by Frankie Love
"Come here," she begs me, making space for me in my bed.
I do as she says; sitting down on the edge and watching her curl up in my lap. She's like a satisfied kitten, and I'm fighting the instinct to flip her over and plunge inside her with all my might.
"Was that your first orgasm?" I ask her softly, stroking her hair.
She looks up at me through heavy eyes, looking like she's pondering the question. "Yes," she finally replies. "I think so."
I move her hair out of her eyes. "You've never made yourself cum?"
She thinks for a second. "Not like that, no."
"Ever tasted cum?"
She blushes and shakes her head no.
"Did you like it?"
She looks at me for a while, her cheeks getting redder and redder by the second. "Yeah," she finally whispers.
"Good girl..." I'm grinning. I love the way she thinks about every question carefully. I don't want to tell her there are no right or wrong answers. It's too adorable to watch her trying to get it right for my benefit.
"Will you sleep with me?" she asks me, her head resting on my lap.
"Shh." I stroke her hair, feeling her drifting off to sleep. "Get some rest, princess. I won't be far away, I promise you that."
Bianca nods contentedly, and I feel her breaths getting slower as she drifts off to sleep. Gently, I move her off my lap and make sure she's comfortable before leaving the room. I can't help myself though, I stop as I reach the door and look at her over my shoulder again.
She's innocent personified, but then again, there's something so dirty about that angelic face of hers. I'm already in it deep, I realize regretfully. There's no way I'm letting her get away now.
I leave the room, quietly clicking the door shut after me. As if on cue, my phone rings in the kitchenette area. I pick it up, wincing when I see my father's name flashing across the screen. Do I have the energy to speak to him right now? I guess I don't really have a choice...
I answer and immediately, a pissed off scream greets me.
"Where is she, you cazzo?"
"She's safe," I reply lazily. I can hear my father's heavy, angry breaths down the line. For once, I have the upper hand on him. And I fucking love the feeling.
I'm also damn grateful to my past self for never revealing the whereabouts of my apartment to anyone, not even my father. I needed some privacy, a place where I could be by myself. And now, nobody knows where I'm hiding out with Bianca. Technically, my hounds have been here once, but I trust them to be afraid enough not to spill the beans. They know I'm a stickler for revenge, and one wrong word out of their filthy mouths will mean their end.
"Bring her back this fucking instant," my father yells down the line.
"No." I grin easily. I love this. Fucking love playing him like he's played me his entire life.
I hear my father's frustrated groan, knowing I have him. He has no power over me right now. In fact, he'll have to beg if he wants to get what he wants.
"How safe is she?" he asks.
"Safe enough."
"Can you come to the house?"
I ponder his question. "Why?"
"I have to tell you... something. It's important."
"About Bianca?"
My father hesitates. "Yes."
I don't know if I can fucking resist that. I want to know why he's so intent on hurting her, why this whole goddamn vendetta against the Da Costas is so important to him. So before I can stop the words, I hear myself agreeing to his terms. We agree to meet at the house in an hour.
I only live a thirty minutes' drive away, but my father doesn't need to know that.
I arrive at my father's place, feeling a strange case of deja-vu. Leaving my beat up car in the driveway, I walk inside and am escorted to father's study by an assistant, even though I know the way by heart. I hate being treated this way, like I'm some stranger who doesn't even belong here. But I grit my teeth and take it, walking into the study where my father is waiting for me at his desk.
"How is she?" he asks me, his voice cold.
"Why do you even care?" Carelessly, I sit down in a chair on the opposite end of the desk he's sitting at. "Last thing I know, you were trying to kill her."
"Don't be so fucking crude," my father snaps. He sighs and rubs his temples before putting away some paperwork on his desk. My eyes follow his motions as he pushes a framed photograph from his desk towards me. "Look at this, Matteo."
I take the frame in my hands and turn it to face me. I've seen this photograph in my father's office for as long as I can remember. The picture is yellowed and old, and I've always assumed it was just some stock photo that came with the frame, and that my father was too busy to replace. His walls are lined with photographs of himself with his many sons - of course, not even one of them of me - but this one... I don't know this one.
"What's this?" It would be hard to hide the genuine curiosity in my voice. I look at the black and white framed picture. It's a woman, wearing one of those fake stock-photo smiles. She has dark hair and eyes, and she's stunning, as a model should be. Her expression looks forced as fuck, though.
"Who," my father corrects me. "It's Sofia."
"So?" I toss the frame towards him on the desk, feeling petulant. Instead of letting it go, my father jumps at me. It's a good thing the desk is separating me, otherwise those hands of his would already be on my throat. "What's this got to do with me?"
"Look closer," my father hisses.
Despite wanting to stand up for myself, I reach for the frame again and give the woman in it a closer look.
Beautiful, heart-shaped face. Soulful dark eyes. Beautiful wavy brown hair. A smile I've seen before. Yes, the woman is beautiful - there is no denying that. She is also hauntingly familiar.
As I slowly start to put together the pieces of the puzzle in my head, I look up at my father. "Who is she?"
"Sofia Ricci," my father replies simply. "Bianca's mother."
