"We need her back!" Soldo's son slammed his hand over my desk.

I watched silently as the father and son squabbled with one another. Soldo chided his son to give me the respect a don is due but it was too late. The stupid boy had made his bed, his father knew he won't get out of here alive.

"I have no idea where your daughter is, Soldo."

Before Soldo could speak, his son decided to open his mouth again, I was reconsidering my decision of not torturing him before death.

"Bullshit! One of your men took my sister, Costello!"

"I can assure you, Soldo, that not me or any of my men have ever forced a woman against her will"

Soldo gave me a nervous chuckle. "I know that don Niko, forgive my son, he doesn't know when to open his mouth"

"Have you considered the possibility that your daughter might have just run away from home?"

Young girls often ran away from the Cosa Nostra, we were protective of our women. They didn't have much freedom or choice for that matter, so they preferred to run away from home with stupid little boys who didn't know who they were messing with.

"My sister would never---" the words never fully left his mouth as Scott put a bullet in his head.

A gunshot rang out throughout the room. All the eyes present turned in Scott's direction and he just shrugged it off, saying. "He didn't know how to talk to his don."

Soldo sat there shocked, wide-eyed, mouth opened. He cleared his throat and looked at me asking for mercy. He thought that Scott was going to kill him too.

"Soldo, my men will find your daughter and bring her back to you"

Soldo nodded, his son's brain got tossed all over his lap, his face covered in blood. "I'm grateful to you, Don Niko"

"How many sons do you have?"

"Seven" he answered and then looked at the dead body beside him. "Now six"

"Your firstborn?"

He shook his head. "My fifth..."

Scott chuckled. "He wasn't important anyway but if you want to keep your other six sons alive, you better teach them some fucking respect for their don"

Soldo got up, not sparing another glance in his son's way. "Don Niko, I deeply regret the way my son has talked to you. I thank you for your generosity in helping me find my daughter... but if you find her in a compromising position with another man---"

I raised two of my fingers, and he stopped talking immediately. "The man will be killed and your daughter will be handed to you, to do whatever you please with her. Punish her not punish her, your choice. Your family's honor will not be tainted"

He made his way around my desk and placed a kiss on the back of my hand as a sign of his loyalty and gratitude.

"I will forever remember the kindness you have shown me, Don Niko"

Bullshit, he just wanted to get out of her alive.

I waved my hand, telling him to leave now. I had more pressing matters to attend to. He finally left and the cleaners entered to get his son's body off my fucking floor.

I ran a hand across my face, pulled the cigar from my lips, and dropped it into the ashtray before snuffing it out.

I gave out some favors and handled some more people. Even some FBI guys came to get favors from me and in return sold their souls and loyalty to me.

It was almost midnight when I got out of my study, I went to the kitchen and ordered the staff to prepare dinner.

"Did Evangeline have dinner?" I asked Gloria, the head of the kitchen and she shook her head negatively.

I remembered I told her to stay in her room and it had been almost seven hours, I hadn't seen her, prancing around the gardens or playing with the hounds or watching TV on full fucking volume. Sometimes I wondered if she was fucking half deaf.

Fuck, I couldn't believe how much I noticed that girl. She can be an annoying little shit sometimes and I can't even fucking call her out over that shit. The girl doesn't even understand how the fucking world works.

At first, I thought that I will find some use for her, maybe, train her for the mafia but for some fucked up reason I just couldn't let her involved in all of that shit. I wanted to throw her into the corner of my house and fucking locker her up in a room, so, she would get under my skin the way she does. I don't like the way I have grown accustomed to seeing her every single fucking day, I wait by my office's window just to fucking see her sitting in the garden and talking to herself—that weird fucking girl.

Earlier today, when she was sitting on the couch, she kept staring at me shamelessly, her eyes practically begging me to fuck her. She was lucky, I was smoking at the time. If it wasn't for the cigar, I would have wrapped my hand around that long neck of hers and choked her while I fucked her hard on that same fucking couch.

I never thought that I'd ever get a hard-on just by looking into someone's eyes.

All I did was give her a fucking cell phone and she looked at me as if I have brought her all the stars from the sky. She jumped up in my arms, wrapping her arms around my torso, her perfect tits pressed up against my chest. I don't know how I did not grab her and laid her down over my desk just to get a taste of her.  

I wanted to fucking laugh at myself. Nikolai Costello was craving an eighteen-year-old girl like a fucking horny teenage boy.

She could be a fucking problem for me after Grace and I get married. I can't have a temptation running around the house while Grace-the-psycho Russell is living in the same place.

Grace is supposed to be the woman who will have my children, nothing more. I had no desire for her and it was a good thing. I have seen my father in love and I have seen what it can do to a man, a man like us. It turns us into monsters, my mother lived a miserable life in the name of love. Even on her deathbed, she is still the worse kind of drug my father had ever been addicted to. He never once cheated on her, I don't know if I can say the same about Grace and me. I already have plans for throwing in a villa in Italy after marriage.

Love had no place in our life.

I made my way upstairs and stopped outside Evangeline's door. Annoying she maybe, but I don't know why I found myself interested in every single word that came out of her mouth. She amused me, her innocence, her purity, it all fascinated me. In a dark world like ours, she didn't seem real to me.

Nikolai... She calls me Nikolai without any repercussions. If it was any other girl or a guy they would face the same fate as Soldo's son but not her. She didn't even know what she was doing wrong.

If she only knew that every time she called me Nikolai in that breathy voice of hers, I wanted nothing more than to slam her into a nearby wall and thrust my cock into her until she is screaming my name over and over again.

But I wouldn't do that.

I fucking can't.

I don't want to get fucking addicted as my father did and for some reason, I believed that if a crossed that line with Evangeline, I will get addicted.

I turned the knob and entered Evangeline's room. Darkness is what I saw, with no sign of her.

"Evangeline?" I called out.

I heard whimpers coming from the corner of the room. I flicked on the lights and finally saw her. She had her arms wrapped around herself, her knees to her chest as she rocked herself back and forth, mumbling rubbish through her sobs.

I immediately crouched down beside her. "Evangeline" I called but she didn't look at me, she shook her head like a crazy person and mumble some more words that I didn't understand.

I held her face and turned it, so, she'd look at me. When our eyes met, she stopped rocking herself, and her eyes went wide.

"Breathe, Evangeline"

"M-mom, dad..."

She was having a panic attack, she looked as if she was on the verge of passing out.

"Nikolai..."

"Yes?"

"Y-you're alive?"

I frowned. "I am..."

She swallowed and choked on her sobs. "B-but I heard a gunshot... Just like the one I heard when my parents died..."

Fucking shit!

She was still fucking traumatized by her parent's death.

"Nothing happened to me, Evangeline. I'm fine"

She nodded and then curled herself into my arms. I didn't fucking like the way she was sobbing, she didn't seem like the rainbow and sunshine Evangeline I have grown accustomed to.

I picked her up in my arms and walked her to her bed. I laid her on it and gently placed her head on a pillow. I covered her with the duvet and watched as she pulled covers all over her body, hiding herself even from me.

Bolton was a fucked up asshole to keep her hidden away like that.

I let out a breath, gazing at her face, smooth skin, dark thick eyelashes, pouty pink lips, high cheekbones, and that little nose. Fuck, she was fucking beautiful that I couldn’t even bear to just look at her because it might make me lose control.

She was young, so fucking innocent.

The rational part of me wanted to back off completely, to let her live her life the way she wanted. But the animalistic part of me wanted to cage her with me forever, fuck her rough and hard until the only word she remembers is my fucking name.

"Sleep tight, Angel..." I whispered to her before I got up and walked out of her room.

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