Chapter Twelve
Chicago welcomes me with a sunny weather. It doesn't compare with the one in Italy, but I'll manage.
After a flight of almost fourteen hours, all I want to do is sleep.
And paint.
I haven't touched my canvas in a while; the chaos of the wedding kept me on my last nerves.
I exit the plane and I see a white car waiting for me. I walk down the stairs and Ivan steps out of the car.
"Mrs. Moretti." He nods, opening the door for me.
My blood runs at the way he just addressed me.
It's not a nightmare. The wedding happened.
I am indeed his wife.
I shake my head and I realize that I stare at the open door. I enter and the cool air is refreshing my skin.
"Where to, ma'am?"
"Don't call me that. You're older than me." I say and I roll my eyes.
"Where to?" But he doesn't say my name.
"I guess at my new house. I don't know Chicago at all." Ivan looks at me through the mirror.
"I can show you the city." I raise my eyebrows in
surprise. "Or Boss can." That makes me almost smirk.
"Keaton won't bother us today, but take me to the house." I can't call it 'home'.
Ivan looks at me again and nods, starting the car.
My mind takes me to my dear husband who must have his best life in a towel, under the sun's powerful rays.
A sudden image of his confused eyes is captivating my thoughts.
Last night I did something that I forbidden myself from doing. The vodka and the lack of sleep made them appear.
One moment I hate my husband and in other I'm desperately trying to make him understand that I have a heart.
One that shouldn't beat.
This morning, I woke up and a dried face and bloody fingertips. In my desperate attempts to make him stop touching me, I scratched his skin to the point of scarring.
And the look in his eyes is still haunting me. The green irises in a form that was too soft for a man like him.
I look out the window and see the buildings made of glass that make you blind because of their brilliance. Most people are dressed in tailored suits or wear luxury clothes, driving cars that look illegal.
Everything here looks rich.
It's my first time out of Italy and I already don't like it. It's true that I hate where I live…or used to live, but Italy has a rare beauty.
Almost half an hour later, Ivan takes a turn on a road surrounded on both sides by trees and which seems to isolate us from the noise of Chicago.
I move to the middle seat and look with wide eyes at the huge black mansion in front of me.
Ivan stops the car in front of the most beautiful house I've ever seen. I exit the vehicle and my mouth is a perfect O.
Although the house is completely matte black, the walls are huge windows. The gray stairs lead you into a huge living room that stretches over the entire surface of the house together with the kitchen.
The element that makes the building unreal is the suspended house on the ground floor. Two rectangles with smoked windows have terraces with plants and a swing. The architecture is so unusual because I can bet that the back of the house does not have glass walls.
What unites the two rectangles that appear to be bedrooms, is a triangular roof with the largest smoked glass, that has an overview of the forest and the city. The garage that separates the entrance to the house and the garden resembles a large bunker.
Who built this house?
"Mrs. Moretti, you know you can enter the house, right?" I look at Ivan who stands next to the door that leads right into the dream house.
"Welcome, ma'am." I look with wide eyes at the two men who are guarding the door. I was so fascinated with the house that I completely forgot about the real world.
I give them a quick nod and I enter the house. The exterior is dark, but the interior is full of cream and black furniture and I can see my reflection in the white marble floor.
I stay for about two hours to admire the whole house. I am at the second floor and I was right, there are two bedrooms here.
The main one in which me and Keaton are expected
to sleep in is situated in the middle of the floor, where the big wall glass is showing a beautiful image of the forest. The room in the right is like a mini living room with a big couch in the middle.
The guest bedroom is downstairs, so what is in the second part of this floor?
I move towards the left room ready to find a red room like the one in Fifty Shades of Grey. My husband is the kind of man who can have this room in his home.
I open the door and my breathe gets stuck in my throat.
The walls are colored in a lavender purple shade and in one corner I can see a stack of white and black canvases. On the right wall is a large table with a chair and the sight of what's on the table makes my hands tremble.
Sennelier L'Aquarelle Wooden Case 98 Extrafine Watercolors.
The best watercolors that I know.
