Chapter 4 Why are you helping me?
1683 Words
-Vivian-
"Okay, your dad said you can dance? You teach yoga classes, so you are also flexible?" asks Riccardo. I nod and Riccardo keeps looking at me.
"Uh yes," I answer and he grins.
"Good. You can go to my brother Christiano. He has a club. It's a strip club, just look what you're comfortable with." He informs me and I look at him with wide eyes.
"It would make you a little more confident." He explains and Stefano laughs.
“You need it.” Riccardo smiles.
"Otherwise you can also do cleaning, or here in the office." He mentions the alternatives.
"No dancing is good. I can do that." I answer, but I also hear in my voice that I am not convinced of what I am saying.
"Stefano brings your stuff to your new apartment here in the city." He continues then and from a bunch of keys he gets a key and hands it to me and I see Stefano looking up in surprise and then a smirk forms.
"The building is in the center of the city, fifteen minutes from the club. You will be picked up every day and brought home. You can order groceries and they are put in your fridge. Stefano is your bodyguard. Wherever you go, he is too." He continues and it is clear to hear in his voice that there is no room for anything else.
Or to contradict him.
"When Stefano says it's not safe, you listen to him. He is there for your safety. Stefano, in turn, does not come into your bedroom and not into your bathroom. What happens in the club you discuss with Chris." he sighs.
I have no idea who Chris is and why what happens in the club? What if I want to leave, should I call Stefano?
My head is about to explode because of all the information.
"I will call him and say that you will visit him this afternoon. Stefano, you make sure she is there on time." He tells us and Stefano nods.
Oh, it’s okay if he nods, but I can’t?
Then Riccardo slides a phone over the table.
"Here, this one is for you. You give the other one to Stefano, who destroys your old phone. It's dangerous to still have it with you." He informs me and I swallow
"And my friends?" I ask and see Riccardo shake his head as he flips through some documents, without making eye contact with me.
"For now, no one is allowed to know where you are." He answers and when I sigh he looks up
"Listen, Vivian, if I know where Senna lives and that her favorite color is the same as yours and that you were partying together in the club last week, then the people who want to hurt your father know that too. Through your friends, they come to you and so to your father." He explains his voice sternly and I swallow and feel tears sting in my eyes.
"How badly my father got himself into trouble," I ask softly and Riccardo doesn't look at me anymore, he looks again at the documents in front of him on the table.
"Very bad." He answers and he sighs.
"I will keep you informed of his trial and I will let you know when you can visit him," he murmurs.
And we are startled by my phone.
I grab it and see it’s the yoga studio.
“Who is it?” Riccardo asks.
“It’s my, boss, my former boss I think. I quit yesterday, but he wasn’t in, so I left a message.” I explain quickly.
“I was going to go with him tomorrow to a yoga retreat.” I sigh.
Stefano grabs the phone and put it on speaker and he nods to me.
“Viv? Viv, are you okay?” I hear Bobby.
“Hey, Bobby yes I’m fine.”
“You quit, why? If you needed help I could have helped you.” He starts.
“I know, Bobby, I know. But you did already so much and I couldn’t stay.” I tell him honestly.
“I saw they took your dad. Are you safe? You know I would keep you safe. I would not let anything happen to you.” He goes on.
I like Bobby, my crush.
Stefano shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, I’ve to go. Thank you, Bobby. For everything and I will pay you back.” I promise him.
He sighs.
“It’s okay Vivian, You could always come to me. It’s fine.” He answers and Stefano ends the call.
“Bobby the owner of the yoga studio?” Riccardo asks me and I nod.
“Yes, Mr. Olson gave me my first job when I was fifteen, paid for my education, for my bachelor, it was my home away from home,” I explain.
Riccardo’s expression is hard.
He looks like he's about to murder someone.
“Okay. You should leave.” He tells me.
But I’m so full of unanswered questions.
"Why are you helping me?" I ask and again Riccardo looks up but not at me, but at Stefano.
"We're done here, I need to call Chris." He talks to Stefano and picks up the phone.
Stefano gets up and he grabs my arm.
Not hard, but hard enough to make it clear that we have to go.
“Why are you not answering my question?” I ask him and Stefano lets my arm go and stops.
Riccardo looks up.
“Good Luck,” Stefano whispers and he leaves me with Riccardo.
He gets up and rounds his desk and stands before me.
I have to look up to look into his eyes.
He stares at me and I swallow.
“You don’t know me.” My voice is barely audible.
He smirks and he grabs my chin again, soft with his thumb and finger, so I have to look at him.
“I don’t. What do you want me to say, Vivian, that I helped because you’re sweet? Or caring? I don’t know that. I helped because I hate it when innocent girls get in the middle of sh*t.” He tells me.
“Why the club?” I ask him.
“Because you’re beautiful, men would want to pay to see you strip.” His eyes go over my body again.
“and you could use the confidence.” He lets my chin go.
“I’m confident,” I tell him, but even I hear that I’m not.
Not against him.
He smiles and shakes his head.
“I know it’s in there.” He steps closer and I step back.
“Confidence, huh?” he grins and I’m back against the wall.
He leans in, towards my ear.
“I see you, Vivian, I see every beautiful inch of you, and the things I want to do to you, the things I want to tell you, how I want to touch you…" My body heats at his words, my n*****s tighten, God I didn't know someone could have this effect on me.
"I see you want me to, Vivian, I see you want to hear me, to listen to all the things I want to do to you. I know you want to feel me, but you can’t handle it. Yet.”
He sighs and steps away.
“Now you should leave.” He tells me and he steps away to open the door of his office.
My body in total heat, my cheeks flushed, my throat dry.
"Are you coming?" Stefano asks. The door closes behind me. Leaving me confused in the hallway.
"shouldn't I still thank him? I didn’t do that, I forgot." I ask and Stefano shakes his head.
“You get your chance in thanking him.” He laughs.
And somehow, that comment does not set me at ease.
Did he say he wants me and that he saw I want him too? God, I do. Do I?
In silence, we go down and in the garage, I see that Andrew has already turned the car around.
Stefano holds the rear door open for me and I sit down in the car. Stefano also steps in, again next to Andrew.
"We're going to the club," Stefano tells Andrew, and he nods.
"So you're going to dance?" Andrew asks and I look out the window.
"Yes apparently." I nod,
"Are you sure you want to do that, if you'd rather do something else, you can just say so." He tells me and I smile kindly at the man. "Thank you, but I can dance and I can also take off my clothes," I smile and Andrew and Stefano laugh.
"I believe that working in the club and taking off your clothes is different from changing clothes to taking a shower," Stefano comments.
"It's an art," Andrew states.
"What the girls do there is seduce and how they do it, is beautiful." He tells me and I swallow.
I don't know if I can do all that.
"Everything can be learned, right?" I laugh a bit uncertainly.
" That's the attitude." Stefano laughs and on the way, Stefano tells me more about himself, since he is assigned to me and it is too dangerous for me at the moment to go down the street myself. I am stuck with him for the time being.
Not that that's a problem, he. He is also an attractive man, but not as attractive as Riccardo.
He looked really good. Like hot...
I shake my head when I think of him again.
Come on Viv, he is probably old and I am only nineteen, he is not waiting for such a girl as me and, on the other hand, the women will throw themselves at him.
He is probably just like the popular guys at school, a flavor of the week kind of man, or he is already married.
Sh*t, I can't even call Senna now to talk to her about it.
- Writer
