Torment

37

“Wake up,” I growl, “Freya, wake up.”

When she opens her eyes, they meet mine and widen, and she gasps for air, tears streaming down her cheeks.

But she’s not reaching for me. She’s pushing me away.

I hold her in place as shakes, keeping her pressed against the bed until she calms down.

“What?” I demand. “What is it?”

Her hands come up over her eyes and she hiccups, shaking her head.

But she doesn’t have to say anything. I know it immediately.

The dream was about me.

I was the nightmare.

I let go of her and go back to my side of the bed, not trying to pull her back into me.

I wanted her to be afraid of me when I first saw her. But now, I can’t stand the thought of her fearing me.

It feels like hours have passed even though I know it’s only been a few minutes. I close my eyes, and my breathing slows, but I can’t get any sleep.

I feel her body move next to mine. She crawls into me, tucking herself into my side, no doubt thinking I’m asleep. Her hand tugs on my shirt as she bunches the material in her hands and clutches on to it.

And then something wet lands on my arm.

A teardrop.

“Don’t hate me,” she whispers, “I don’t want you to hate me anymore.”

Something’s wrong.

I noticed it in the days leading up to her birthday. Every passing day, she becomes more and more a shell of herself. The Freya I know is a hellfire. And the girl I see these days is too often disoriented. Lost.

When I speak to her without my usual bite, her face crumples with pain.

The only time the look disappears from her face is when I’m fucking her. So I fuck her all the time.

It’s the only way she’ll let me have her. The only way she’ll let me in.

I’ll take what I can get.

Her outfits these days consist of my white sheets and my white shirts. The realization hits me suddenly — the only time she wears white is for me.

Each night leaves traces of her in my sheets, and I always want more.

I’m addicted to her pussy. Addicted to coming inside it. Addicted to . . . her.

But I don’t just want her body. I want her mind. Her heart. I want her fucking soul.

I know that she has fears. I know they keep her up at night. I know she needs time. But I also know that she’ll run if I give her too much time to think about whether it’s a good idea to marry me.

It’s not.

A better man would give her more time.

I’m not.

Morning light filters into the room, growing brighter. She’s still tucked into my side, asleep. I don’t even mind that I didn’t get a single fucking wink, because watching her sleep, feeling the soft rise and fall of her breathing — it heals a gash in my chest I didn’t know I had.

I slip out of the bed, and her brows furrow in her sleep as she mumbles something in congruent. I soak in the sight of her in my bed for a second longer before I head to the bathroom.

When I’m done brushing my teeth and showering, I step back into the room to find her still asleep. She’s wearing my white button down, but nothing underneath it, so it rides up to expose the curve of her ass.

I bend and smack her ass lazily.

She shifts, letting out an angry growl.

“Get up,” I mutter, “We have church.”

She pauses. “Church?”

“Yes, little heathen. Church. I have another cousin. He’s getting christened today.”

My aunt Maria, Luca’s mama, who’d been heavily pregnant for a while now, had finally given birth. Another boy — the fourth and youngest in their family. He was born on the same day as Freya. And as much as I hated hospitals, I’d visited with flowers.

“A boy?” She sits up, her lips parted in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you would care.”

There’s a line between her brows. “I do.”

“Careful,” I murmur, “Morozovs don’t care about Costas.”

She scoffs, getting out of the bed, her bare feet landing on the hardwood floor. “Don’t make it political. I just want to see the baby.”

She heads to the bathroom, and I get dressed. Unbidden, my father’s words ring in my mind.

It’s not too late. Get a good, nice, Italian girl for a wife. Keep the Morozov girl as a whore.

Your children will never be accepted. Your son will never be Made.

The girl will betray you.

Freya walks out the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body. I hear the pads of her feet as she walks down the stairs. I should really just move all her clothes upstairs, but I like the show too much.

Moments later, she emerges upstairs and back in the room, wearing cream-colored kitten heels and fidgeting with her dress in front of the mirror.

She’s always sexy, but the dress is fucking horrific. It’s a ruffled mess of cream-colored fabric.

“Take that shit off,” I snap.

She glances up at me with an incredulous look. “You put this in my closet!”

I lift a brow. “You think I have time to pick out your dresses? I hired someone to do it. And they were clearly incompetent.”

“You have time to memorise my measurements,” she mumbles.

“Shut up, smart ass,” I snap. “Change into something you’re comfortable in. Now.”

She glances at me, apprehension swimming in her gaze. “Don’t I have to look . . . proper?”

She’s nervous.

Our family has been Roman Catholic for generations, and premarital sex and use of contraception is frowned upon by the church. I think that fucking the girl I’m going to marry in three days is the least of my sins.

