Chapter 43
Gabriella
“Vienna won’t be happy,” I said to Rachel as we parked the car outside the supermarket.
“What’s he going to do about it?” she smirked, shutting the car off and climbing out.
We’d noticed that supplies were running low whilst the men were in Church, so we’d taken the opportunity to escape, since we both needed to get some shit of our own.
“Dante won’t be happy either.”
She frowned at me. “The same sentiment applies. What the fuck is Dante going to do about it?”
“You’re trouble,” I laughed, shaking my head and following her into the shop.
“We needed supplies. I know what those men are like,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “They’d bitch and whine about running low, but none of them would actually do anything about it. I’m avoiding a whole thing.”
“I’m sure,” I said, smothering my smirk. She shot me a warning glance that held no weight to it.
“Right. No offence, sweetheart, but I fucking loathe shopping in these places, and I hate company even more.”
“No offence taken,” I said.
“You get your shit, I’ll get mine, and we can meet in the booze aisle in about fifteen minutes?”
“Fucking hell, Rachel. Are we playing Supermarket Sweep?”
“Be grateful I said fifteen. I was going to say five.”
And then she was off, practically bulldozing some man down with her trolley, not even bothering to apologise.
I shook my head and rushed over to the chemist inside, picking up my birth control prescription and then made my way down to the clothing section.
As nice as it was wearing Rachel’s hand-me-downs and Vienna’s oversized hoodies, I wanted some clothes of my own.
Rachel had already given me Vienna’s credit card—without explaining why she had it in the first place, and I really didn’t want to know how—and told me to go to town.
I knew he wouldn’t mind, so I took my time going through the various clothes, my excitement building at the thought of being able to pick my own style for the first time since I could remember.
Even before Nico, my dad had been ridiculously strict about what I could and couldn’t wear. No one at the Devil’s seemed to give a shit about how the old ladies presented themselves, so I was able to be selective, buying things that appealed to me and no one else.
Though I did throw a couple of sexy pairs of bras and nightdresses in the basket purely for Vienna.
What could I say, I had a heart of gold and aimed to please.
Not to mention how pleased I would be when Vienna rewarded me for my generosity.
I was so lost in my activity, my mind racing with thoughts of Vienna, that I never even noticed the shadow figure looming towards me until it was too late.
One minute I was holding a strappy top, the next I was being rushed to the back of the store, pushed into the dressing room, and a hand was over my mouth, smothering my breathing.
“Found you, you fucking treacherous little bitch,” Nico hissed at me.
My heart immediately stopped. I tried to scream behind his hand, but he pressed it down tighter, covering my nose at the same time.
“Don’t do anything fucking stupid,” he ordered, pinning me against the wall. “Keep calm, and this will all be sorted in no time. Can you do that, Gabby?”
I nodded, forcing myself to keep silent when every instinct demanded I did otherwise.
But instinct didn’t work with a man like Nico. Instinct would get me killed. I had to rely on my training, on what I knew after years of dealing with him.
“Where the fuck have you been, sweet old lady of mine?”
He looked absolutely manic. His hair was sticking out from under his black hood. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a thick, overwhelming stench of stale alcohol on his breath.
I shook my head, trying to tell him that I couldn’t answer his questions. But his response was to grab a fistful of my hair and bring his face close to mine.
“Here’s how this is going to go, Gabriella,” he muttered to me, pressing his body closer.
I closed my eyes against the onslaught of memories that erupted, feeling my body begin to shake in sheer terror.
“You are going to go home to your little fucker of a Devil and act like nothing happened. You will not tell him you saw me here, nor will you tell anyone else. Especially not that bitch old lady I saw you with. Understood?”
I nodded.
“You are going to smile at that fucker, hug him, and suck his dick like he’s the best thing you’ve ever known. And then, when everyone is nice and relaxed, you’re going to open the back fucking door and let me in.”
My eyes grew wild, my body somehow tensing even further.
“Shh, shh. Stop panicking. This will all be over soon, princess,” he cooed, stroking my hair. “You’ll be back with me soon if you just be a good girl.”
I shook my head again, tears springing to my eyes, my body shaking so hard I was surprised I didn’t collapse. I could practically hear my heart it was thumping so heavily.
