Song~ Soap - Melanie Martinez



"One tequila shot please." I wave to the bartender who nods and goes make my drink.

I have been here for maybe an hour or two. But when I check my watch it's already five PM so I must have at least been here for three to four hours.

The bartender comes back with my drink and I down it in one go. The bartender goes to leave but is hesitant.

He sighs. "Boss won't be happy to know you're at a bar alone and getting drunk." He tells me, a conflicted look on his face.

I furrow my eyebrows at his sentence. His boss? I don't even know whose bar this is let alone who the owner is.

With a sigh I reply to the bartender, "Look dude, I don't really care who your boss is. If he has a problem with me drinking, in a bar, he can go suck a dick." I empathize in a bar.

That was rude, I shouldn't have said that.

I rub my temples, "sorry that was rude, I'm a little tipsy. Just tell your boss to fuck off." I restate more politely.

The bartender raises his hands in surrender and starts walking away muttering something along the lines of 'this is why I don't negotiate with drunk woman, their scary' but I pay him no mind and move to the dance floor.

I'm not drunk, just a little tipsy. I think.



I'm in my office completing some of the many paperwork I have to do for the mafia. I sign one paper and move on to reading the next when my phone rings.

I pick up the phone without looking at the caller. "Nikolaos Doukas." I speak into the phone, my tone harsh and firm.

"Uh- yes boss. It's Leo, you said Diovanna De'russo was under your protection and that if she entered any of your buildings to notify you." He asks.

Ah, yes Leo. He is a bartender at one of my bars here in Italy. I had told all of my employees in my clubs or bars here in Italy that if they saw her there alone to let me know.

She is under my protection.

"Yes." I answer when Leo does not continue speaking.

"Well sir, she came here- showed her fake ID may I add with only her real name on it. Sir she is a little tipsy if not drunk." He finally answers.

"Fuck." I curse under my breath. Only the lord understands that Diovanna can be a little irrational when drunk.

"I'm on my way Leo, which bar?" I question. Leo gives me the address and I thank him before hanging up.

I quickly grab my rain coat before making my way to my car.

Let's just hope nothing bad happens before I get there.

~/~/~

So much for nothing bad happening.

I walk into the bar to a hell a lot of commotion. When I walk further into the bar my eyes land on a familiar brunette who seems to be in an argument with a middle aged man.

"All you think woman are good for is sex?" I hear her question the man when I walk further into the bar.

Leo comes up to me from somewhere in this place. "Sir, they have been arguing for the past five minutes, I was going to get security to escort him out but you showed up. You decide what happens with him." Leo explains.

"Thank you Leo, I'll take it from here." I say honestly before moving closer to Diovanna through the crowd.

It wasn't hard to get to her, the crowd easily moved out of my way because they know exactly who I am.

"Maybe not all woman but that's definitely all your good for!" The man responds to Diovanna.

What the fuck did he just say?

She goes to lunge at the man but my arms snake around her waist keeping her in place. The only person who will throw a punch tonight is me.

Cant have her waisting her energy on this dick.

"Want to say that again?" I voice out to the man who just noticed my presence. Fear glazes over his eyes and his body still. So he knows who I am?

Good.

"Apologize." I state, no room for argument.

The man looks conflicted. He shouldn't, it's not that hard.

"I- uh- no." He replies boldly.

A dark chuckle escapes my lips. "No?" I move to step closer to the man but Diovanna in a swift motion raises her fist and lands a right hook to the guys face.

Shit.

So much for her not waisting her energy on this piece of shit.

It's too late now, I let Diovanna land a few more hits on this sad excuse of a man before I gently grab her by her waist and pull her away from the scene.

She was reluctant at first before she landed on last kick to the guy on the ground and began walking away from the scene.

I wave security over to grab him and bring him to back until I figure what he did to My Girl.

His punishment will not be fun- for him.