And I won’t stop her from taking birth control — as tempting as it is to have something that binds me to her irrevocably, so she can never run away from me. As tempting as it is to have her in my kitchen, barefoot and fucking pregnant.

Breathing in sharply, I nip the thought in the bud and glance up at her. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” she says.

I nod, satisfied. “Then make it quick. We’re leaving in ten.”

Freya sighs, unzipping the dress and letting it pool to the floor before picking it up and throwing it carelessly into my drawer.

I resist the urge to growl. I hate it when someone messes with my space. And she’s messy as fuck. But somehow, imagining things how they were before annoys me more than the mess. My chest swells at the thought of her encroaching into my space.

Freya brushes past me, walking out the room wearing nothing but her black lacy underwear. My blood heats.

She doesn’t know, and likely doesn’t care much, but now that she’s practically my wife, we manage her public image. She’d started an Instagram account, and even though it meant much more work for our PR team, I said nothing to her about it.

Her father didn’t allow her to have any social media, and she’d clearly just created the account to see what it was like. She only posted one picture — of her outfit from the charity ball.

Because of my reputation in the media, and her being Yuri Morozov’s secret daughter, there was a slew of fake shit surfacing about her every day since the engagement was announced. We’ve been actively issuing cease and desists.

Luca had said one of the tabloids had found particularly incriminating information on her — and that our team had intercepted before it could be leaked to the public.

I take out my phone, and when I do a quick search on her, a collection of articles appear. None of them are negative, which means the people I’m paying are doing their job. Out of pure interest, I click on the first article.

We’re obsessed with the new girl!

The new it-girl? Freya Morozov (previously known as Freya Martin), fiancée to American-Italian business conglomerate Torren Costa, made her Instagram debut this Thursday, posting a picture wearing custom Vivienne Westwood.

The picture has garnered almost three million likes since.

Videos of twenty-one-year-old Morozov’s college figure skating performances have surfaced, and she is seriously talented.

But don’t take it from us: Olympic gold medallist Dasha Jokovich confirms it here.

Pride spreads through my chest. I scroll through the comments on the article, and most of them are positive. Then, I find someone who commented EWWW. HE DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS UGLY SLUT

Annoyance sparks in my veins. I create an anonymous account and I’m typing out Shut the fuck up when I catch myself and pause.

What the fuck am I doing, commenting on some women’s gossip blog like a fucking idiot?

I click send, then call Luca.

He answers after a short while. “Yeah?”

“Bring the file,” I say, referring to the information the insipid fucks at that tabloid had dug up. The information we’d paid them off for.

I want to see what they’ve found. If it has anything to do with the way Freya has been acting recently — anything to do with her nightmares — then I want to know.

My cousin’s voice is precarious. “Are you sure?”

Freya walks back into the room, fully dressed this time.

“Yes,” I mutter, distracted.

“Okay, and listen, Valerie’s gonna be at the christening, so—”

I cut the call, focusing on Freya.

She’s wearing a black corseted dress with some gothic floral pattern on the skirt.

Her glossy fox-brown hair is piled on top of her head and held in place by a claw clip.

Giant chunky earrings in the shape of crosses glitter brightly on her ears, and her hazel eyes are lined with black.

She’s applying something buttery to her lips in the mirror when she notices that I’m staring.

She turns to me, placing her hand on her hip as she shows the outfit off to me. “Is it fine?”

Does she know how stunning she is? The sight of her makes me so damn angry.

I could never really look at something beautiful without wanting to destroy it.

“Let’s go,” I grind out.

I walk ahead of her, so that I’m not tormented by the sight of her body in that corset. Still, the scent of her suffuses the air. Sweet wine, black vanilla and raspberry. Fuck. This girl. She consumes me.

Down in the garage, I round the car and open the door.

Freya pauses, drawing me out of my head.

“What?” I demand.

She blinks, her hazel eyes bigger and rounder because of whatever she put on her lashes. Her lips are parted, her features painted with surprise. “Since when do you open the door for me?”

I glance down at the door handle under my hand, not even conscious of the fact I’d done it.

I grit my teeth. “Get in.”

Her glossy lips press into a grin, and for a second, she’s back. The girl I know. My hellfire.

But then we’re in the car, and she’s glancing out the window, avoiding my gaze. I drive, unable to shake the thought that something’s wrong.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral was around fifteen minutes away, in midtown Manhattan, directly across Rockefeller Center.

The bronze doors that form the cathedral’s main entrance are flanked by towers with spires. I park the car then get out, walking through the entrance with Freya at my side.

Freya’s breath hitches, and she tilts her head to take in the sight.

The interior has a towering ceiling, and is almost entirely clad in marble, with stained glass windows that bleed in crystalline color. The pew is packed with Italians, all talking amongst themselves.