“Are you shaking your head at me, princess?” he demanded, his disgusting, alcohol-infused breath hot against my cheek.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to agree to his ridiculous demands. I would never betray Vienna or the club like that. But if I made that clear, I wasn’t leaving this dressing room alive.
“I asked you a question,” he said, licking along my cheek.
I shook my head, squirming away from him.
“Did I make it seem like you had a fucking choice?” he snapped, grabbing a fistful of my hair and slamming my head back into the wall.
Stars burst in my eyes as pain flooded through me. I couldn’t focus on anything—not what Nico was saying or doing. All I could feel was terror and pain.
As my senses came back to me, I was aware of his hands pushing between my legs, cupping me over my clothes.
“God, I’ve missed this,” he breathed in my ear, his foul breath making me gag beneath his hands.
“I fucking promise you, Gabriella, if you don’t do what I say I will make you pay for it.
I will take my knife and fuck your sweet little pussy until it’s crying rivers of blood all over my goddamn hands. Do I make myself clear?”
I shook my head again.
“Have you forgotten, baby?” he rasped, biting down sharply on my ear, his hard dick rubbing against my stomach.
“Have you forgotten how much fucking joy it brings me to see you in pain? How much I love to watch you colour my sheets red? I swear to you, Gabby, I will make you pay for every second of your disobedience. You’ll end up just like your mother. ”
My heart clenched at his words, and a small sob escaped me.
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know what happened after your darling boyfriend shot her between the eyes, do you? Here, here,” he said, his words rushed and frenzied as he reached into his pocket, somehow pressing himself even closer as he pulled out his phone.
“Look at this,” he said, his face practically rubbing all over mine. “Look at this, sweetheart. Look what I did to Auntie dearest. The love of my baby’s life. My mother-in-law.”
He was incoherent, his words barely making sense.
“Fucking look!” he barked, digging his fingers into my jaw. I tried to pull away, but he had me locked in place. Even if I closed my eyes, I could still hear it. And somehow hearing and not seeing made it worse.
I opened them to see him on top of my mother’s dead body, her eyes glassy and vacant. And Nico was naked. With a knife in his hand. He had my mother’s legs spread and was fucking her viciously.
I quickly snapped my eyes shut again, but it was too late. The images were burnt into my mind. He was so rough with her that it was clear he had snapped her neck from the awkward angle it was lolling on the bed. He was slashing her so deeply with the knife that her chest was unrecognisable.
And worst of all, throughout the entire thing he was manically chanting my name and laughing hysterically.
“You see, you see,” he breathed, rubbing his nose up my face so hard it was flattened against my skin.
His hips were grinding into me, and as he put his phone back in his pocket, his hand was running all over me.
“It’s you, Gabby. It’s always fucking you.
Do you see how mad you make me? Do you see how crazy I am for you? Don’t make me hurt you. Don’t make me—”
A deafening shot had me screaming.
Nico pulled away from me, hissing in pain as the bullet shot through his shoulder. He stumbled back from me and twisted to look at Rachel, who was standing in the doorway of the curtains to the dressing room, holding the gun with both hands, her arms straight and her gaze fixed.
But just as she went to shoot again, she was seized by the security guard, who knocked her to the floor.
She fought the best she could, kneeing one of the guards in the stomach, trying to seize her gun again, but another guard jumped on her back, pinning her down.
As Nico fled the room, I was helpless to do anything but slump to the ground, sobbing hysterically whilst Rachel screamed for the men to let her go.
“You fucking idiots!” Rachel screamed, fighting as they gathered her hands and locked them behind her back. “Do you have any idea of who that man is? Of what he’s done?”
“You’re under arrest, lady. The less you say right now, the fucking better.”
“Didn’t you see what he was doing? Are you fucking stupid?” she hissed, trying to bite them.
“Enough!” he snapped, shoving her face to the floor.
“Oh, boy, you’ve fucked up. You have royally fucked up. Ring Dante King. I want to speak to Dante King.”
“You can speak to whoever you want when the police arrive, and they take you down the station.”
I didn’t hear anything else.
My stomach rolled, and I just had time to turn to the side before I exploded, vomit pouring out of me.
And then everything went black.