⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING!
MATURE CONTENT!⚠️
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ALINA
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Matteo is standing on the other side of the doorway, across from me. The wooden, hand-carved door between us is shut but I have a feeling whoever is on the other side will be bursting through at any moment.
My eyes are trained on him, while his are honed in on the noises just outside the door. They are two live wires buzzing with electricity. I can see them pulsating and zinging with ferocity.
I wrap my arms around myself anxiously. I'm the most terrified I've ever been in my entire life while Matteo seems bridled with control. He's the most composed I've ever seen him, this is his domain.
I slam my hand over my mouth smothering another scream when a large man with a gun breaks open the door and storms into the room. In a flash, Matteo reacts, going through a series of lithe movements and quick thrusts until he disarms the man. No longer with a weapon the man clothed head-to-toe in black fights back with clenched fists. Matteo agilely uses the butt of the gun to slam into the man's head, instantly knocking him unconscious.
Matteo hardly has a moment to adjust his footing before a gunshot rings out from the hall like the clattering of cymbals and a bullet wizzes between the both of us.
This time I do scream.
I drop to the ground and curl into a ball in the corner—hyperventilating uncontrollably—as a second man bursts into the room, his gun aimed straight for Matteo's heart.
I suck in a gasping breath as I cover the back of my head with my arms and tuck my head between my trembling knees waiting for more gunshots to ring out and vibrate the walls.
I pinch my eyes shut but the gunshots never come. Instead, what sounds like a lamp, is knocked to the ground and shatters to pieces. There's more boisterous clatter and sounds of grunting and painful punches hitting their mark until finally I hear a loud groan, a thunk, and then pure, dreadful silence.
After awhile I hear his voice.
"Alina."
My head shoots up to find Matteo standing before me. His clothing is a tattered mess and his hair is in disarray, sticking up all over the place.
His large gloved hand is reaching out to me.
I eye it with uncertainty.
"We don't have much time." Matteo urges.
With a shaky breath I place my quivering hand in his steady hold and allow him to pull me up and usher me from the room.
"Wait!" I dig my feet into the floor.
Matteo slows his quickened pace to peer down at me from his side.
"My panties!" I say panicked, they were tossed aside somewhere by the couch. I don't want any trace of me left in this house. Matteo frowns when the mention of my discarded panties leaves my mouth. "A-and the lighter!
I touched the lighter!" I remember back to the moment I had convinced Borkov to smoke the cigar. I had taken the lighter out of his hands and lit it for him.
"I have them." He grunts before giving me a little shove and shuffling us from Borkov's house to the waiting car.
My body is a shivering mess on the ride back to the hotel. I'm freezing but sweating at the same time and I can't stop sobbing without tears as I rock back and forth. I'm not me, I'm a traumatized version of myself. A complete mess.
Holy shit, I watched a man get murdered tonight.
I think I might be sick. Oh god.
Quickly I unbuckle my seat belt and lean forward in my seat until my head is resting on my forearms that are strung across my bent knees.
I stay like this for hours, minutes, I'm not sure. All that I know is that I spend the entire drive forcing myself to breathe through the intense feeling of vomit that's attempting to expel itself from my gut. At the same time, I'm doing everything I can to swallow back the sob fighting to break free, while somehow managing to get air to my lungs despite the suffocating way my heart is beating against my ribs.
I don't lift my head back up again until the car comes to a complete stop and I hear the sound of the engine being shut off.
I'm in such a heavy daze that it isn't until we are two flights of stairs in, that I realize Matteo is leading me up a back entrance of the hotel instead of using the valet. We don't take the elevator which means Matteo is stuck helping to lug my feeble body up six flights of stairs. My legs are weak and wobbly by the time we push through the door to the hotel suite.
As soon as we enter, I race for the bathroom and desperately scramble to find a clean wash rag and soap near the sink. I fumble with everything I grab, dropping the towel twice and missing the faucet once before snagging it and roughly flicking the water on.
"дерьмо!" I hiss the curse under my breath in frustration.
