8 Chapter eight

To say that Alexis was surprised would be an understatement. Yes, she was late but cooking took time and she had to go out for grocery shopping as well, also, preparing fish isn't an easy job. She didn't know if he would understand this. The man looked like he had never stepped into the kitchen, so he probably couldn't even appreciate it. Weekends and holidays were meant for junk food and laying around, not for cooking fish, but here she was. She did her level best, but the man in front of her was just holding on to the fact that she was late after saying one sentence in her praise.

Alexis gulped, inhaled some air and thought of being honest with him. "I h–had to go for grocery shopping and making fish takes a lot of time . . ."

There, she gave him her reason for being late. It should've been enough for him, because it was the truth. Cooking is difficult for someone who wasn't up for it on a daily basis. But his expression remained unwavering. He had his poker face on, displaying none of the emotions he felt. One just couldn't tell whether he was angry or satisfied and Angelo was definitely not satisfied. She did fear him but this wasn't enough. He couldn't even let go of the fact that she was late because it meant that she didn't fear him enough to be on time. She had to come up to his standards of both the lives he was living. The one where he was a powerful business man and the other one where he ruled the underworld like a god.

She didn't need to know anything about him yet, so she shouldn't care about his lives with which he felt satisfied with but he was going to make sure that she feared him, but it won't be just fear, it would be respect too. He eyed her. He knew that she was telling the truth, her body language gave it away.

But being late and disrespectful in any way, meant making him feel upset and even though she didn't mean it still it only meant one thing.

Punishment.

Alexis watched how he pushed himself off the door frame that he was leaning on. He walked towards her and stopped, placing a gap of a few inches between them. She wanted to say something to him, but before anything could have happened, his hand shot up and smacked her across the face. The impact was too much for her and she lost her balance falling on the well-furnished floor of her kitchen.

She placed her hand on her throbbing cheek. She could feel the heat radiating off of her cheek. He slapped her but for what reason? Was it because she was late? Or the food wasn't made like that of a well-known chef. Angelo had made up his mind to teach her a nice lesson and for that he knew violence was the answer. A broken and already shattered girl who dealt with it once could deal with it again but then again, she wasn't dealing with some puny teenager of her age. She was dealing with a mafia boss.

Breathing in anger, he bent down on his knee and grabbed her hair in a death grip. Alexis screamed at the amount of pain she was facing. She was sure that if she resisted even a little bit, he would pull out a few of her strands. Angelo grabbed her jaw in a rough grip and harshly turned her head into his direction, the sudden movement caused her to scream in fear of the man.

She could tell that the man was visibly snarling. His eyes; they  held darkness, which was something she had already seen yet looking into his, she couldn't help but wonder that how much darkness were his eyes holding in them?

"Alexis, do you fear me at all?"

Alexis gaped at the man holding her by the hair and her jaw and yet he was asking her if she as scared?!

'Oh my god! I'm dealing with a psychopath. How can he ask me this question after giving me so much of pain?'

She didn't know how to react to the man in front of her. Yet, she knew that she shouldn't do anything to anger him. So she nodded. But it didn't please him. He squeezed her jaw so hard, it seemed he might be aiming to crack it into pieces. By now the pain that was being inflicted on her had brought tears in her eyes. Her hands were shaking desperately wanting to get away from the demon in front of her.

"Don't you have a fucking mouth? If you don't want to put it to use for speaking allow me, I'll gladly find other fucking use for it. Use it, woman!" He was seething his words in anger. He wasn't anywhere near being satisfied, yet he couldn't tell the feeling he was feeling. But he didn't care. She was supposed to be punished.

Alexis was frightened out of her wits so she said what came to her mind, "I am sorry, please— " her words came out muffled because he still hadn't let go of her jaw. It was throbbing in so much pain that she didn't know how she was being able to tolerate.

Angelo held her head back in the air and slammed it on the floor with a specified amount of force; he knew it would be sufficient to knock her out for hours. Alexis screamed in pain, but it was soon cut short as she had drifted off into darkness. She knew that she'd be out of it again and back into the world where she would have to face him.