Page 39 of Vicious Temptation

I’m nervous, but a part of me is a little hopeful. He’s young, at least, and handsome. I’m afraid of the Bratva, all mafia daughters are, and we all know why Salvatore stole Gia from him at the altar—the gossip has been going crazy for weeks. He thought Pyotr would hurt her. That she wasn’t safe.

So I’m being given to him instead.

But Salvatore promised I’d be safe. My father promised I’d be safe. And I’ve tried to be optimistic about this. To tell myself that maybe it won’t be so bad.

I hear the sounds of the church doors slamming. There was music, but now it twists and distorts, and I hear screaming instead, gunfire. I feel hands on me, dragging me back behind the altar, to the back of the church. I protest that I’m getting married, I’m supposed to be getting married, but there’s only laughter, rough voices telling me that there’s no wedding. I’m not going to be a bride. But they’re taking me somewhere anyway. Pyotr has a claim on me, even if he’s not going to make me his wife.

My ears are ringing from the gunshots. My hands feel warm and wet, and when I look down, I see a spray of blood over the bouquet I’m still holding, over my white dress. I wonder why I don’t feel any pain at first, and then I realize.

It’s not my blood.

The hands on me hurt. Voices are shouting at me, telling me not to fight, that it’s not worth it, that I’ll only make it worse. I wonder why my throat hurts, and I realize that it’s because I’m screaming, too. I’m screaming?—

I jolt awake in the darkness, panting, tears streaming down my face. My throat feels tight and scratchy, and I press a hand over my mouth, panic washing over me.

If I was screaming?—

The door opens, and I let out another, sudden cry of fear.

13

GABRIEL

Isee her sitting up in bed, a dark shape in the low light coming in from outside, her hands pressed to her face and her shoulders shaking, those low, moaning sobs spilling from her.

I felt terrible about upsetting Bella so much, earlier. It only took a few minutes after she fled the room for me to calm down, and I realized that maybe I was a little too harsh with her. I hadn’t thought I was being that harsh, but she’d looked like I’d slapped her. Or like she had thought I was going to.

I let my frustration over nearly kissing her the night before get the better of me, and that it was part of the reason I was as upset as I was, walking in and seeing her friend sitting on the living room couch, hanging out with my children. But I also felt profoundly startled by and uncomfortable with having someone that I didn’t know there, without any prior knowledge.

The worst part of it is that if Bella had just asked me, I would have been fine with it. I would have preferred to meet Clara first, but I would have understood her wanting her friend to come and visit. It’s not as if having a friend hanging out while Bella goes about her usual day with Cecelia and Danny is such a huge distraction that it would make it impossible for her to watch them—I don’t truly believe that Bella would let it get in the way of doing her job.

But what confused me the most was how much Bella overreacted to the entire situation. How much she seems to be overreacting to it now—if that’s what this is all about. Thinking of it that way sends a flicker of guilt through me—but it seemed like an overreaction. I raised my voice a little, reprimanded her, maybe embarrassed her a little in front of her friend, I’ll admit. But I didn’t scream or shout or threaten, and she acted as if I’d done all of those things. As if she thought I was going to hit her, or throw her out of the house.

She looked terrified.

That protective instinct that I’ve felt for her since the moment we met takes over, and I walk to the bed before I can think better of it, sinking down on the edge and putting my arms around her. I pull her towards my chest, one hand against her hair, but I feel her stiffen instantly, her entire body starting to shake as she wrenches away from me. I get a glimpse of her face in the moonlight, her eyes wide and terrified, her cheeks streaked with tears, and she lets out another gasping sob.

“Bella.” I frown, utterly confused as to what’s going on. “What happened? Surely this can’t be about this afternoon?—”

The only explanation I can think of is that she’s afraid I’m going to send her home. But still, her reaction feels so disproportionate to the argument we had. I don’t even know why she would think that, I didn’t even hint at it.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to find out?—”

“Find out what?” A small dart of concern zips through me. “Bella, what’s going on?”

“I—” She swallows hard. “I have nightmares. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to freak you out. I take sleeping pills, usually, to keep from having them. But I ran out of my prescription by accident, and I called this morning to get a refill, and they said I needed to make a doctor’s appointment first. So now I have to wait until then, and this is the first night I haven’t had them since I’ve been here, so?—”

Her voice trails off, and I feel a pang in my chest. It suddenly seems a little clearer why she was so eager to have Clara come over. If she’d known she wouldn’t have her sleeping pills, she would have been worried about exactly this happening, and probably wanted someone she knew to ease the anxiety. I feel a pang of guilt for being so upset with her—but I couldn’t have known. She didn’t tell me anything about any of this.

“I—it doesn’t matter,” she says quickly, and I can see the tension in her, the way she wraps her arms around her middle. “I’ve had them for a while. I was just worried about what you’d think if you knew. Once I have the pills, I won’t have them anymore.” She bites her lip, her chin tucked down, and I let out a slow breath.

“I need to know these things, Bella,” I say as quietly as I can, resisting the urge to touch her. My instinct is to touch her chin, to tilt her face up so I can see it, but every time I’ve ever tried to touch her, she recoils from me. The only moment where I thought she might not was?—

I push the thought of that near-kiss out of my head forcefully. This is far from the time to be thinking about that.

“I can’t,” she whispers, curling in on herself a little more, and worry battles with concern, my thoughts tangling. I’m worried for her, but also about what unknown situation I might have walked into without being aware of the specifics. I was upfront with her about everything she needed to know before taking this position, and I feel a small stab of resentment that she hasn’t done the same.

But whatever this is, clearly, it’s affected her terribly. And the way she’s behaving?—