Freya’s features morph into awe, and then she takes in the swarm of people, who all grow more hushed at our entrance, some bold enough to sneak glances our way. I notice Valerie’s piercing gaze in the crowd, and I ignore it.

Freya’s hands bunch at her sides nervously.

My little heathen.

I reach out and grab one of her hands, snaking my fingers through hers.

I lean down to her ear. “I was named after one of the bishops in this church,” I tell her, “My mother chose the name. He was Irish.”

The distraction works. She visibly calms down a little, her palm easing against mine as a small smile appears on her lips. “Irish?”

I nod.

“Torren!”

We both look up to find a woman separating through the crowd, a bundle in her hands. My aunt Maria beautiful. Long face, deep brown eyes, lips are painted red, her olive skin glowing. Her dark hair is in a braid coiled into a crown on her head.

It’s not hard to understand why my uncle is so in love with her. They’re the archetypal Italian couple. As a boy, I often wished I’d been born into their family instead of my own.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” Maria says with a bright smile. She appears young, even after four children. Sometimes I forget that she was only eighteen when she had Luca.

“Freya,” my aunt gushes, “How are you, mio amore?”

Freya looks at her like it’s the first time she’s seeing her. It’s not. My aunt was at the engagement. The brat was clearly too drunk to remember.

But she offers Maria a small smile and says, “I’m okay, thank you.”

Her gaze lowers to the bundle in my aunt’s hands, and Maria’s sharp eyes don’t miss it.

“Here,” my aunt says, “You can hold him.”

She passes the baby to Freya, and Freya’s eyes widen as she accepts the bundle. “Oh.”

She looks down at the baby, and her expression melts. “Oh.”

I don’t blame her. He’s an annoyingly cute kid. There’s a shock of dark hair on his head, and he has cherub-like features — flushed cheeks, button nose and a pink rosebud for a mouth.

“We chose the name Nero,” my aunt says proudly. “Because his hair is so black.”

Freya strokes his cheek with the back of her hand. “Hi, Nero.”

Nero reaches up for Freya’s earring and pulls, and she smiles, gently pulling it out of his tiny grasp.

Her gaze flickers to me. Then she blushes, and I want to bottle up that color and paint it on my walls.

She thinks she won’t be a good mother. She couldn’t be more wrong.

I see the way she cares. About her family, about her sister. That kind of fierce protectiveness shouldn’t be so rare, but it is. Does she know how many people would kill to be cared about that way?

“Hey baby M!” Luca yells, “That’s my baby brother!”

He emerges from the crowd, grinning when he spots us.

“She’s aware, Luca,” I murmur dryly.

Behind him, Mickey and Phillip emerge from the crowd. Mickey’s dress shirt is pulled to his forearms and crumpled, while Phillip’s suit is still pristinely pressed.

I’m well aware of what it means. Nero is another Costa with pure Italian blood. When the time comes, my position will go to one of these boys. In a selfish way, I don’t care.

Am I a Made man? Or a damaged one? Did my father make me? Or did he ruin me?

I don’t want this life for my children. I didn’t get a choice. They will.

The boys surround Freya, greeting her. Mickey dives into a conversation that appears serious but is probably far from it.

I turn to my aunt, acutely aware of the toll childbirth takes on the body.

“How are you?” I ask her.

“I’m good,” she says, “My boys take good care of me.”

I grunt. “They better.”

My aunt gives me a soft smile.

“What?” I ask her.

“You seem different,” she says, “Warmer.”

“I’m the same, zia.” My gaze latches onto Freya again, and she laughs at something Mickey says. “You know I’ll never change.”

“Hmm,” my aunt mumbles at my side. “I see the way you look at that girl, you know.”

“Yeah?” I humor her for a moment. “How?”

“Like if you look away, she’ll disappear.”

Maria gives me a knowing look, before she’s pulled away by a women who wants to talk to her.

I take a deep breath. My aunt isn’t wrong. I’m always worried that Freya will slip away too easily.

“Jesus, fuck, Mickey, don’t hold him like that!” Luca exclaims, drawing me back to the scene in front of me. “You’re going to break his fuckin’ neck!”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” I grunt.

Luca shoots me a confused look. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me not to curse in church . . . by cursing in church?”

Freya snickers.

“I never said I lead by good example,” I grind out.

Luca clenches his jaw, lifting an arm to Mickey. “Just look at how this fucker’s holding the baby, man.”

He’s right. Nero’s head is falling backward because Mickey isn’t supporting his neck while he’s holding him.

“Michael, hand the kid over to Phillip,” I mutter.

My younger cousin possesses far more brain cells than his two older brothers.

