Mafia Men: Nikolai's Inferno - Chapter 63: Chapter 63

•Nikolai.
I watched as her eyes rolled back in her head and she completely lost consciousness. "No! Evangeline, FUCK! Fucking stay with me!"
Her body went limp as I covered her, and put my weight on my elbows, I didn't want to crush her underneath my weight. I held on to the bullet wound on her forearm. She was losing a lot of blood. Fuck, she already looked so fucking pale.
"It's clear, Don Niko, the shooter is down," one of my soldiers informed me.
A muscle in my jaw twitched. "Dead?"
"Wounded, I know you would want to keep him," he informed.
I got off Evangeline and scooped her body in my arms. "Take him to the warehouse, I need to take my wife to the hospital."
"Yes, Don Niko."
While the shooter was moved to the warehouse, I took Evangeline to the nearest hospital. The hospital belonged to the Cosa Nostra half of the doctors there were on my payroll. It meant fewer meaningless questions and more work. It meant no fucking police investigation as well.
I placed her limp body on the stature as they took her straight to the operation room. 1
It took an hour...
A fucking hour to get a single fucking bullet out.
Scott came by, surprised and pissed off about who could have the guts to mess with Nikolai Costello.
I had some ideas about who could try to kill my wife. Starting with Grace Fucking Russell and the entire fucking Russell family. If it's them, I swear to god, I will wipe out their family from the face of the earth. I will kill every little spawn to every shriveled-up old man that has a drop of Russell blood running through their veins.
The doctor came out of the OR with a clipboard in his hand. When he saw me he nodded his head in respect. "Don Costello."
"How's my wife?"
"You've nothing to worry about. The bullet did not penetrate the bone, it simply grazed her arm. The wound was quite big, she lost a lot of blood in a short time but I assure you, Don Costello, she'll heal perfectly in a week or two," he explained and with each of his words, relief filled my body.
"Can I see her now?"
"You may, but she is heavily sedated."
I nodded as I walked straight into her hospital room. I moved slowly and softly in the quiet room and made my way to the foot of the bed. I remained still for a time, my eyes fixed on her feet. Then I looked up at her petite figure resting on the big hospital bed.
My eye trailed all over her fragile form. A form I had grown very accustomed to. The form that perfectly molds into my body when we sleep together. The form that belonged to me, was something I had sculpted and built with my own two hands.
She looked so fucking pale, almost as if her skin color was grey and ashy. Her plump lips were squeezed closely together and had a neutral color that blended into the rest of her face. She had IVs in both arms and was wearing a hospital gown.
I pulled up a chair beside her and sat down, reaching over to her, I grabbed her hand, bringing it closer to me. I stroked her palm with my thumb, she had very girlish, little hands with long and supple fingers. I pulled her hand to my lips and pressed a soft kiss. "I'm so sorry, baby girl. You're not adjusting well to the Costello lifestyle, are you?" I asked her, even though I knew she was unconscious.
The first day after our marriage, she had to watch me get married to another woman, and on the second day, I had to watch her almost bleed to death.
Not the kind of married life I had in my mind.
Her chest gently heaved up and down as she breathed. I never thought that I'd be grateful for another person's breath. I had always been the one to snuff the light out of people's eyes but when I saw her eyes rolling back to her head it was almost as if I wanted to fucking set the world on fire.
Fuck! I had developed an unhealthy obsession with this girl. That's fucking why I was so eager to tie her down, to make her mine, to get fucking married to her. I wanted to have her in possession, I wanted to possess her mind, her soul, her body as she had done to me.
I got up and pressed my lips against her cold ones. I had my first kiss when I was fourteen years old. A girl at school had pressed her lips against mine that's when I realized I didn't enjoy kissing. It disgusted me, I never kissed another woman until Katerina. I was a stupid twenty-year-old who got attracted to big breasts and a bigger butt. Katerina wouldn't give it to me not until I asked her to be my girlfriend. Katerina was beautiful, intelligent, and regal; the kind of woman I could take to my parents. We made sense, we both respected each other's privacy and she knew better than to thrust herself into my business but then I grew bored of her as well.
I did not enjoy kissing her too not until I kissed Evangeline.
I have never kissed a woman as much as I have kissed her. It fucking feels like her lips taunt me to kiss them, to ravish them. She is the first woman not to reciprocate my kiss and in my fucked up mind, it made me even crazier for her.
I pulled back and sat back down in my seat. She was fucking me up... It was that innocence that always surrounds her, I was her beautiful voice, her curiosity, her urge to know more and more about me until there is nothing left to tell.
