Heart of Stone - Stone and Fire #1 [17+] (REWRITING)

Chapter 3

hey cutie pies

Adriana's POV

My bedroom door slams shut, and insanity looms on the brink as footsteps pace my rug, a weird coil in my stomach tightening the longer I rethink what the actual hell just happened downstairs.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Curses spill under my breath and I push my hair back, sitting down on the edge of the bed. My knee bobbed up and down, like a ticking time-bomb with no promise of exploding gracefully.

The look on Papa's face as I was leaving the living room didn't help- I knew I was in for it once Nikolas was gone.

My heart pounds a wave each second, growing into a tsunami the longer I dwell on my meeting with the man. Unintentional meeting.

Thick, raggedy black hair that stuck out in a way that only screamed 'villain'. A ruggedly, dark, masculine charm, tied up into the absolute epitome of devastation as a person. However, that didn't detract from the fact that he was the enemy. All wrapped up perfectly, hidden under a cold, cold mask of a face. He looked bored out of his goddamn mind down there, but his reaction once he saw me turned that look right around.

Nikolas Volkov wasn't your practical, 'fuck-and-duck skater-boy who pops into the club, prim and proper, only to last for less than a minute', he was.. almost, the tiniest bit, scary. I couldn't explain it, but there was something about him.. maybe it was how he presented himself, like the entire world was aware of what he stood for and he didn't give a fuck otherwise- that compelled me in a way I never could've imagined.

The man every woman wanted, just as much as they feared death the moment he would cross.

My heart jumped to speed when the smooth sound of engines rumbled outside the window, and the moment I turned to look, Enzo barged into my room with no gentleness in his always gloomy facade. 

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

I stand up and meet his crazed eyes, trying to compose myself. When it came to Enzo.. there was only one way out. My sister was more demure, or capable of getting under people's skin to the point that they had no choice but to listen to her. Me.. well, it was a different case for me.

"You only told me to stay in my room. That's nowhere near enough of a warning."

He rubbed a frustrated hand across his jaw, expression fading. "You don't get it, do you?" He smooths back his black hair. "Do you understand what the hell you just did?"

I blink, confused. "What?"

His broad shoulders sunk into indifference, but the cold kind. "Volkov. He came here to comp for what Stefan did to that Russian assassin unit."

Right. I remember hearing the whisperings of the incident through my spit-balling cousin Lorenzo and younger brother Leo. It was stupid, what the capo did, but I had no idea of the consequences- or that it would lead Nikolas Volkov himself to my fucking house.

"Meaning.. a compensation? For what the capo did?" My voice was as tight as how my silk shirt felt the moment the Russian's eyes landed on me. Enzo's chin dips in a tiny nod.

My jaw goes slack at his next words. 

"A wife. That's what he wants."

Just like that, all the regrets, all the immunities I had granted from my shield of a firm voice, they silenced into a horrific, dead stillness. My throat went dry, no matter how hard I swallowed away the croakiness in my voice.