The Games
1494 Words
Bruised Ink
The first hints of dawn were just touching the horizon when Zee finally crept back toward the family estate. It was 4:30 AM. The grand iron gates loomed ahead like silent judges as she limped up the long driveway from where Britney had dropped her off, her Peach ball gown now dirty and torn from the knee to the hem.
She had done it on purpose.
Before leaving the lighthouse, she had asked Britney to deliberately smash a baseball bat hard across her left knee cap. The pain was sharp and authentic — exactly what she needed. Blood had soaked through the Peach silk, creating a convincing story.
An accident.
This isn’t the first time she has done this.
She remembered many times when she was growing up, how she had, had to save herself from Luca and Matteo, her dumbass brothers.
They always made her end up in that terrifying basement that she had to start doing things dirty.
She remembered how she had killed Luca’s cat, Pen, and staged it like he had fallen from the rooftop because he thought he could always be mean to her and walk freely. She also poisoned all of Julie’s Rottweilers.
Julie always made them chase her around the yard when dad was away at work. Everyone traumatized her except older brother, Greg.
Greg had allowed her into the Undergrounds. She was just twelve, and he had always left her in the dressing room with Denise, who sings at the bar in the Undergrounds. It was a transactional relationship anyway, but it made her happy. He fought the bare-knuckle bouts at the Undergrounds so he had to always lie to Dad and his mum that he was taking her out to play. He was their champion.
Dad later found out about Greg, years later, so he had to leave home. She misses him so much.
She pushed open the side entrance, hoping to slip upstairs unnoticed, quietly turning the handle, when it suddenly swung open from the inside.
She froze.
Ryan Rossi stood there, tall and imposing in his black coat, looking as though he hadn’t slept either. His dark eyes locked onto her immediately — taking in the torn ball gown, the dried blood on her leg, and her disheveled appearance. He saw her before her father even reached the foyer.
Zee’s heart slammed against her ribs. She hadn’t expected anyone to still be waiting at this hour, least of all “him”.
“You…” she breathed, surprise flashing across her face.
Ryan’s lips curved into a slow, knowing smirk. Those shoes, that gown…. He had seen her yesterday— slipping out the back alley behind the upscale mall where the final fitting had taken place.
Ryan had been in his car yesterday in the passenger seat waiting to retrieve a package at his usual spot when he had noticed someone from a distance skillfully taking a window to escape the mall’s building.
Dressed in that extravagant gown, she had landed hard on her heel after jumping from a low wall.
He didn’t know who it was, but he had been worried about her that they would have broken up, but they didn’t. Then, when she had started running towards a waiting black Range Rover like a thief in the night, she had raised the long gown so he had noticed the shoes. They were Louboutin.
Agile. Defiant. “Cat woman”, he had thought with dark amusement at the time.
“So it was her.” he thought. Of course, he knows her.
Five years ago on the rooftop. The first woman to slap him that hard …..
That night, his contract had taken a bad turn, so he had found a place during the party, to be alone. He had been smoking, minding his own business, when she appeared like a vision in black silk.
When she stepped onto the rooftop in that simple black silk robe, the moonlight outlining every curve of her body, something in him had shifted. She looked stunning. Delicate yet dangerous. The robe clung to her figure in the cool breeze, and when she turned those sharp, defiant eyes on him, it was like a spark to dry tinder.
Her flushed face was breathtaking. Full lips slightly parted. Eyes that challenged him instead of shrinking away.
He had been drinking that night. Not heavily, but enough to feel the buzz. Enough that he told himself to restrain — he wanted to play the part of the controlled, calculating don.
But then she changed.
Her posture shifted. Her eyes turned dark and seductive, pulling him in with a look that promised both heaven and hell. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. That single, bold gaze had undone his restraint completely.
He had kissed her.
Hard. Hungry. Claiming.
For those few seconds, she had kissed him back. Her lips were soft but demanding, her body pressing against his with surprising boldness.
Then came the slap.
The sharp c***k of her palm against his cheek still echoed in his memory. The sound cracked through the quiet night. His head turned slightly with the force of it. No woman had ever dared strike him before. The sting had shocked him — and infuriated him.
She had played him, made him lose control, and then slapped him like he was beneath her. The first and only woman to ever do so.
He was so pissed that he had her investigated the next day. He hated her guts, but he took the file, looked at it, and kept it away in his safe. He doesn’t chase. Going after her would give her that feeling, and he didn’t want to lose face twice. He despises any entanglement or attachments with women.
His mum had died when he was little, leaving five of them behind. And since then, he had to keep up with his dad’s second wife. She’s so timid and it made him sick.
So he had actually let, chasing after Zee, go, till his dad had mentioned a marriage alliance with the Hilton’s, at dinner last week.
“Ryan, we would be having a marriage alliance with the Hilton’s. It’s their only daughter, Miss Zee. Hank Hilton had said a family alliance would easily allow our acquisition of the $500milion Nexus town project. I’m telling you so that you can talk to your brother, Jan. He’s the youngest, he should do it”. His dad had said that morning
“I’ll do it,” Ryan quickly replied. “Let’s leave Jan. He’s busy with the Tear drop necklace project, right?”
He had recognized her name….
“What a cute coincidence. Worth all the wait," he chuckled, caring less about his parents’ questioning eyes.
He wasn’t angry in the usual sense. He was intrigued. Fascinated.
And now here she was again — injured, caught, and trying to sneak back in.
Before Zee could say another word, her father’s heavy footsteps echoed behind Ryan.
“Mr Rossi,” Hank said, surprised but quickly masking it with authority. “I thought you said you couldn’t wait any longer. He continued. I really wanted you both to officially meet today, but I don’t know what’s wrong with Zee that she would…
He stepped aside slightly, allowing Hank to fully see her injured state. Zee kept her expression pained and remorseful, though her pulse raced under Ryan’s intense gaze.
Hank's face darkened with fury, but Ryan raised a hand calmly.
“I’ll return another time for the official introduction,” Ryan said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Your daughter appears to have had… quite the situation tonight. She should rest.”
He glanced at Zee one last time, that knowing smirk deepening as if they shared a private secret. Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked toward his sleek black SUV car parked in the driveway.
“Game on, Zee Hilton”
As Ryan’s car disappeared down the long driveway, Hank turned on her with barely contained rage.
Zee! he growled. Where have you been? How dare you run…
“I was in an accident, Papa”. Zee cuts in. My phone wasn’t around me at the hospital. You could ask Britney.
Mr Hilton freezes
How did you get into an accident and no one heard about it? Did the entire press die?” Mr Hilton began questioning her.
Zee remained silent and moved past her father into the house. She placed her feet a step at a time, wincing.
Her stepmother, Jolie Hilton, stood at the top of the staircase in her robe, her face a mask of barely contained fury. Two of her father’s men hovered nearby.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jolie roared, descending the stairs. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Her gaze dropped to her bloody leg and ruined gown.
- Writer
