Chapter 25 Chapter Twenty-five
Elena's POV
"Draco!" My eyes darted to where the sound came from. Although I saw the man immediately I stepped into the room, I hadn't taken notice of his appearance. He was a tall man, dressed casually, sitting in the middle of the room, a smile plastered on his face.
"The godfather! Simo," Nikolai replied, bowing. Wait. Godfather. I had imagined the godfather, Simo, to be a short, ugly, bald man in his late thirties with dirty teeth. Why? Because Shannon and I had heard a lot of bad things this man is capable of. His reputation was far from anything close to his appearance. He is handsome, or maybe the one Shannon and I had heard about, is different from the man sitting here. This man sitting here, could lure any woman to bed without even blinking. His ocean blue eyes were drowning. He is good-looking.
"Oh please!" The godfather said, waving his hand. "I thought we had dropped the formalities." He tipped his head to one side as he noticed me standing next to Nikolai.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he drawled from across the table. “Bad boy Nikolai. Who is she?"
"She is..." the man interrupted Nikolai.
"Oh mine! I never thought our Draco, could get himself a new fling that’s as delicate as a flower?” My brows furrow, this was the second time, he was referring to him as Draco, and wait, did he just call me 'fling"
My eyes tilted toward Nikolai instinctively. His face didn’t change.
No smirk. No irritation. Just that cold, carved-stone expression he wore when the world meant nothing to him. It unsettled me more than anger ever could.
Another laugh followed, heavier, meaner. “What happened to your girl, Gianna? I told you, that you can't keep one girl for so long." I shut my eyes shaking my head.
Gianna!
Who is Gianna?
Oh his girlfriend
I’m stupid.
How could I believe him when he said he didn't have a girl?
“I didn’t come with a fling.” Nikolai’s voice was flat. Final. “She isn’t my girl.”
The words landed like ice in my chest. I told myself it didn’t matter. Told myself I didn’t care. Still, something tight twisted low and ugly inside me.
First, I just found out he got a girlfriend, and now, he just told the man that I wasn't his. But it's the truth, I wasn't his. Yet the words tasted bitter on my lips.
“Oh?” the man chuckled. “Draco is keeping a female friend now?”
Nikolai didn’t even look at him.
He reached for a chair instead, dragged it back with a harsh scrape against the marble floor, and set it beside him. His hand pressed briefly to the back, a silent command.
Sit.
I obeyed.
My gaze drifted to the table, and my stomach sank.
Crystal glasses heavy with dark alcohol. Ashtrays overflowing. A gun was placed casually between stacks of chips, as if it were no more dangerous than a deck of cards. Women, naked ones, gleaming under gold light, draped over men whose names I didn’t know and didn’t want to. Their laughter was hollow. Their touches are practiced.
This wasn’t a casino.
It was a den.
“I am Don Massimo,” the man said suddenly, standing. He smiled like a blade. Yes, he is the same man, Shannon and I heard about, “And you are?”
He extended his hand toward me. I lifted mine to take his hand into mine but Nikolai yanked it back. The contact was sharp, possessive. Final. I stared at him, scared that this man might hurt him, if ever he got into his bad book.
“Not important,” he said.
Don Massimo’s smile widened. He said something in Italian, amused, indulgent. I didn’t need to understand the words to feel the meaning.
Possessive.
Nikolai ignored him completely.
Massimo leaned back against the table, eyes sliding over me with interest that made my skin crawl. “Let’s play,” he said lazily. “If you win, you go home with my girl. Not the strippers.” He waved a hand dismissively as two naked women laughed and pressed closer to him, even sharing kisses with each other. “The one sitting right there.” My heart slammed so hard I felt dizzy. As my eyes went to the female who was sitting at almost the end of the table, it was obvious that she was not one of the strippers.
“And if I win,” Massimo continued, “I go home with...” he paused, flicking his tongue across his lips. "Her!" The room went quiet. As he pointed at me. Not silent but watching.
Waiting.
I looked at Nikolai. He didn’t look back.
He lifted his wine glass and took a slow sip, completely unbothered, like my life hadn’t just been placed on a table as a wager. Rage surged hot and blinding through me.
You bastard.
I was already opening my mouth, ready to tear into him, to stand, to run, to do something, when I heard it.
The dry whisper of metal.
The penknife left his hand before I even registered the movement.
It struck the wall behind Don Massimo with a vicious thud, embedding itself dead center into a painted heart, splitting it clean in two.
Gasps erupted around the table.
Nikolai stood.
His voice was low. Even. Terrifying.
“Say one fucking thing about her,” he said quietly, “and that knife goes straight into your heart. You should know, I don’t miss my target.”
Don Massimo’s hands flew up instantly.
“Hands up,” he laughed nervously. “I thought she was just...”
"Enough!" Nikolai cut him off
The room exhaled.
Nikolai didn’t.
He grabbed my wrist, not roughly, but decisively, and pulled me up from the chair.
“We’re leaving.”
I stumbled to keep up as he dragged me away from the table, past stunned faces, past women who stared at him like he was a god they’d offended.
Only when we were out of the room, when the doors slammed shut behind us, did I breathe.
My hands were shaking.
“What the hell was that?” I hissed.
He didn’t slow down. “You shouldn’t have been there.”
“You took me there.”
“I shouldn’t have, if you didn't corner me, if you didn't get this hold on me. If you didn't look at me with those eyes of yours,” he said.
Hold on to him?
The words were clipped. Angry but not at me. I stopped walking. Then I remembered the godfather is a dangerous man, “Oh my goodness!” I snarled, "Why did you throw that knife at him? What if he got mad and came after you? It's just a game. Maybe you should have negotiated with him."
He turned then.
And for the first time that night, I saw it clearly.
Not fear.
Fury.
“You think I’d ever let anyone touch you?” he demanded quietly. “You think that was a game?”
“It sounded like one.”
“It wasn’t,” he said. “It was a test.”
“A test of what?”
“How far he could go,” Nikolai replied. “He learned.”
I swallowed.
The image of the knife splitting the painted heart replayed in my mind. But still did not understand what he was saying.
“You scared him,” I whispered.
His expression shifted just slightly. “Good.”
That stung.
But then he added, softer, "that's his warning not to mess with anything that belongs to..."
He paused and turned away again, leading me out into the cold night, the casino lights fading behind us. The city swallowed the sound of my heartbeat, but the danger clung to my skin like smoke.
I didn’t know what I was to Nikolai.
Not his girl. Not his fling.
But I knew one thing with terrifying certainty. I had just seen how far he would go for me.
And that frightened me more than the casino ever could. He just got into a war with the godfather. "I will bring you home." He said as we walked back to the cinema to get his car.
"Where do you live?"