The remnants of Grace Brennan

14| Shopping with the devil

New York City, 03 October 2017

Shopping with Victor was an exercise in itself. Not that he demanded a lot, he mostly left Grace to choose what she wanted while he worked from his phone, the task of actually choosing a dress in a store that had hundreds of them was the difficult part. Not to mention the period cramps that decided to show up early, her period was at least a week and a half away but the cramps she had was as if her period had started today. Combine this with every single woman who practically drooled at Victor from every direction, followed by hostile, dirty looks thrown at Grace, her patience was wearing thin and she was straight up not having a good time. She was currently trying on what felt like the millionth dress today, a simple black satin gown with a deep V neckline and thigh high slit. She ran her hands over the silky soft material while looking at herself in the mirror. 

"Would you look at that" Franks ghost appeared making her jump "If your soul wasn't stained I'd go as far as to say that you look beautiful but you can't be pretty on the outside if you're not pretty on the inside" 

"Nobody asked you" Grace mumbled, it had been a few days since Franks ghost had bothered her but he seemed to just know when she was feeling awful. 

"Who are you trying to fool Grace?" He looked at her through the mirror "You don't belong here, you don't belong on Victors arm and you most certainly are not going to belong at that ball. You don't fit in and you never will" 

"I know that!" She snapped "I don't need you here to remind me just how out of place I am here. So fuck off" 

Feeling beyond irritated Grace took off the dress before hanging it up and changing back into her clothes. She hated every moment of this. Without thinking about it any further she took the dress and walked out of the dressing room, irritation clear on her face. 

"I'll take this one" She huffed handing it to the sales assistant whiled Victor finished up his call with Sergio. 

"Find something you like tesoro?" Victor asked as they stood at the register, Grace hummed in response looking down at the floor trying to keep herself from crying, only looking up again to see the sales assistant taking extra long so she could give Victor flirty looks. The woman who was supposed to be helping her managed to ignore Grace most of the time and now as she took the card from Victors hand, her fingers lingered way too long. Grace balled her hands into fists ready to punch the blonde woman in the face. 

"Can I use your name for client database Mr Bernardi?" She asked batting her eyelashes and drawing her words out to be more sensual 

"You can use mine" Grace snapped before Victor could answer "Mrs Bernardi" She rolled her eyes emphasizing the mrs part as the sales assistant handed Victors card back to him not before shooting Grace a venomous look 

"Right" She said shortly before purposefully taking her time packing the dress into a large bag so that she could give Victor more flirtatious looks. Victor however had his eyes on Grace the whole time enjoying her jealousy a little too much. 

"Could you hurry the fuck up please?" Grace snapped again causing the blonde to look at her offended but she didn't say anything as she finished packing the dress in the bag before sending Victor another flirtatious smile. "You can also stop eye fucking my husband" Grace snapped taking the bag and walking out of the shop, causing Victor to bite back a laugh. 

Victor didn't often get to see this side of Grace, the part of her that was assertive, the part of her that demanded instead of asked, the part of her that was most like a queen. The part he believed to be her true self. Grace was shy and submissive because that's how she survived, she agreed and didn't argue and that way she wouldn't be hurt. It was the same with Victor, she didn't question him because she was afraid of him and Victor knew that, hell everyone was afraid of him but he didn't want that for Grace, he wanted her to be his equal not his subject and slowly but surely he would make sure she understood that. He wanted to see that fire in her eyes everyday, not just when she'd had enough of being treated like shit. He knew that one day she'd snap and put her foot down, she wouldn't allow anyone to treat her as though she was meek and helpless because although she didn't believe it, Victor knew that Grace was anything but helpless, Grace held all the power because she had him and Victor would kill, burn and destroy anything she asked him too. From the outside looking in it would seem that Victor had all the control, that Grace was to do as he say but in reality it was the opposite. Grace had all the control over him, she just hadn't realised it yet. 

"Are you feeling okay gorgeous?" Victor asked as they drove home

"I'm just tired" Grace sighed which wasn't a lie, she was exhausted from todays trip. 

"I'm sorry baby, we can order food when we get home and then we can do whatever you want" He said kissing her hand softly as his phone rang in his pocket

"Sergio?" He answered 

"Boss, I had a weird feeling so I decided to check out that guy koroleva spends time at the library with" Sergio said on the other end

"Si?" Victor asked 

"Everything seemed normal, his twenty two, studying finance at NYU, father not listed, mother deceased"

"What's your point Sergio?" Victor asked slightly irritated 

"There's a picture of him, he has a red arrow tattooed above his elbow" 

"Are you sure?" Victor asked quickly looking over at grace who had her head turned looking out of the window 

"As sure as can be" Sergio smiled 

"Okay, find out more if you can and not a word to anyone" Victor instructed 

"Okay boss" Sergio said before hanging up. 

"Is everything okay?" Grace asked softly 

"Si, don't worry about it tesoro" Victor assured her before rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. He didn't know if he should tell her the truth about her friend, he didn't want her to be hurt by his betrayal. He would leave it for now and see what Sergio came up with before deciding how to tell her, but right now she didn't need to know.