Mafia Men: Nikolai's Inferno - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

.Evangeline.
For the past hour, I have lain in my bed trying to make sense of what happened between Scott and me. Was it all there was to his friendship? Is that what he wanted all along? I couldn't believe it, I refused to believe that it was the only thing Scott wanted, from the past few weeks our relationship had been nothing but platonic. He never showed any interest in me, he treated me like you would treat your best friend. I picked up my cell phone from the nightstand and scrolled to his number. I contemplated if I should call him or not.
As I was about to click on his number, a loud clattering sound from downstairs fell on my ears. I shot up from my bed, there was no one else in the house except for me. All of the household staff had gone home, maybe it was one of the guards.
I swallowed as a feeling of unease crept up, I felt heavy footsteps coming upstairs. This doesn't feel right. Scared out of my wits, I clicked on Scott's number, it rang and rang but he didn't pick up. I again tried calling him but stopped as I saw a shadow from underneath my bedroom door.
I slid under the sheets, covering myself from head to toe. The darkness in the room was thick and heavy, the only light that was coming into the room was the light from the hallway from underneath the door. My hand went back to my cell phone, I set my screen brightness to the lowest setting as I tried to call Scott again. Tears spilled from my eyes as he declined my call.
From under the sheets, I heard my bedroom door creak open. I stifle a whimper and lay completely still. Was the person who killed my parents here to finish the job?
With a trembling finger, I scrolled up and clicked on Nikolai's number. It rang once, twice until someone pulled the covers off of me and my cell phone fell from my hand. I couldn't see anything in the dark, someone had turned off the hallway light, leaving nothing but darkness all around me but still in this darkness I was able to make out the shape of the body. A menacing black shadow hovered over me standing
beside my bed.
Before I could scream or call for help, a big, calloused hand landed over my mouth, and then I felt a heavy body straddling me, clasping my mouth shut, I couldn't scream, I couldn't move. I squirmed under the weight. Tears spilled on the sides of my cheeks landing on the bed. I tried to push them off but they held my hand and placed it underneath their knees on either side of me.
All of my crying for help got muffled by his large hand. A blurry face unfamiliar face leaned closer to me, grinning like he had won some kind of prize. His terrifying expression made me cry even harder.
Slowly, he placed a finger on his lips. "Shhh..."
My heart was pounding so hard that I felt it will burst out of my chest. My lungs constricted, and I was hardly breathing at all. The beast holding me captive underneath him had all the control of my body. Shadows and echoes played on my senses warping shapes and sounds in the dark. Fear crippled me, freezing every muscle of my body.
I sobbed into his palm as the tip of his nose grazed mine. My arms squished under the weight of his knees.
"Now I'm gonna take this hand off your mouth and you will not make a fucking sound, yeah?" his voice sent a chill down my spine.
Scared for my life, I nodded into his hand.
"If you made a sound or did anything stupid, I'm gonna hurt you, princess," he chuckled nastily in my face. "And I'm gonna have so much fun cutting you up."
He pushed something into my neck and I realized that it was a knife. He had a knife to my neck all the while I was struggling to get free. I cried harder, I didn't want to die... I didn't want to die.
"Now, princess, you're gonna be a good little girl and when I get off you, you're gonna get up and follow me out of the house silently. If you make a sound or any sudden movement, I'm gonna shove this knife in
your neck, got it?"
I tried to nod again.
He slowly took his hand off my mouth and got off of me. He stood near the bed watching me, I didn't make a sound. 1
"Move," he touched my arm with his knife.
He didn't have to tell me twice as I silently got up, my eyes discreetly looked for my phone in the dark but I couldn't find it. I walked out of my bedroom with him shoving his knife in my back and every time I winced he laughed as if he found my pain entertaining.
My eyes searched for something to hit him with, I looked for the guards but instead, I found more men in black masks, my house was crawling with him. My chin trembled, I suddenly wanted to be small and crawl into someone's lap for comfort.
"That's the one?" one of them asked the man who held the knife and was walking behind me.
"Yes," he chuckled.
Before I knew what was happening, they twisted both of my arms behind my back and tied them together with some kind of wire or something, I didn't know what it was but it wasn't a rope. I stifled a scream as
they blindfolded me.