Matteo's shadow falls over my bent form as he appears in the doorway behind me, watching my frantic movements. I don't look at him, I can't. I can't bear to see the look of pity in his eyes. The one he had written all over his face back at Borkov's. As if he cares that I'm scared and that he actually feels sorry for me.
After a beat he breaks the silence.
"Did he touch you?" His voice is low, raspy. Aching with something I can't quite comprehend.
I scuff at the ridiculous question.
Without looking behind me or meeting his intense stare in the mirror I rub the bar of hotel soap onto the wash rag rigorously.
"That's what you wanted isn't it? For him to touch me." I snap, shutting off the faucet. It's why he bought the lingerie is it not? With the hopes that it would entice Borkov to want touch me. I was to seduce him after all.
With eyes down, I bend to drag the soapy warmth from my ankle up to the middle of my inner thigh along the path where Borkov trailed bite marks. Each one stings worse than the last. The final bite mark on my upper thigh broke skin the way I had feared and is crusted with dried blood. I wince as I wipe it away.
I don't hear him step into the room but I can sense Matteo as he takes a step closer in my direction.
"Did he hurt you?" He asks from behind me. He's audibly closer and the sound of his voice is oddly apprehensive.
I sniffle as a few tears break free and burn their way down my swollen cheeks. It was only a matter of time before I broke. My fortitude was torn down long ago and the makeshift walls I put up to protect the last of my willpower were destroyed this evening. I have nothing left to keep the tears at bay, nothing left to hold me together.
"I can handle it remember?" I mutter sarcastically, mocking his words from lunch with disgust. Clearly he was wrong. I tilt my head over my shoulder but don't actually look at him before turning back to my legs to wash away the rest of Borkov's repulsive saliva and the remnants of his touch.
I stand to rinse the towel below the running water but stiffen when a firm chest meets my back.
"Look at me." His voice is soft, pained even, yet as demanding as it always is. His accent is thick as his hard chest seems to envelope my small body.
He reaches around me to shut off the faucet and then grabs the hand holding the wash cloth. He tugs gently, turning me around to face him.
I don't fight him. I'm tired of fighting.
My shoulders slump as I stare with blurred vision down at the marble flooring at our feet.
"Look at me, Alina." He repeats.
I don't.
He takes the towel from my grasp dropping it into the sink that's now against my back. He uses his fingers to press under my chin and lift my gaze to his.
There is space between us but we are still close, so close I can see the freckles that sprinkle across his nose like a breadcrumb trail and a crease of skin between his brows when he frowns. His malachite eyes are no longer buzzing with electricity but instead an inscrutable expression weighs down his hooded features.
Matteo is a dark force, like a black hole waiting to suck me in. When he stands close like this, I feel as if I can hardly breathe.
"Tell me what he did to you." He demands and the concern I hear in his voice takes me off guard. I frown at him.
Why does he care? He didn't care this morning at the lingerie boutique, he didn't care this evening when he dropped me off at Borkov's and left me to the wolves! Why does he get to care now?
I meet his beautiful eyes with a glare.
He doesn't.
"You want to know what he did to me? Huh?" I laugh haughtily in disbelief. Tears are now steadily streaming down my face. "What? Do you get some sick enjoyment out of hearing it?" I sniffle again, I rub at my nose that is now raw and burning from the tears and snot.
He scowls, stepping closer. "Tell me, Alina."
My eyes narrow at the demanding tone of his voice.
I snatch up his hand and shove it against my leg. His body jerks forward slightly with the movement drawing his face, primarily his lips, nearly flush with my own.
"What do you want to know exactly?" I growl indignantly through my tears. My voice sounds wet and raspy as I squeeze his hand against my thigh right below the inside of my knee. His eyes widen in the most imperceptible manner but I catch it. I have an affect on him.
Slowly, I run his rough fingertips up my leg. "How he ran his tongue up my thigh biting me here," I say, stopping our hands and forcing him to feel the teeth indentations that are still very much there bruised and nearly bleeding "and here." I say through quiet weeping.