“But I wanna show Freya how I burp him,” Mickey wails.

“Now.”

Pouting like a damn child, Mickey hands the bundle over to Phillip, who, like expected, holds it with far more care.

My uncle Vito appears, ruffling Phillip’s hair and placing a kiss on his wife’s cheek as he asks her how she’s faring. Freya watches the scene unfold, something unrecognisable in her gaze.

Yes, Luca, and my aunt and uncle, Michael and Phillip, and now baby Nero are my family. But they’re not mine.

I pull Freya to my side, leaning down so that my words reach her.

“You and I,” I tell her, “We’re going to make one of those.” I glance at the boys with their parents. “A family. And I’ll make sure no one hurts you or them. Ever.”

Her breath hitches, and she shivers under my touch.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” she says, shrugging out of my touch.

As she separates from me, I watch as she cuts through the room.

At the same time, another body moves in the same direction. Sharp features. Blonde hair. The girl Luca was trying to warn me about — Valerie — follows Freya to the bathroom.

I sigh, and the crowd parts for me as I tail behind both of them.

Freya enters the bathroom, and then Valerie does soon after, not noticing that I’m not far behind her. I highly doubt that it’s a coincidence, but maybe it is. I wait outside the bathroom, tucking my hands in my pockets.

And then I hear it.

Valerie’s voice is saccharine. “Hi, Freya, right?”

“… Yes.”

“I’m Valerie. I’m sure you heard about me from Torren.”

“No, actually,” Freya murmurs, genuinely confused. “He never mentioned you.”

“Oh,” Valerie mumbles. “Anyway, I just wanted to congratulate you on your engagement.”

I can almost hear Freya’s close-lipped smile as she says, “Thanks.”

“He’s so good, right?” Valerie gushes.

I sigh. There it is. I should interrupt, but a morbid part of me want to see how it plays out.

Freya sounds sceptical. “What do you mean?”

“When he fucks you, you feel it in your womb.”

And then her voice is lit with anger. “When?”

Valerie is smug. “What do you mean?”

She grits her teeth. “When did he sleep with you?”

“A few months ago,” Valerie says primly. At the very least, she’s honest.

There’s a pause, and the energy shifts. “Months?” Freya’s voice is incredulous. “And you’re still talking about it?”

There’s an embarrassed silence.

“You’re beautiful,” Freya says, “I’m sure you can do better than someone who won’t even look you in the face when he’s screwing you.”

The silence is scathing.

“I love your nails,” Freya says. Her tone is so seductive it goes straight to my dick. “Where did you get them done?”

Valerie’s voice is weak. “F-forty-four on Main.”

“I’ll check it out some time. Nice meeting you.”

There’s the sound of heels, but it stops.

“Oh and — Valerie, right?” Freya’s voice turns to acid. “Don’t ever try to disrespect me again. It’s a church. Have some decorum.”

Freya walks out and draws to a stop when she meets my gaze. Anger lights up her eyes and she brushes past me furiously.

I follow after her. “You handled her better than I would have.”

She ignores me, fuming.

“You’re mad,” I note.

I reach for her wrist, tugging her into an empty corridor, backing her into the wall, pressing against her, caging her so that she has no choice but to face me. “Why? Hm?”

“I’m jealous,” she snaps.

Then she catches herself, scowling at herself for what she admitted. Good. I want her to get a taste of what I feel like, every waking moment. Just a fraction of a taste.

Her gaze is pained. “Why are you marrying me when you could just be with someone like her?”

“I don’t want her,” I say, “I want you.”

Her eyes glaze over. “For revenge?”

“For everything.”

Her breathing is heavy, and she’s trembling. That corset is pushing her tits out as she heaves against me. Her scent is everywhere.

I press into her harder. “What’s going on in that head of yours? What’s keeping you up at night?”

She opens her mouth, and it’s on the tip of her lips, I know it is, she’s close to telling me, so close to letting me in—

She drops her gaze.

“I can’t tell you,” she says.

I clamp down on my jaw, taking a step away from her. The warmth between our bodies disappears.

I turn, leaving her behind.

Fine. She can’t say I didn’t give her a chance to speak up. From now on, I’m doing it my way.

In the pew, I corner Luca, pulling him away from his brothers. A knowing look shadows his face.

“Do you have it?” I ask.

He nods, his gaze troubled. “It’s . . . more serious than I thought.”

I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not just some dumb shit about her being the illegitimate daughter or some gossip about her outfits. Freya’s — her real mother . . .” His face is sick. “Man, I can’t do this.”

He pulls out an envelope from his suit pocket, passing it to me. “You read it.”

I take the envelope, ripping it open.

? ? ?

THREE CHAPTERS LEFT!!!

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