They tugged me along with them and then someone placed a hand over my head, ducking me and shoving me into something. The revving of the engine fell on my ears. It was a car. They put me in a car. Panic rose in my stomach as the car started moving. I heard the men laughing and speaking Spanish. Mexican, they were Mexicans. I could tell from their accent.
I lay on my side on the floor of some kind of van with men sitting all around me. I could hear them talking, and laughing. Someone placed their heavy shoe over me and then all of them burst out laughing. The car's tires screeched and then it stopped. Someone grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out of the van. They roughly made me stand and then pushed me around.
My body was violently shaking and my teeth chattering. I clenched my jaw to keep myself from making any noise.
I heard a door being opened and then I was roughly shoved inside. I fell to the concrete floor, my shoulder twisted underneath me, and I cried out in pain. The burning started on my shoulder and spread to the
rest of my body. I tried to free my arm of whatever was trapping me, but it wasn't budging. The knot only tightened the more I struggled.
"Take the blindfold off," I heard someone say.
The next second I was picked up by my hair and then the blindfold got ripped off from my eyes. I cringed and squinted my eyes, through my blurry and hazy vision I saw five to six tall muscular men standing
before
me.
"What's your name?"
I breathed in and out a few times. "Evangeline Bolton"
They chuckled. "You're Bolton's spawn, eh?"
I stayed still not knowing how to answer that. "Now, Puta, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice"
My hands were still bound behind my back. The man who seemed to be the boss of all of them crouched down before me and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. "What do you choose, princess?"
I looked around at the giant, bulky men present in the room and swallowed, even my tears had now dried up. "The easy way..." I answered
He chuckled, pinching my cheek. "Good little girl," his knuckles caressed my cheek. "Now tell us where is the key?"
I furrowed my eyebrows. "What key?"
As soon as the words left my mouth, a brutal slap collided with my cheek, my head swung to the side with force. Blood spurted out of my mouth as my teeth cut into my cheek.
"Where did your father keep the key?" he asked again.
I sobbed harder than before, my shoulders shook with the force. "I don't know anything about a key..." 1
He got up and stood tall above me. He turned to his men and said something in Spanish. "Fucking break her..." is all I understood.
Three words that shook my soul.
I shook my head like a crazy person. "No, please I'm telling you the truth... I have no idea about any key, I don't know anything about it" I screamed trying to make them understand that I was telling the truth.
The boss stepped out of the cell leaving me alone with four men. Four men, who looked like they wanted to eat me alive.
It had been hours and they still weren't tired. I was tired, way too tired. I didn't have the energy to keep my eyes open anymore but couldn't close them. If I did they would scream at me, and slap me around.
My eyelids felt heavy, I felt dizzy, and I could not hold my eyes open. I just couldn't... Slowly my eyes closed of their own accord. I tried, I tried so hard to keep them open but couldn't.
"OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES, BITCH"
A stinging slap against my swollen, bloodied cheek. My teeth hurt, my jaw hurt, my ears were ringing, and every part of my body felt tender, it was bruised, busted, and bleeding. I have never experienced this
much pain in my life before.
"I don't h-have the k-key..." I whispered on the verge of passing out.
Another slap to my face.
And then another.
"You don't get to pass out on us!" he snarled.
His voice turned heavier, I tried to keep my eyes open but in the end, I lost the battle and succumbed to the darkness.
I woke up and saw the empty cell. The men had finally grown tired of torturing me. I don't know how long I have been here, days, weeks. I don't know. It felt like it had been years.
My entire body ached so badly. I wanted relief from the pain. I wanted relief from all the beating. I wanted relief from these men.
I half wished that someone would burst through this door and come in here to save me but I had no one. No one cared about me enough to look for me. My parents died, and Nikolai was engaged to some other
woman, Scott left me and Bianca couldn't find me even if she tried. I had no one. I was alone and I was going to die in here alone.
I smiled as I saw my mother's face. She was wearing her red dress that I loved, she came to me and placed my bruised and battered face on her lap, caressing it.
I swallowed the blood in my throat. "Mom..."
"Evie..."
Tears spilled from my eyes. "I can't take this anymore, mom. I can't take any more pain..."
"You're my brave little daughter, aren't you? Come on, Evangeline, you are stronger than that..."