"Hey! I'm not sure who has their hands on me right now but get them off or else I'll cut them off. Or my boyfriend will." Diovanna shrugs.

I pull her closer until her back meets my chest.

An amused chuckle leaves my lips, "your boyfriend is the one with his hands on you." I whisper to her in her ear. "But I appreciate what you would do if another man touched you." I add.

She moves her head back looking up at me. "Oh," she breathes out. Her reaction only causes me to laugh more.

"Come on όμορφο κορίτσι, let's get you out of here." I tell her while placing a stray hair behind her ears. [pretty girl]

A frown makes its way to her face. "But I wanted to drink." She mumbles glancing back to the bar.

I sigh, "we can drink together another time, I promise." She shows me her pinky in the air and I link my pinky with hers before kissing my thumb to lock it in.

When we finish that and she nods satisfied, I continue to usher her towards the door but not before putting my rain coat on her seeing she is without a jacket. "Come on, we can talk more in the car." I tell her as I guide her towards the door and then to my Mercedes.

I open up her passenger door quickly, making sure she is in the car safely before I round the car and make my way to the driver seat.

I situate myself in the car, putting on my seat belt. I check to make sure Diovanna has her seat belt on- she does- so I put the car in drive and make my way to my mansion.

On the way there I message one of my trusted men to go get her motorcycle. She'd kill me if I left it there.

The car was silent except the soft music playing from the radio. Diovanna had brought her knees to her chest and just rested her head on them, just looking out into space. I kept my gaze on the rainy roads- taking an occasional glance at Dio to make sure she is okay.

I look over at her with both worry and concern. What happened?

Usually if she goes out drinking she will have someone with her- Lucian, Cassandra, Atlas, me? But she never goes drinking alone.

She told me that.

So why was she alone?

I glance over at her one more time deciding to finally ask the question that's been bugging my mind.

"Diovanna," I pause. "Why were you there, alone? You never go to a bar and drink alone." I ask softly.

She seems to snap out of her thoughts and just turns her head to me. "I just wanted to be alone." She mutters closing her eyes shut.

This makes me even more confused. Why does she want to be alone?

"Can you explain to me why did you want to be alone? I just want to help you." I press further, my vision still on the road as I drive us home.

She sighs, "because I deserve to be alone." She voices out softly.

I furrow my eyebrows at her statement. "You don't deserve to be alone, Diovanna, tell me what's wrong so I can help you make it right." I plead with her.

I never want her to suffer in silence.

She doesn't respond, just remains silent as we drive down the street and through the mansion gates one of my guards opened.

Pulling the car into the garage, I take a deep breath before exiting the car and making my way to the passenger side. I open the door for her while offering my hand. She places her smooth hand in my rough one and I help her up.

We make our way inside, and just when I'm about to give up on the thought of her talking about what's bothering her- she speaks.

"I got her killed" she whispers.

My eyebrows raise in surprise, not surprise that she killed someone but surprise that she feels guilt about it. Which probably means this person wasn't random to her.

"Diovanna, can you tell me who?" I ask further.

I sit her down on the couch before I sit on the table across from the couch so we are facing each other, one of her hands still resting in mine.

"Rylee." She mumbles not meeting my eyes. "She was my best friend..." she adds on, opening up to me.

"Was?" I ask hesitantly. "Can you tell me what happened?"

She pulls her knees to her chest resting her head on her knees while wrapping her free arm around herself.

My hand continues rubbing small circles on her hand in a comforting motion. "I wanted to leave, that place." She mutters. "Rylee and Lucian were on board- they wanted to leave just as much as I did."

"We all had it hard there, the training, the beatings, everything. So we made a plan." Diovanna starts off.

"We'd leave that night through the underground tunnels that we took to leave for missions. There was always less guards at the underground gates because they figured no one would think of an underground tunnel to attack us. They also thought that none of us would dare try and escape."

"They were wrong." She states.

