’re doing this for my benefit?”
“Yes.”
“Then what I really want is to fuck you. The real you, not this fake nice bullshit persona who makes me drinks.”
“This fake nice bullshit is exactly what I would do for you all the time if you weren’t an asshole because it’s not fake. You had a hard day. I made you a drink. I'd cook for you too if you weren’t being a prick.”
“Bend over the counter and pull your panties down.”
I’ve really touched on a nerve, again, but I’m not doing it.
“If we’re really engaged, then I’m not fucking you until we’re married.”
His fists clench where they rest on his knees.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I’m Catholic, Niko. You may not believe in God?—“
“I don’t.”
“But I do. You can fuck me after the wedding.”
“I’ve already fucked you, Gi, and you’re a shitty Catholic.” He gets off the chair, sliding toward me. “You think God is going to care if we keep doing it?”
It’s not so much about God’s opinion as it is mine.
“After the wedding or no wedding.”
“What if I told you we’re getting married tomorrow? It’s all planned.”
“Then you can fuck me tomorrow afternoon.”
“It’s one goddamn night, Gianna!”
“You’re right, Niko. It’s just one night.”
“I don’t like hearing no.”
“I can’t imagine you do. I’m not too fond of it either.” I tug the collar at my throat to point out I’m still wearing this degrading thing. He still hasn’t told me what happened to my brother either, but I don’t plan to fight with him about that tonight.
He leans into me and places a kiss below the collar. A light trail of goose bumps runs up my skin, and I melt when he inhales, enjoying my scent. I’m wrapped up in this surprisingly gentle moment when a little click pulls me out of the moment. Much to my surprise, he’s got the leash clipped on.
“You just had that on you all day?”
“I needed something to look forward to, and the thought of you at my mercy did the job,” he tells me as he tugs the leash, leading me off the stool and onto my feet. I struggle lightly, but he’s so strong, and I really don’t want to pull my damn neck.
“All day?”
“Waiting for the moment I could get my hands on you.” He tells me as he tugs me down the hall. “I’ll admit I assumed you were going to break off our ‘engagement,’ and we’d have a repeat of the shower incident.”
I shouldn’t be so excited at the mere mention of him holding me against the wall and forcing an orgasm out of me, but fuck if I don’t question my own resolve to wait until after the wedding. It seems silly even to me, but I’ve done so many things the wrong way, so even if it’s just one night, I want to wait. I want to feel in control of something.
“Niko, are we really getting married tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Then please don’t fuck me tonight.” I’m wet as hell, so it seems counterintuitive to argue against what I want, but I have to have some scraps of self-control.
“Don’t worry, princess. I won’t fuck you.”
But the way he says it has me very worried.