I cried in agony and shook my head. "I'm not strong, I'm tired and all this hurts so bad, mom. I want this to end. Please, I want this torture to end..."
Someone placed a big boot on my face and deliberately squished my face into the ground. My eyes frantically looked around for my mother but she disappeared, she disappeared too. She left me alone too.
"Ignacio, she's awake," someone said.
Ignacio Reyes was the boss, I know his name now. I have heard them call him that multiple times since I got here. The man with a shoe on my face was called Diaz, he was the cruelest among all of them. The
man standing beside Ignacio was Sergio. He was Ignacio's little brother and a pervert. He had groped me, touched me, and even tried to molest me.
Ignacio crouched down beside me, I didn't have the power to sit anymore. I lay in the cell on the cold concrete floor days and nights. How many days has it been again?
"What is Nikolai Costello to you?" he asked, his face held wonder, surprise.
I looked up into his poisonous eyes. "No one!"
A harsh, heavy slap, I could taste the blood in my mouth. "Why is he looking for you?"
I frowned. It felt odd to know that Nikolai was looking for me. For me? Why would he look for me? He and I were nothing. Ignacio must have misunderstood, there's no way Nikolai was looking for me.
"He isn't..." I replied with a blood-filled mouth. I turned to my side and spat the blood out of my mouth.
A harsh blow landed on my stomach, Ignacio had kicked me. My body rolled back on the floor and taking this as a chance, Ignacio kicked in my back. I hadn't eaten anything in days. They only gave me a piece of bread with water, which they had to force down my throat so I don't die. I threw up so many times and got beaten for it too. I had lost weight, a lot of weight. My body had no power to fight for myself.
"What is he to you, huh, bitch? What is Nikolai Costello to you?!" he kicked me around like a crazy person. 1
I think I might have broken a rib.
What is Nikolai Costello to me? In agonizing pain, mind-numbing pain I thought about what Nikolai Costello was to me.
For me, he was the first man I loved.
For me, he still is the only man I loved.
For me, he was the only person I considered my family after my parents' death.
For me, he was everything and nothing at the same time.
He grabbed me by the collar of my ripped, bloodied shirt. "What is he to you?"
With a weak, bloody smile, I said. "I love him..."
And then everything went black again.
I felt someone affectionately stroking my hair, it must be my imagination but it felt so real. I let them do it, it felt nice to be touched this gently.
In my mind, I imagined that it was my dad. I placed my head on his lap while he gently stroked my hair. I was back in my home, safe and sound. Safely tucked into my bed.
I forced open my swollen eyelids with a smile but it instantly fell from my face as I noticed the dark, dingy dungeon walls. I was confused, if I was still here then who was the person stroking my hair?
I looked up and it took me a minute to recognize the man that was holding me.
It can't be...
Leo..
Mark Leopold...
My father's best friend and our butler. 1
He raised me like his own daughter, he loved me, he cared for me and now he was here for me. I wasn't alone. I had Leo now. I smiled at him through the pain.
"Leo..." I whispered. "You're alive... I th-thought you were killed with my parents..."
Leo wiped the blood off my face with his sleeve. "If I knew that you were alive I would have come back for you, I didn't know, Evie. I thought you were murdered too that night..."
I gave him a half-smile. "I survived... I jumped out of the back window, they couldn't get to me."
A gloss shined over his eyes. "What have they done to you?"
My eyes began to sting as tears pooled in them. "They want a key, Leo... I don't h-have any key..."
"I know, Evie..."
I heard the sound of the door being opened and fear washed over me. I curled up in a ball and pressed myself into Leo.
"Ignacio, she doesn't know anything" Leo snapped, holding me closer to him.
Ignacio laughed. "I know that now. You know all this time, I thought I needed some stupid key to take down Nikolai Costello but I had everything I need to make him fall to his knees."
"What do you mean?" Leo asked as I clutched his shirt.
"Costello is going crazy looking for this bitch, I found Costello's weakness..."
Leo held me closer. "Niko doesn't know anything about Evangeline, no one does!"
"Sergio, take Evangeline to one of the bedrooms upstairs."
Sergio walked towards me and pulled me away from Leopold. I struggled against him as much as I could but it was like my struggles had no effect on him at all.
"What are you planning on doing to her?" Leo asked, staring at me.
"Let's just say that she will bring Costello to his death..."