Mafia Boss’s Arranged Bride by Bella King
Chapter 18
Annika
Girlfriend?
Did Nikolai really just refer to me as his girlfriend when I’m supposed to be married off to Michail? It feels like a dream, the fantasy that I lived out so many times before when I was exploring the deep essence of my sexuality, but I never thought it would become a reality, and certainly not in this twisted and demented way.
Nikolai holds my hand tightly, his ring-adorned fingers gripping me in a possessive way. Taking me from the wedding was his way of claiming me, of stealing me from his brother so that he could hide me away from the world until the violence was over.
When we emerge, what will we be? What are his intentions for me if not to return me to my family? Are they even alive?
“I’m not his…” I trail off as Nikolai squeezes my hand. I’m supposed to be keeping a cover, now that I remember, and I almost just blew it.
I smile at the faces peering across the room at me, studying me as though they’ve never even seen a woman before. I realize after a moment that it’s because I’m only dressed in Nikolai’s gigantic coat and my underwear. It’s an odd appearance at best.
“I’m not, uh, familiar with anyone here yet,” I say, trying to cover my sudden aversion to the prospect of being Nikolai’s girlfriend.
“You’ll learn who everyone is in time,” Nikolai replies, pulling me away from the group. “Until then, you’re going to be quiet and listen to everything I say.”
I look up at Nikolai, at his broad shoulders and serious scowl. Now is just about the worst time to feel this way, but that tight warmth in my belly has returned, the one that I felt when I first saw him and touched myself in front of the mirror.
He’d never know that the dampness of my panties was partially caused by arousal and not just the onslaught of cold rain outside. I should feel shame for this, for betraying the sanctity of my vow to Michail, but I haven’t taken such a vow yet. I’m not married, and perhaps I never will be if something dreadful has befallen Michail.
I didn’t like him all that much, but I never wished death on him. That’s not something I would wish on anyone.
A pang of sorrow and guilt hits me for my untimely arousal, twisting my stomach into more nausea. A wave of it swells up in my stomach, threatening to spill out of my throat all over the front of Nikolai’s wool coat.
My mother told me not to be sick, to hold it all in and look pretty, but pretty is the last thing I can be when countless people were slaughtered at my own wedding. What was supposed to be the most beautiful day of my life has turned into a putrid nightmare.
I pull my hand out of Nikolai’s, running to the only door that looks like it could possibly be a bathroom.
It isn’t one, but that doesn’t stop my stomach from emptying out the small portion of food that I ate earlier today, followed by the smell of hot bile onto the floor. I puke so hard that my stomach cramps, and I collapse onto the ground as Nikolai comes in behind me.
“Jesus, are you okay?” he asks, placing a warm hand on my back.
“I don’t think so,” I say, staring at the soiled concrete while my eyes well up in tears. I’m unsure if it’s from bitter sorrow or from the flavor of stomach acid, but it blurs my vision so much that I can barely make out the mess that’s in front of my hands.
“We need to get you cleaned up,” Nikolai says. “Luckily, we’re in the bathroom.”
“The bathroom?” I ask, lifting my head and looking around.
I can’t see much through the tears, but what I once thought was a broom closet has revealed itself to be a makeshift shower with a single rusted drain in the center clogged with hair. It still looks more like a closet than a bathroom since there isn’t a toilet, but a pipe sticks out of the wall – what I assume to be a showerhead.
“The toilet’s in a different room. They didn’t have room for it here,” Nikolai says, answering my question before I’m able to ask it.
I get up, trying not to look at the chunks of my breakfast that I left on the floor. Mascara has run down my face so far that it’s now dripping into my cleavage, spilling down into the crevasse of pale flesh pulled tight by my corset.
I notice Nikolai’s eyes wandering down to my breasts, and I feel that familiar urge to lay my fingers between my legs and pleasure myself to him. It’s always at the most inappropriate of times, and it’s always about him. Why can’t I just be normal instead of lusting after a man I barely know?
“I’ll leave you to get yourself cleaned up,” Nikolai says, finally tearing his eyes from my exposed skin. He steps away from me, not even bothering to inform me how to turn the shower on, and leaves me alone in the room with my filth.
I remove the coat, the tight strings of the corset that my mother made sure were so tight that I could barely breathe, and I drop my panties to the floor. They fall into my vomit, and I kick them away, not wanting to look at the dignity that I’ve lost in just a few short hours.
The faucet squeaks as I turn it, shuddering and spitting out a sudden rush of ice-cold water in a stream that’s so perfect I wouldn’t know it was moving if I wasn’t standing right under it, feeling its wrath on my clammy skin.
The shock of the cold leaves me shivering again, shaking uncontrollably like I did in the car on the way here, but I don’t care. I just want to be clean, to wash the horrible sounds out of my head as the cold water penetrates my tangled curls hair and freezes the contents of my skull.
I rinse my mouth with the water, letting it flow over my face to the point where it almost drowns me. I’ve never wanted to be dead before, but today feels like I should’ve been one of the bodies strewn about the wedding venue. It’d be a romantic way to die, and certainly less guilty of one.
I wouldn’t be having perverse thoughts about the man who saved me. I’d be finished, through with this wicked life that I’ve slowly clambered through over the years.
But death doesn’t suit me tonight. It has chosen others, and I must accept that.
