Crave For You

Sofia

Watching your ex-fiancé get engaged to someone else is a task that wears you down. Safe to say, I am never marrying or attending any weddings in the near future.

I walk the path back to the guest room like a troll. On the way, I stop at the turn leading to Fabio's room. The keys he gave me bite into my palm but I don't dare to take his offer.

He is wrong. I am a guest. That's what I will ever be.

I drag my steps to my allotted room, the silence of the floor echoing my footsteps. I step in and lock the door, twirling Fabio's keys on my index finger as I walk to the bed. I place them on the bedside table, plopping myself down on the mattress.

Seeing Gabriel with her tonight stung. He looked like he had moved on from me. I was never a part of his life even. Was this the same man who was flirting with me this morning? Or the man who gave me dirty propositions last night in the garden? It couldn't be. The man I saw tonight was not my Gabriel. He was Don De Luca, the Master of the New York Conclave. He kept his acts on, covering himself with a mask only his capos were familiar with.

With a shuddering breath, I let the images of his hands on her burn in the back of my mind as I stand up. I take off the knife and the sheath attached to my thigh, placing them on the table beside the keys. Fighting the sting of tears in my eyes, I head straight for the shower.

The cold water is like ice. I scrub myself off, hurting my skin just to feel something other than the pain of seeing them together—her giggling, him with his arm around her waist. I always thought I wasn't the jealous kind. But perhaps that was because Dante never got engaged to someone else while he was whispering dirty propositions in my ear. He was always mine.

Gabriel isn't. He is Bianca's now and I have only myself to blame for that.

I scream under the water, knowing that no one would hear me here. The shower might be the cathartic experience I need.

"I'll not break," I murmur to myself, the comfort of my own voice a loose thread of hope that stretches as I step out of the shower and wrap myself in a towel.

Walking back into the room, I change into a pair of lavender pajamas, turn the lights off, and fall on the bed horizontally, looking up at the ceiling where a sliver of moonlight plays tricks with my brain, creating shapes that taunt me. I can picture a creature laughing. It could be the ghost of my father who thinks he has got one on me.

I attempt to draw the trajectory of my life, filling in the blanks so that I don't end up forgetting stuff.

I stole a drive from the Don, thus betraying both him and the Conclave. Gabriel has forgiven me (has he?) but the Conclave wants me gone because they don't trust me to be anywhere near their secrets again. Not just them, the servants in the mansion don't trust me either. I heard two of them murmur while cleaning my room that I was after their jobs. Why wouldn't they be? They get paid handsomely for keeping the secrets I had managed to steal. Gabriel's mother, Vera, has a personal hatred for me. I could hear it in her words.

Whore. She called me a whore.

Wasn't I one though? I never thought once before spreading my legs for Gabriel both back in Dante's penthouse and here where I let him lick me until I came. Where was my self-respect?

I know where—melting like ice cream at his touch.

Lastly, I need to think over what Fabio said about taking over my father's business. I don't see myself as having the guts to rule an empire like that. I never had to bother with it. My father didn't either. It was the reason he didn't force me to continue my studies once I ran away with Dante. Vincent is in jail (I need to contact him. I need to figure things out), and Estella is pregnant. My mother needs a funeral.