From Heart With Hate

A Promise Worth My Life

"What was her name again? Elena? Sofia? Was it Camille, Niccolò?"
The blonde headed smirked as she knew she had hit a nerve.

"How long have you been taking these?" Niccolò says, pointing towards the blue packet, ignoring the pointed questions Caterina pointed at him.

"Did it feel bad? To kill the person who trusted you? Does it still hurt you?" She whispers as she grazes the beautiful man's cheekbone with the back of her index finger.

"Who fed you that bullshit?" He jerks her hand away as he places the packet in the back of his trousers. But the woman in front of him was too adamant about believing what the man said, the reason behind her insanity.

"So this isn't true that you got her killed because she liked your brother and not you? Is your pride that low, Niccolò?"
She twitched her lips into a sinister grin as she stared into his soul.

"Who.. who told you this?" Niccolò's jaws clenched in anger as he held her shoulders, pushing her deeper body into the chair. Little did she know she was on the verge of unleashing his demons.

The tattoed woman groaned in pain, but she now turned sadistic ass liked it. She moaned as Niccolò began to choke her, making the man frown his eyebrows in confusion.

"I find it ... funny... that ... you think I will never know—." The woman closed her eyes as she struggled to speak between the demonic thorny pair of hands around her neck.

"YOU KNOW NOTHING." The man released his grip on her, making the chair fall back, but Caterina quickly regained their balance.

"I know enough things to end you, DeVille."

Niccolò was heartbroken. He was trembling in anger and some foreign emotion he wasn't used to as tears occupied the corner of his eyes. Does he regret that his lover never got to his real side? He doesn't know.

He was just hurt as the memories of the night he lost the two most precious people in his life flashed in the back of his head. For years he had managed to keep them hidden from his subconscious mind, but now every pain and guilt was back.

"Promise me!" The 20-year pale pregnant girl held 18-year-old Niccolò's hand, begging him not to tell anyone about her.

"You know I can't betray my brother, Cami. He will be heartbroken when he finds this."

"He will kill me if he finds out; please just let me go." She was on her knees, pleading with the boy to understand.

Niccolò was confused. He doesn't want anyone to know how the love of his brother's life got pregnant with a man.

Camille was caught up in this hellhole since she was a teenager. The brothel owner, Alexandro, found her while running from her father used to beat her half-dead every other day. She accepted his offer to work for him, hoping she would live a better life. But all the hopes she had for a better future shattered like glasses. He won't let her go and treat her like a sex toy; she was too sexualised for her age among the beasts who used to come to the brothel every night for her performance. Alexandro used to be far more brutal in the past than he was with Caterina. She lived like a sex slave until the eyes of the DeVille brothers fell on her. The older brother grew an obsession with the female. He wanted her for him and only for him. He threatened every man who came near her and treated her like a queen, his queen. It was a puppy love until it grew into a deadly obsession. He forced her to quit her job and brought her home. He won't let anyone go near her, keep her locked inside a room all for himself like a doll in a gilded cage. The more the days passed, the more she feared the man she once thought was her saviour. Finally, I did what every sane person would do...
She ran away.

Until.
Niccolò found her in the countryside, pregnant and miserable. The man she had been living with for the past two years left her while she was six months pregnant.

Niccolò was in a dilemma. His mind kept telling him to kill her and her baby; he didn't want her brother to be hurt again. What if he finds out about the pregnancy? He'll be heartbroken, and what will happen if the crazy side he's been holding onto unleashes? No one will be safe. Not even he.

But she saw the woman he once considered a mother figure on her knees, begging him for her life. His heart ached.

"But if I find you again in this life, I will kill you and your child with my hands, Camille."

The woman nodded, not even listening to what he said further. She was happy she wouldn't be forced to get back to that heartless maniac.

"Now leave this country as soon as possible and never show your filthy face again." The man said as he took some money out of his wallet.

The woman thanked him and ran inside her house.
To get away from this insanity and live a long peaceful life with her baby.

But little did she know that Niccolò was being tracked. Not by Lorenzo but by their father. 

After his wife died, his sons were the only family he had. He won't let anything happen to them, and he sure won't let his older son go insane over that whore again. So he got Alexandro to kill her and her and burn their house down while she was deep in sleep, dreaming about how happy she would be holding her baby close to her chest when they were out.

"You...Caterina Angelo, you say I know everything about you and don't know about me. But have you ever genuinely tried to understand me? To know who I am ?"  The grey-eyed man spoke with teary red eyes. He was hurt because his lover accused him of something he would never do.

"Then what kind of a person are you? The one who is hell-bent on killing a clueless 22-year-old, the girl you say you love?"

"I AM NOT GOING TO KILL YOU...I cannot kill you."

"Why? Is that another dirty game of yours? To make a fool out of me?"

"Shut up, JUST SHUT UP", The man growled, surprising the woman to gasp.

"Don't yell at me," The shorter figure says, trembling. Niccolò was confused. Caterina is quite difficult to figure out nowadays. One day she is yelling and throwing stuff; the other day, she is curled up in the bed, not wanting to eat. And now she is trembling just because he yelled at her? Niccolò was confused.

What side of his lover is a lie, he doesn't know.
He looks into her eyes, filled with fear. Is it an act? Is it real? Should he trust her to be stabbed across the chest again?

Should Caterina trust the man who claims she loves her? And won't fulfil his dying father's last wish?

They bring out the worst in each other. Even within this small space, it feels like they are poles apart. They both are the poison they are willing to take for each other.
Who is a liar? None of them knows.

The only thing they know for sure is that their love is doomed.

A/N

Niccolò should date me instead 🥰