And the most expensive ones.
The cheapest case is a thousand dollars.
My fingers are touching the colors like they might disappear. I’ve always wanted to own a set like this, and now that I am touching them, it feels like a dream.
This is a paint room.
Is it mine?
Not many people know that I paint. They mostly think I'm the useless daughter of the Familglia's Capo.
But now that I married Keaton, the future Boss of Chicago Outfit, people are already seeing me differently.
I look at the room still in awe when suddenly someone is burring his head in my neck.
"Did you teleport here?" I ask my husband. He
inhales my scent like a fucking freak and turns me
around to face him.
His eye bags are prominent and his black hair is messy. He wears a pair of grey sweatpants and a tight white T-shirt.
I hate to admit it, but he looks delicious.
"You left an hour earlier. And I took a helicopter. You think some miles will keep me away from you?" His eyes are staring into mine.
4,811 miles.
A literal ocean between the two.
"You're getting clingy, dear husband. And I see your skin is more brownish now. Did you enjoy the sun?" I ask with a smirk.
His eyes narrow and I feel his hand wrap around my neck. He brings me closer and our noses are almost touching.
"I think I'll enjoy more making your ass redder." His face is too close to mine. I can see every detail of his face, I can smell his masculine scent.
"If you want to lose your hands, then try it." I whisper on his lips.
Keaton tightens his hand more, but not hard enough to cut out my air supplies.
"What am I gonna do with this mouth, mhm?" His lips are touching mine without initiating a kiss.
Not like I want him to claim my mouth again.
"Are you expecting an answer?" I raise my eyebrows.
Keaton lets a sarcastic laugh out and he wraps his other hand around my middle.
"I think I know the perfect way to keep that mouth of yours shut." I raise my eyebrows in question and before I can say anything else, he slams his lips hard on mine.
My eyes are wide and I put my hands on his chest to balance myself.
Mio Dio, this man can kiss.
He possesses my mouth like my lips are the rain and his are the desert. His tongue licks and sucks mine like he's starving.
The hand around my neck starts to massage my pulse and I almost melt.
I open my eyes and his hard face makes me wake to reality.
I take his swollen lower lip in mine and I bite as hard as I can. His hiss makes me smirk and Keaton separates our months, his hands letting go of my body.
A few drops of blood are on his lips and I raise my hand, taking his blood on my fingertips.
"I wish I could see you like this every day."
"Yeah?" He asks while licking his lips. "You like me bloody?"
"I like you dead." His smile grows bigger and big dimples are now created.
"That's how you're thanking me for this room?" Keaton crosses his arm.
"Thanking you?" He did his room for me?
"This is my wedding gift for you." He's still smiling.
Why the fuck is he still smiling?
"How do you know I paint?" I whisper. That one painting possessing my mind.
"Keres ones told me that you're communicating only with brushes." I try not to flinch at the information.
"What happened, Althea?" Her desperate eyes are staring at me.
"I-I-" I try to say something but the words just aren't coming out.
"You want me to come to Italy?" I shake my head.
"Keres," Tears are making my vision blurry. My chest is numb.
I'm numb.
"Paint, Althea. Paint anything and I promise I'll take the first plane to you."
But when she came the monster in me was already born, and she left Italy in tears and we never spoke again.
"Why would you do something so...nice." My voice is low.
"Because, believe it or not, I want you to feel comfortable in this house." My eyes meet his, and that thing happens again.
We have a whole conversation with just our eyes.
But he doesn't see the true story in them.
"Sir?" Our gaze is interrupted by Ivan's voice. Keaton turns to him and my eyes are eyeing his back muscles. "Your father is here for you."
I can see tension fill his body and his dementor changing.
Keaton turns to me and looks at my face.
I don't know why I feel the need to make him feel better, but I say: "My wedding gift can be me killing you."
His smirk gets those stupid bugs in my stomach.
"Come at me, wife." And he leaves.
I look at the canvases and I feel a stinging sensation in my fingertips.
I take a black canvas, my new watercolors, my brushes and I do what I do best.
I paint.