I now fucking realized how vulnerable I have become because of her. I had enemies all around the fucking world and anyone could use that. Anyone could use this weakness against me. They could take her and they can fucking pull my strings and I'd fucking dance to their tune.
I rolled my shoulders as I remembered my obsessive thoughts before I married her. The need to keep her close, the need to make her mine.
Fuck, I shouldn't have done it.
Violent thoughts roared through my blood, dulling my vision. I had to fucking keep her safe, I had to keep her safe from the world. She was someone I cared about, and that was dangerous. Too dangerous for a man like me and a sweet little angel like her.
I used to curse my father when he kept my mother on a tight leash. He knew what he was doing, this is what he had to do to keep her safe, to keep her away from the world, from his enemies.
I'd feel guilty, fucking guilty if I forced that kind of behavior on Evangeline but I had no fucking choice. It was better than to see ghastly pale Evangeline lying in a hospital bed. She would be locked up in my house but at least she'd be safe, she'd be healthy.
A knock on the door made me stiffen my back, I turned to look who it was and frowned. My father, Luciano Costello stood in the doorway with a frowned look.
I clenched my jaw as I placed Evangeline's hand beside her on the bed and stood up, facing my father.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, my tone curt and harsh. I had never talked to my father like that, I had respected him.
"I heard about the shooting."
"Were you behind it?"
He looked taken aback. I wouldn't put it past him, I noticed the way he looked at Evangeline yesterday. I have seen that look in his eyes before.
"You think I'd shoot my own son?"
"No, but you could've shot my wife."
He heaved a sigh. "I have nothing to do with this shooting, Niko. If I wanted to kill your wife, I wouldn't make a scene in the public," he moved further into the room, stopping at the foot of the bed, and looking at Evangeline with curious eyes. "How is she doing?"
"Why would you want to know?"
"Because I'd like to talk to her. I want to know her, I want to know where she came from. I want to know what kind of woman my son, the king of the Cosa Nostra, Nikolai Costello got married to. Is she worthy of my and my family's respect?"
"She is worthy of respect because she is my wife now," I gritted through my teeth.
"It's hard to respect someone, who has no name, no family status, or mafia background. Is she even Italian? Or the bitch is-"
"Don't... call her that."
Palin n
"Evangeline Bianchi, that's what you told me her name was? Evangeline Bianchi doesn't exist-"
"Bolton."
He frowned and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Evangeline Bolton, her name is Evangeline Bolton."
He opened his mouth before closing it again, he hesitated and shook his head. "What? Who?"
"Elijah Bolton, your friend, and capo."
"Elijah did not have a child. His wife got shot while she was pregnant, and she gave birth to a dead boy. He did not have a daughter," he said, it was more like he was talking to himself. "He did and he hid her away from the world. To save her from men like me and you, I guess, that's his daughter. She is half-Italian, a virgin, and nothing like the woman you chose for me." "Grace Russell is the mafia princess of Great Britain. You chose a traitor's daughter over a princess," he made sure to let his disgust leak through his voice as he mentioned Evangeline. "The princess you chose for me had slept with half of my soldiers where's the honor in that, Pops? I'd take a traitor's daughter over that princess any day."
"Niko, are you listening to yourself? Elijah betrayed us, he betrayed you and he betrayed me. You made his flesh and blood your wife, are you fucking crazy?!"
I put my hands in my pockets. "I have never been more in my senses."
He laughingly scoffed, shaking his head to show his disappointment. Like I fucking care if he was disappointed in me. "You made an enemy out of the entire Russell family for a traitor's daughter?!" "Evangeline is my wife now," that was all I said, that was all I needed to say for him to understand that nothing can make me change my mind or even make me consider Grace anymore. "Congratulation on your wedding, Niko. Have fun while you can.
"Is that a threat?" I asked, my eyes narrowed at him.
He let out a sarcastic laugh. "No, just a fact. This is why I was against you breaching the contract, this shooting was just a start. They will not rest until they put her in the grave. You started a war between the two mafia families for that girl, I hope she is worth it."
He turned to back to where he came from and as he was about to walk out of the door, I said. "She is..."
He stilled, turned, and faced me again. "What?"
"She is worth it. She is my Anastasia." 2
My father kept staring at me for a few minutes. I wanted him to know what Evangeline was to me. I wanted him to know that she was as important to me as his Anastasia was to him.
He glanced at Evangeline's unconscious form with a frown before he shook his head. "It's poison, any man that will come for you... will go for her first, and the one who got her will make sure to torture you long and hard before they finally kill her off"
"It won't come to that. I won't let it come to that."
"She'd start to resent you."
"I can live with that."
He nodded before he walked out of the door. I sat back down in my seat beside her and held her dainty hand again.