ERICAI was sitting with Gianna. After our initial awkwardness has weaned off and we had apologized to each other we have managed to sit in the same room without insulting one another and there was even comfortable silence that surrounded us. I was reading the last of the journal, the Rossi in this journal fell for his captive and she was pregnant with his baby. She was brought down from the cell and now stayed with him in his bedroom. In all his musings and what the older Rossi wrote, it was clear how much he was obsessively in love with the stolen princess but he also wrote how disappointed he was to not have her respond to his love. Every time he confessed his love, the princess didn’t reply back. And even after how he changed for her, he seemed to be at the end of his ropes as he didn’t understand why she didn’t love him back. He was detailed about their sex life which I skipped, but there were words that took me by surprise and I felt for the man. He really loved her, went as fa

ERICA“Gabe, please, calm down. Just listen to me for a second.” But he wasn’t listening. A different chopper than the one I had seen Antonio use waited for us near the tree line. And Gabriel dragged me towards it. “Just listen to me, please.” I requested him again.He stopped abruptly and I had to catch myself before slamming into him. Looking down at me with his angry blue gaze, he demanded, “What should I listen to? What is it that you have to tell me when everything is already crystal clear?”“It isn't what you think... Antonio wasn't torturing me—”His eyes widened. He grabbed my shoulders like he wanted to shake some sense into me. “What has happened to you, Erica? Snap out of it!” He cupped my face, the emotions in his eyes very rarely available to see apart from when he was with my sister. Despite the way his eyes showed his emotions, his words carried the whip of his anger. “The pictures,” He ground out through clenched teeth as if it pained him to say that, “Do you even kno

ERICAMonsters clamored and demons laughed, surrounding me from all sides. It was too dark and the shadows crowded me, even when I tried to move I couldn’t. My hands weren’t moving and neither were my legs. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. A man lurked in the periphery, urging me to wake up and I tried to fight the darkness, wanting to go to that solid figure. I jerked up, ready to fight off the invisible hands but I realised it was a nightmare. My eyes finally opened wide and I took in my surroundings, at first not understanding anything as confusion gripped me tight. It was dark in here, not just the dark dots blinding me because of my fuzzy head. I realised I was on a cold concrete floor and there was a sort of old smell in the air, dirty and rusty.I tried to squint and see a little but it felt like I was in a black void. I could not even see my own hand, it was pitch black. I was half lying against the wall and when I straightened, pain shot through my arm and

ERICA“The name is Nikolai.”I swallowed as his fingers left my chin and slowly travelled down my neck, to my throat and lower. A cold chill went through me at his touch and my stomach rolled in disgust. Without thinking, I lifted my hand and slapped him hard on the face. “Don’t touch me!”His head turned from the hit and then he started to laugh. I watched with dawning realisation that I should’ve curbed back my impulse, this man was crazy. When he turned to face me, the look in his eyes didn’t bode well. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for retaliation. But it never came.“Don’t hurt her. Be a man and fight me.” I heard Gabe yell, and I knew he was doing it to save me, even though he was in no condition to fight back.Nikolai stood up and said, “I don’t plan to. Antonio very humbly asked me to not harm a hair on your head. And I won’t do it. I thought I could do that much for years of our friendship.”Nikolai stepped to my side to face Gabriel and I was about to release a breath w

ERICA The loud sobs wrecked my body and even as I tried to speak, it came out unintelligible. “You c-came. I knew you will.” I nearly succumbed to darkness with the relief that followed. “Bambina...” His deep voice vibrated through me, giving me a frisson of warmth spread in my chilled heart. “Antonio...” I looked behind him, expecting to find men coming to stop him from rescuing me as I could still hear the blasts in near vicinity but no one came and then my gaze dropped to the men behind him with a pool of blood around them. He killed them and as he came closer with a knife in one hand and a gun in another, I realised it wasn’t just these two men he kîlled as I noticed the stains of blood covering his clothes and the red that was on the side of his face, the blood he spilled for me. I met his eyes, they burned bright as they took me in. I followed his gaze to the timer of the bomb and saw it was only twelve minutes left for the bomb to go off. He crouched down before me and cup