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'Dear God, I know that I am not your favourite, but there was no need for a death so terrible,' Ari sent her last complaint to God as she watched the tall man step closer to her. Why the last complaint? Because she knew that she was going to die after this.
The man stepped forward with his shoulder-length hair tied in a bun, a few inky strands fluttering over his forehead and behind his ears. Eyes as red as burning flames.
And arms that were filled with tattoos without leaving an inch of unblemished skin, including the back of his palm and fingers, even if Ari was blind, deaf, and mute she would have recognized this man.
And how could Ari recognize him?
Because in this entire city, there was only one man who reeked of hostility even from a certain distance. He did not even need a weapon to stand out from the crowd, as every pore of his body emanated a nefarious energy which could be sensed from a mile away.
This man was none other than the little prince of the De Luca family, Nicolai De Luca. Though the De Luca family was a business-oriented family at the surface for everyone else in the city, Ari knew better. The De Luca family was a family affiliated with the Mafia.
Nicolai's mother Lilian was the current leader of the De Luca family. If the gossip that she had heard from the ladies at the tea parties that were held by various aristocratic families was true, then Lillian was ruthless to a fault and was rumoured to kill everyone in her wake.
And Nicolai, the future leader of the De Luca family, was even more crazy than his mother. In fact, Ari was sure that he was the craziest man she had ever known.
If the rumours that Noah told his family about Nicolai were true.
Ari had a reason to believe that they were, in fact, true. Then Nicolai was the kind of person who would pummel someone on the ground until they were bloodied and bruised just because they looked at him in the wrong way.
Ari had never seen Nicolai after she got married, but she did see him one time when she was yet to marry Noah. It was when she was working in an old café near her home because there was a rush at the café that night, Ari got off her job really late.
It was then that she caught Nicolai beating someone to a pulp in a dark alley.
She was honest to God when she thought that Nicolai was going to pummel that man to death.
He did not kill that man though, because Ari caught him in the act.
However, Ari did not even get a chance to feel concerned about the man who was beaten up by Nicolai.
Because Nicolai looked at her with a maniacal expression the second she stopped in front of the alley and caught him holding the man by his collar and wearing the blood of the man.
She did not know whether that man was innocent or not but, Ari chose to believe the latter as she knew that no one who was entangled with the mafia could be a good person.
However, the majority of the reason was that she got an inherent need to get the f*ck away from that alley. And she did—— of course, after calling the police.
She had never gotten such an unnerving feeling, not even from Noah. And her ex-husband wasn't a good man—— Noah was even ruthless; however, Nicolai was on a different level.
Especially now that he had shed the baby fat that he had when he was still eighteen. With his tight-fitting shirt and black pants, his build stood out as if he were created from nothing but muscles and murderous intent from scratch.
If Ari ever got a chance, she wanted to ask Lilian what did she eat when she gave birth to this monster of a man.
In the past, Ari was fortunate because she had never crossed paths with Nicolai or anyone from the De Luca family much less interacted with them and Ari was happy to keep the existing state of affairs.
The problem however now was that Ari had smashed into Nicolai's car, and she doubted that she would be able to escape without saying anything to him.
'This will not be good,' Ari thought bitterly as she raised her head and looked at Nicolai. His red eyes flickered to her for a millisecond before he turned his gaze to his subordinate and asked,
"What's with the delay?" His voice was deep and rumbling as he questioned his subordinate.
The man with scars turned to look at Nicolai and then said gruffly, "This lady here ran into our car." He pointed at the rear bumper before adding, "She even smashed the rear end of our car, I was just trying to speak with her."
As soon as he finished speaking, Nicolai turned to look at Ari. His red eyes created a sort of whirlpool around the two of them, and Ari felt suffocated under his gaze.
Her senses were saturated in a rush of external stimuli, the gaze was so intense that her brain could not keep up with the sudden overload. Ari swallowed as her body started to quake before a scorching hot heat rushed to her head when she heard Nicolai question,
"So you were not trying to assassinate me? I did think that no one would be stupid enough to send such an unskilled and clumsy assassin to take me out."
"No, I did not. It was an accident," she explained and lowered her head due to humiliation, however, as soon as she dropped her gaze, she saw blood sticking to Nicolai's shoes.
He must be returning home after handling his 'family business.' Though he changed his clothes, Nicolai must have ignored his shoes or most likely he was not bothered to take care of them as he knew that no one would be able to trace the murder back to him.
Nausea flooded Ari's mouth before shooting straight to her brain.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip, snip, snip——
"Then tell me why you rear-bumped me just now?" The man questioned in a gruff tone. "Your life length will depend on your answer."
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