2- Shadows in the Hallway

Giovanni didn't even bother to knock, but that was the least of Milan’s concerns at the moment.

Her entire being was trembling as she prayed earnestly to God to make him not think about checking the closet until Vito got angry enough to shoot him.

Giovanni walked into her room, his loud scoff reaching her ears as he yanked her bed sheets to the floor. The thumping sound of her hardback book made her flinch hard and she almost gave up her location.

“Milan, I have no time for your fucking hide-and-seek games. If you don’t come out in two minutes, I will make sure I rip whatever clothes you have on and degrade you right before I pass you to my guest, so he can rearrange your barren womb.” Giovanni threatened, his voice drenched with sickening terror that her legs nearly buckled in utmost fear.

No, don’t go out. This is a trap. Wait till Vito gets impatient, she chants these words in her head, giving herself false hope because… what if Vito was patiently waiting for him to bring her?

What would become of her?

“Milan! fucking whore!”

Giovanni’s furious voice tore through the room before he stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door so hard the mirror cracked. His ragged, angry breaths echoed against the walls.

Please, God. Keep him away from me, please- please,

She begged any existing God profusely before she heard the loud sound of her bed getting disjointed by her husband's strong hands.

“I swear if you don’t show yourself right this moment, I will kill you when I find you. Your fucking cunt can’t save you this time. Nothing and no one can save you when I lay my eyes on you.” He threatened darkly again.

Milan could feel the limited patience in him exhausting and her heart losing hope that Vito may never come upstairs until she heard—Bang bang bang.

Three shots, and then a silence so heavy it seemed to choke the air.

V- Vito?

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Son of a fucking bitch.” She heard him spat out. “How dare you tried to fucking waste my fucking time?!” He growled before firing another shot.

Giova— is he…Oh Yes!

Milan's hands immediately rushed to cover her mouth before any scream could break out from it.

She would have successfully kept shut and not made a tiny sound, but her widened eyes met with overflowing blood on the ground, and she lost it. “Ah!!!!”

“Shut the fuck up or I will put some bullets in your heart too,” Vito barked, killing the hoot coming from her throat abruptly. “Come before I force you to.

He didn't have to say it twice. Not after killing someone right before her.

Milan took a step, then another, then another before her legs suddenly buckled and her butt hit the ground.

She was shivering and holding back her scream when she saw Giovanni’s bullet-drilled head.

She didn't dare look up at Vito.

“Raise your head, finest thing.” He sneered at her.

She merely shook her skull. Her long dark hair fell over her face to hide half of her facial features.

“It's you.” Vito blurted out and she shivered.

How did he manage to catch on without seeing her whole face?

Vito inhaled deeply as he stared at her, completely in shock. “How the fuck did you end up with such garbage?” He demanded, his usual insensitive voice betrayed by a darker one.

“...please, don’t kill me,” Milan begged. “Let me go, I will never tell anyone about any of this.”

She quickly rushed to grab his legs to plead for his mercy.

Fucking Giovanni had died with the location of Vito’s powder buried somewhere in his head.

The bloody demon hadn’t just destroyed her life, he’d taken away her chance to live after him.

“And why should I?” Vito’s voice was low, mocking. He leaned in close, his breath grazing her cheek as he brushed a strand of hair from her face with the barrel of his pistol. “Tell me, Milo… why should I spare you after you ran away from me?”

Milan’s lips trembled. His violet eyes looked dark, endless and too familiar. They caught her like a spell. The question made no sense. Or maybe she was too shaken to understand English anymore.

“What… what do you mean?” she whispered, blinking up at him.

Vito’s chuckle was quiet, cruel, but somehow devastatingly calm. He clutched her by the front of her blouse and slammed her back against the nearest wall.

The thud echoed through her bones.

“Don’t fucking play dumb with me, Milano Romano,” he murmured, his voice rough with restrained fury. The cold press of his gun touched her forehead, and his warm breath fanned across her face.

She should have been terrified. Any sane woman would have been.

But staring into the eyes of the man who had once made her life hell, all she felt was… nothing.

Or maybe it wasn’t nothing. Maybe it was something worse—something she shouldn't be feeling. At all.

After two years of surviving a monster, fear had lost its meaning. Giovanni had already burned it out of her, one bruise at a time.

So when Vito Salvatore, the boy who had once bullied her into tears, stood before her as a man, lethal and heartbreakingly beautiful, she didn’t see the devil.

She saw heat.

And for the first time in years, Milan didn’t know if she wanted to run from it or let it consume her.

For a moment there, she forgot he was the reason her family had to move to the United States.

“What do you want from me then? Do you want my pussy like my dead husband promised you?”

She hated how his brow rose at word husband, and she reminded herself not to refer to that bastard as her spouse ever again.

Vito looked at her long and hard before nodding.

“Yes, I want your pussy. I didn’t get to taste it before you fled, so why not?” He shamelessly admitted, his eyes twinkling with an emotion she couldn't decipher.

Instantly, Milan became livid.

Men are all the same. All of them!

She was still drowning in her own fury when Vito’s hand shot out, seizing her by the waist and pulling her roughly into the solid wall of his chest.

She gasped with fear, her hands hitting his chest to create a distance between them.

“Let go of me, Vito,” she snapped in rapid Italian, the words cutting through the air. “Will you force me to sleep with you too?” Her voice broke as she switched to English. “Have you lost your shame?”

Vito abruptly let go of her. His violet eyes seemed confused and also beaming with restrained fury until realization clouded them.

“He…he has been forcefully sleeping with you?” The words stumbled out of his mouth in disbelief.

Milan turned away from him. She didn't believed she didn't owe him a reply, neither was she entitled to give him a summary of her life.

Giovanni is dead now. Even his stinking blood is getting cold now.

“You are coming with me, Milan,” Vito asserted in a final tone, snapping her attention to him.

A small, defiant smile lifted on Milan's lips as she met his gaze. "No, I'm not. I don't fucking know where he kept your shit." She told him the truth.

"You're coming with me," he warned, his tone low and lethal. "Either with your legs or without them."

"I said, I'm—"

She didn't finish her words before Vito struck the back of her neck with precision.

Pain flashed in her eyes, then nothing.

Her body went limp in his arms as darkness swallowed her whole.