I knew I recognized those features. I look at the photo with newfound interest, examining her pretty face, pouty lips, the world of sorrow those dark eyes seem to be hiding.
"Why do you have her picture?" My voice is quieter, now. I need answers.
My father sighs and gets up from his chair. He starts to pace the room, and for the first time in my life, I notice he is nervous. His fingers are twitching, his brows knitted together in worry. He begins to speak and I listen intently, needing more information from him.
"It's a long fucking story, Matteo - not one I'm too fond of telling anyone," he says gruffly. "I think the time has come for you to find out what happened almost twenty years ago."
Twenty years ago, when I was just starting school. "What happened?"
"I was happily married," my father continues, and I instinctively roll my eyes. Yeah, so happily married, in fact, that he slept with my mother every other night. I still remember his hushed nightly visits, pretending I didn't see him sneaking into mother's bedroom.
"My wife passed away suddenly after being in a car crash," he says. I remember her - donna Maria, a kind woman who always liked me. She fathered three sons for my father before passing away. "I was heartbroken."
"Don't remember that part," I hiss at him. "I mostly remember you tossing my mother aside like she was trash."
"Your mother was a whore," my father cuts me off. I stare at him blankly and he just laughs, a cold, soulless sound. "You didn't know, Matteo? Of course she was a whore. And I tried so fucking hard to fix her. But the drugs, and the alcohol, and the sex... She was too far gone."
"So you just gave up on her," I say dejectedly. "Gave up on another woman in your life. And your son."
"How the fuck was I to know if you were actually my son?" he snaps at me. "She slept with a lot of men. All I had was her word for it, and it wasn't worth much."
We stare at each other. Finally, he's come out and said it. Finally, he confesses he never saw me as a son. He just used me, for my whole life. And I just let him like a tota
l jackass.
"When your mother died so soon after my wife, I was left alone," my father continues, sitting on the edge of his desk. "I took you in, took care of you."
"More like trained me to be a killer," I spit out.
"Shut the fuck up and listen."
I fight every instinct in my body and do as he says, listening for the punch line.
"I had a friend," my father continues. "He was the best man at my wedding. We came to the city together, moved from Italy at the same time. He was my best friend. My rock. My brother."
I think about whom he could be talking about, coming up empty. But my father has plenty of friends and associates. It's possible he just drifted apart with the man he's talking about.
"This man was intent on helping me get better after the death of my beloved wife. He took me out to a bar one night, and we met her."
He points to the picture of Sofia.
"I... It was love at first sight. She was singing, and my friend was playing piano in the bar. I saw the way he was looking at her, all eyes. He loved her." My father loosens his tie. "But she only had eyes for me that night."
By now, I'm completely immersed in his story. I want to hear more, so I nod for him to go on.
"Sofia and I began an affair. We were in love... She was a Catholic girl, a good one. Also Italian. I knew she'd be my wife, and I knew I'd take care of her for the rest of her life."
"So what happened?" I ask.
"My friend happened," my father snaps viciously. "He was in love with Sofia. Madly. Deeply. Irrevocably." He picks up the framed photograph and his fingers shake as he strokes the woman's hair through the glass.
"I still don't know what happened," he says tiredly. "She came to me one night - we were engaged at that point. She told me she was pregnant. She didn't know whether it was mine or his."
I stare at my father as he puts down the frame, avoiding my eyes. "My friend's name was Nicolas Abbate."
Bianca's father. I wait for him to go on.
"He took my woman. He took the child I never had." He punctuates every sentence with a slam of his fist against my desk. "I knew she wasn't mine, I had a paternity test done. He took my life, my family, my future. He stole Sofia. He stole Bianca."
I can't even react, I'm frozen to the spot. Bianca... Da Costa's daughter. Her mother, my father's lover. Finally, a reason to the year long tryst.
"Sofia was miserable," my father continues. "She wasn't allowed to see me. She wasn't allowed to let me see the child. The child I would've raised, even if she hadn't been mine. She took her own life."
My father looks ill now, pale and shaky as he turns his back on me to walk back to his chair. He looks like an old man in that moment, weak and hurt from the years of injustices that have happened to him.
"She left behind a daughter I never had the chance to meet. Da Costa hid her from me for her whole life. The child that should've been mine," he says, the pain evident in his voice. "So I started killing his children. One by one they all went down. Until there was no one left... but Bianca."
"And the boy," I say in a daze.
"The boy." My father looks up at me. "They boy who will die next."
"What about Bianca?" I demand to know.
"Bianca... I don't know," he shrugs. "I need to have her."
I guess I understand where he is coming from. Another man stole his woman, and my father developed this sick obsession with owning the only thing she left behind in this world. It doesn’t make it any better, and it doesn’t make him any less of a sick bastard. But I find myself nodding at his words.
“You can’t hurt her,” I tell him. “I’m going to protect her life with my own.”
“Why?” My father looks puzzled. “She’s just a girl. Just a pawn. Nothing else…”
I lunge at him. “She is mine,” I growl. I’ve already started seeing her as my property, and I haven’t even been inside that sweet pink pussy yet.