I drag his hand up my body, forcing him to touch me everywhere as he goes. I lift his hand and wrap it around my throat. "And here." I cock my head back to meet his eyes.
He sucks in a heavy breath as he stares back at me intently, his eyes borring into my own and never straying. The air between us is so thick I could cut it with a knife. Though I hate him, I can't help but feel a twinge of pleasure from his touch and having him so close like this. As if he can help me forget about the betrayal. Even if he is my Judas Iscariot.
"Do you want to hear how he choked me while he stroked himself?" I say forcing his fingers to pinch around the tinder skin of my neck. The bite mark stings under the pressure of his touch. Tears continue to break free as I rehash every horrible moment spent with Borkov, my words are barely audible through my sniffles and the wetness in my throat. "Or do you want to hear how he ripped my panties from my legs so that he could rape me!" I seethe.
This is all his fault.
I release my hold on his hand suddenly but he doesn't remove his fingers around my throat. Instead he presses closer, his body flush with my own, chest to chest, one of his legs between the both of mine. He couldn't get closer if he tried.
Slowly he drags his hand the rest of the way up my throat to my sore jaw and even further to cup my cheek.
My eyes close briefly ashamed of the relief I feel having Matteo's touch replace Borkov's. I open my eyes back up, my expression hardened. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" I whisper. My glare piercing his emerald depths.
With his free hand he uses his thumb to gently wipe my tears, he drags his thumb down to my lips wiping the tears that find themselves pooled in the dip at the top.
He shakes his head no.
"I will never let another person hurt you ever again. I promise."
My head reels back.
Flabbergasted and floundering to understand his words, my head shakes back and forth in disbelief as a frown mars my sunken features.
I scowl at him. "What if that person is you?"
"Especially me." He cups my face with his calloused hand.
I gasp, not understanding any of this. Not understanding the change I see in his demeanor from just a few short hours ago to now or the sincerity I hear in his voice.
How can he say something like that? After everything he's put me through? Now he wants to act as if he's some night in shining armor? He wants to pretend that he hasn't spent the last two days holding me against my will, threatening me, and forcing me to see and do things no one should ever be subjected to?!
Anger.
So much anger rises to the surface within me I nearly drown in it. I push at his body, shoving away his gentle touch and false sense of security. "Dont touch me!" I seethe. "You dont get to touch me, Matteo!" I scream at him.
His hand falls to his side as he takes a step back and silently watches me from a short distance. He looks up in to the mirror behind me and for the first time since I stormed in here I allow my eyes to follow. I turn around to see what he is seeing.
Oh god...
Red. So much red, in every hue and texture is splattered across my face, my chest, and even in my hair. I gape at my reflection.
Mascara is running down my tear-stained cheeks and bruises line my neck. All of it sprinkled in blood.
I swipe at it as if the mirror is lying to me.
I look down at my increasingly shaking fingertips. Crimson. They are stained with it. "Oh my god!" I shriek wiping at my face again and again smearing it. "Is that—" I choke on the words. "Is that his—"
I don't manage to finish my sentence before vomit bursts up my throat and into my mouth. I sprint for the toilet. I release the meager contets of my stomach painfully. The taste of acid and bile burns my tongue.
Matteo is behind me in seconds pulling my hair from my face. "I told you not to touch me!" I grit out from over my shoulder.
"I know," he answers me, looking grim but he doesn't let go of my hair. Instead he runs his fingers through my waves soothingly as another bout of bile purges itself from my system.
When I feel as if my stomach has settled and I won't throw up any more I sit back on my hunches and wipe my mouth with my arm before standing up.
Weakly I walk to the shower and yank open the glass door. Matteo follows me. He's no longer touching me but stays close.
I glare at him from over my shoulder.
"Get out." I mumble weakly as I turn the handle to release the warm water.
He just stands there in silence as if he never heard me. Fury rises up again, sparking a new flame within me.
"I said get out!" I scream.
This time he does as I say, scrubbing his face with his hands and then running them through his tangled hair before nodding his head and turning for the door.
He departs as quietly as he entered leaving me shattered and aching. But more than anything, he leaves me confused.
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