Her eyes meet mine and I can see the pain and guilt she feels. All I want to do is take those feelings away from her, take it away so the only thing she feels is love and happiness.

When I don't say anything and just continue to rub comforting circles on her hand she continues. "We all stayed in the same group room that held about twenty other kids. That night when all of us layed down we waited, we waited for 2:00 AM. That was the time all the higher ups were supposed to be asleep. The security would be the lowest. It was the weakest time at that school. We would get out and make a run for it." She sighs.

"But something failed, there was an issue with getting past a couple guards and out the underground tunnel. For some odd reason, security had been upped through the hallways that night. Rylee and I argued, she believed we would stay a couple more days and try to escape another night insisting that the amount of guards would decrease within the next few days, she insisted that we would be able to escape with better ease." A tear falls down her cheek and I use the pad of my thumb to wipe it away.

"I disagreed." She whispered quietly. She clears her throat before speaking again- this time louder. "I hadn't wanted to stay anymore, especially because of the beatings from Aleksei. They were getting worse and he kept insisting that he needed to teach me then to be better wife in the future." She grimaced.

"I didn't want to stay so I told them I would leave that night- with or without her or Lucian." She mutters. "They were my best friends, I knew they would come. We promised to never each other do anything alone. But oh how I wish they hadn't followed me."

"So that night, at exactly 2:01 AM we left. We walked quietly through the hallways in the shadows to stay hidden from guards and cameras throughout the hallways." She explains further and all I can do is look at her with anxiousness.

Anxiousness because although I wasn't there, the outcome will always be horrible from what I hear. The uneasiness throughout the living room tells me that where Diovanna is leading this story will not end good.

"We had made it to the underground tunnels, ran to exit." She pauses inhaling a shaky breath. "I had hacked the underground escape door while Lucian had snapped the neck of the guard by the gate. For some odd reason, he was the only guard down there at the time." She mutters thoughtfully.

"I had just managed to get the door open when suddenly a gun shot sounded out and Rylee screamed- not out of fear but out of pain." Another tear falls from her eye. "There was the Russian Don in all of his glory. Vladimir had shot her in the stomach, grabbed her by her hair, and held a gun to her head." She glances up at me- searching my eyes for something I'm not sure of. However when she doesn't find what she was looking for she continues to tell me the events of what happened.

"His face, oh gosh." She whispers. "The sadistic look on his face will never leave my mind. It was like he was happy we were trying to escape- he was happy to make us suffer." Dio shakily explains.

Clearing her throat once more and taking her hand away from mine she wipes her tears away.

"He had dragged us all to the torture cells somewhere in that school, beat the absolute shit out of us and then put us into separate rooms. He made us watch video after video of each other getting tortured- whether it was mentally, physically, or sexually- he made us watch." She adds making both pure anger and bile rise in my throat.

This sick mother fu-

"But Rylee..." she drags out taking a long pause. "Her heart stopped in the video he made me watch. He had done so much harm to her that her actual heart stopped." Diovanna says standing up from the couch and I do the same.

"So she died, and it's on me. If I had just listened to Rylee and waited that night- she would still be here. It's my fault." She repeats as she begins to walk to the door of the mansion as tears fall down her cheeks.

I follow right after her, she isn't in the right state of mind right now. She grips the door handle and swings the front door open before walking outside- completely ignoring the poring rain.

"Diovanna." I call out to her before I follow her into the rain. "It isn't your fault!"

She stops walking and turns to me- tears streaming down her face. "But it is, I was the one who suggested we didn't wait another night. If I had listened to her-" I cut her off by taking her by the waist and wrapping her in my embrace, the rain long forgotten.

Her sniffles and cry's are heard and my heart breaks a little more for her.

"It isn't your fault." I assure to her. "You couldn't have known." I whisper to her.

A couple minutes pass by as we just stand in the rain, hugging.

My men- who stand under their covered parts of the fence for when it rains give us some weird looks but when I catch their eyes I just glare and they stop looking.