"Jesus," my father breathes. He looks irritated as hell as he pushes me off. "Calm down, Matteo. Alright, I won't question it anymore. But I need to know where she is." He gulps down the lump in his throat. "I need to know more about her."
I contemplate his words for a long moment, trying to decide what to do about his request. "Fine," I finally say. "I'll take you to her. You can see her, but she's staying at my place."
My father looks at me with genuine curiosity in his eyes. "Your place?"
"Yeah." I get up and smooth down my shirt. "Contrary to popular belief, I don't sleep in a fucking ditch." I head for the door, looking over my shoulder when I reach for the doorknob. "Are you coming, old man?"
My father gets up from his chair and follows behind, and it feels damn good to have him behind him, following me for once instead of the other way around. I lead the way, guiding him into my car and starting up the old piece of crap.
The ride is silent, and my father doesn't comment as his swanky neighborhood transitions into the dregs of the city. Not a single word about the shitty neighborhood, which I appreciate. After all, all his other sons live with him in opulence and luxury. Maybe seeing my run-down apartment will finally give him some perspective.
I park in a side street, as usual unable to find parking on my own. Thankfully, my car is shitty enough that I don't have to worry about it getting stolen. A small fucking blessing.
I help my father out of the car. He looks out of place here in his expensive suit, and I can see a few younger thugs on the street glancing at him with interest. I give them a warning look, and they back off, but I'm sure if my father pulled up in his Corvette, he'd get robbed in an instant.
"You lived here a while?" he asks me as we walk the two blocks down to my street.
"Yeah." I fish around in my pocket for the keys, unlocking the front door. "Coupla years."
More like the past ten, ever since he let me go from the training compound. Of course, you could never tell by the state my apartment is in. Torn apart, with crappy old furniture and my shit still in movers' boxes. Guess I never bothered to unpack. I was always silently hoping my father would invite me to live in his house, like the rest of the family. Big fucking chance of that happening now.
I open the creaking door, and right away, I get a sinking feeling, like something's off. I look at my father and the expression is mimicked on his face. "You feel that?" I ask him, and he simply nods. We go up the stairs - no lift here - and I take two at a time.
As soon as I reach my floor, I see it.
The door to my apartment, swinging open, torn off its hinges. A white sheet lying on the floor, stained with something dark. Blood. Her fucking blood.
I race towards the apartment just as my father reaches the floor and follows me inside.
The place is a mess. My old furniture, torn apart. Signs of a struggle. Broken glass everywhere, a draft coming through the broken window.
"Bianca," I yell. "Bianca! Come the fuck out here."
Of course, she isn't coming. And even as I tear the place apart, I already know she isn't here.
My father searches frantically with me. No sign of her in the ruined living room. No Bianca in the kitchen. No trace of her in the bathroom. A sweet remnant of her scent in the bloody bedroom.
My father charges for me with a scream.
I let him.
I relish every punch he throws at me as the horrible reality sinks in. Someone took her. Someone broke into my apartment and dragged my girl away, possibly hurting her in the process, judging by the dark blood pooled on the bed.
I let my father hit me with all his might, and I start to scream. Rage bubbles inside my body as I feel the loss of my woman.
I.
Will.
Find.
Her.
Then I will kill the motherfucker who took her by tearing him to pieces with my bare hands.
9
Bianca
Once I wake up, I'm alone. I feel safe here for reasons I don't understand. The place is a dump. A far cry from my
princess bedroom and luxurious mansion back at home. But Matteo's presence seeps out from every inch of the space, and I feel like I belong, possibly for the first time in my life.
I get up and swing my bare feet out of the bed. I tread carefully as I get out of bed and head into the kitchen. It looks like he isn't home, and my heart swells, knowing he left me here all alone. I could make my way out of here right now... But he trusted me enough to leave me in his apartment all by myself. I could call the cops, or worse, call daddy. But I don't.
Instead, I go into the kitchen and find the coffee already made. I pour myself a cup and find Matteo's shirt from the day before discarded on the floor. I put it on, relishing his scent in the cool cotton. I get a mug of steaming coffee and head back to bed, curling up under the duvet.
I don't question my actions until I'm back in his bed. The bed of my kidnapper... And yet I don't want to leave. In fact, all I want is for him to come back so he can touch me some more under these sheets...
I ponder this fact as I sip on my coffee. I don't understand the attraction I feel for that man. But our connection... it's electric. Dangerous. Wrong. And so right at the same time.
I curl my feet up and enjoy the moment of solitude. My mind is a mess right now, and I need to decide what I'm going to do about him... Matteo. His name on my lips alone makes me tremble.
I'm so deep in thought I almost don't hear the noise in the entryway. But then a chill goes down my spine and I sit up in the bed, setting my mug down. Something seems off... I've been in danger plenty of times in my life, but right now it feels like I'm in real danger.
My toes curl up as I sit on the edge of the bed, my eyes fixed on the bedroom door. The noise I heard was barely there - it could be nothing. Yet the blood curdling in my veins makes me think there's more to it.
I slide off the bed and stand up, my legs barely able to hold me up. All is quiet, and the only sound I hear is my own heavy breathing.