"Come on όμορφο κορίτσι." I murmur. "Let's get you inside." [pretty girl]

She complies but still keeps her arms around me in a side hug as we walk.

When we get inside, I lead her up the stairs and towards my room so we can shower and get warm.

"Okay Diovanna, we're gonna take showers so you can get warm. Is that okay?" I ask giving her a choice, although I'm not really giving her a choice- she needs to get warm and that's the end of discussion.

She ends up nodding her head to my previous sentence.

My phone rings from my pocket and i pull it out while Dio makes her way to the bathroom in my room.

"Nikolaos Doukas." I speak into the phone.

"Is Diovanna with you?" Lucian's worried voice carries through the phone.

I glance over to Dio who placed some towels on the counter and now makes her way into my closet for clothes, "yeah she is with me, she is okay." I tell him honestly.

I hear a breath of relief before Lucian's voice comes through the phone once more, "good, thanks Nik. Today is not a good day." He mutters.

"I know... I'm sorry for your loss man. But Dio is in good hands."

"She told you?" He asks- not in anger but surprise.

"Yeah," I breathe out.

"I'm glad." He says. "She shouldn't suffer alone." He adds and I couldn't agree more.

"I agree."

A sigh comes from Lucian, "well just tell her to call me before she goes to sleep so she can talk to Arabella. The girl won't go to sleep without Dio." Lucian chuckles.

I can't help but chuckle along with him. "I'll tell her, see you later Lucian." I say before hanging up the phone and making my way over to Diovanna who has placed the needed things for the shower on the counter.

My arms snake around her waist and i bury my face in her neck- leaving soft kisses.

She sighs in contentment- leaning her head against my chest.

"Lucian called," I murmur against her smooth skin. "Wanted to check on you. Also asked you to call and talk to Arabella tonight before you go to sleep." I add.

Dio chuckles, "I got it." She says softly. "Will you stay with me to shower?" She asks, her eyes meeting mine through the mirror.

"Of course."

~/~/~

I lay in bed with Diovanna, hear head resting on my chest, one of her arms across my stomach, and her legs tangled with mine.

After our shower, I had lended her some dry clothes while I put hers in the washer and then she had called Arabella who reluctantly listened to Diovanna about going to sleep in Lucian's room tonight so she wouldn't be alone when Dio wasn't there.

Now we just lay here together, my hand playing with her hair and her just listening to my heartbeat.

"Nik." Her voice cuts through the silence in a whisper.

"Yes όμορφο κορίτσι?" I respond softly. [pretty girl]

"Thank you." She murmurs.

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, "for what?" I ask.

"For being here, holding me, coming get me when I'm stupid and drunk. You're here. You listened. You stayed." She explains.

My eyes soften at her words, "I'm here, I'll always be here." I assure her.

She lifts her head and brings her face closer to mine before crashing her lips with mine.

She pulls back, she looks like she wants to say something but shakes her head in a dismissive manner. I grow confused but she sends me an assuring smile before resting her head back on my chest.

After a while, I hear her breathing even out. I just look at her, My pretty girl.

My pretty girl.

~~~



A/N: okay so, first things first, I have received some hate about the way I write and about how I write my characters. Many messages and comments have been saying things like "oh Diovanna is to perfect- she needs to have flaws" or "your rushing Dio and Nik's relationship and that just ruins the book." Or sometimes the occasional message of I don't like your book so I'm leaving.

Good, leave. Idrc. But there is no need to leave hateful comments or messages to me about MY book that I AM writing.

Everyone has a flaw or flaws- whether that be mentally or physically- we all have them and they are beautiful. Also PS: if you're saying she doesn't have any flaws and you only on the third chapter, who are you to say anything? You haven't even read my book💀. Thank you.

Now that I have said my piece- thank you for reading!!

I hope you liked this chapter.

Byeees.