Mafia King's Fatal Lover

Chapter13 Moonlight

Elektra went upstairs with her luggage.

Not too much stuff, just a few clothes and books.

The broken necklace was put in a small faded carton. Abel glanced at it with frowned brows.

“The upstairs is my old abode. No one will come up.”

His gaze fell back on the documents on the table and added indifferently, “The right room at the end of the corridor is yours.”

His signature cold hard voice again.

He buried his head immediately after the utterance, and did not give her any more glance.

He seemed to have no intention of taking her here.

Elektra did not care. She was about to go, but was called by the man behind.

Pattering sound came from friction of gloves on the walnut tabletop.

Abel knocked with his knuckles on the front of the table, “Leave your necklace here.”

Elektra was stupefied first. Then she moved two steps backward immediately.

Abel’s facial expression became darker. He raise his head and said, “I'll get a guy to mend it for you."

"I'll find him myself."

Abel grinned at her “self-reliance" behavior.

He didn't get angry, but looked at her and asked, "I can find the best jewelry shop in New York. How about you?"

Elektra did not speak, only stood still.

The patience was exhausted finally. Abel did not want to ask any more questions, but got up and walked over to her. He took the faded cardboard box, then pushed Elektra away and closed the door behind her.

*

Elektra carried things back to her room.

Out of the window, there was a bright moon in the sky. She did not turn on the lights, but threw her things down the floor, and collapsed in the bed immediately.

She was exhausted in the 1 vs 6 scuffle just now. She didn't fall down just because she was holding on.

Now that the adrenaline had subsided, the pain crawled up all over her body like numerous ants. It was so dense that even a few steps to the bedside seemed to have drained all of her strength.

Elektra allowed herself in a trance for a while. She then turned over, and saw a few bottles of traumeel ointment on the bedside table.

Did Vito put them there?

But Abel said that no one will come up here.

Confused, and hurt with injuries, Elektra was too lazy to think. She picked up the bottle, and went to the bathroom.

When she came out of the shower, her cell phone was flashing. Elektra went over to unlock it. There were more than a dozen missed calls coming from Miss Evans.

“Hey,” there came the voice of bossy Wendy, “Where did you put my half-used lipstick?”

The hand that was wiping the hair stopped. Elektra was in a daze for a while. She could not remember how Miss Evans could have a half-used lipstick.

She thought hard for a moment and said casually, “Check the dresser on the left of your closet, the third one in the pantry.”

There came a seemingly rummaging at the other end. “Found it.”

After responding, Wendy changed the topic and began to talk about her own affairs. “You were with Abel Hill recently. Did you ever seen Donny?”

Elektra was speechless. Only with a perfunctory voice she said, “I’m not with Abel Hill.”

“Ok, you are not with him. But you follow him, right?” Wendy asked again, “Or what does he borrow you for? A kept concubine he has?"

"Why are you asking Donny?" Said Elektra, choking and changing the subject

"Oh..." the voice on the other side was a little floating. "Nothing in particular. There was a time that I could not locate him, so I just asked you to see… whatever…”

"You're not planning on something, ain’t ya?”

"No," Wendy interrupted. "I just don't like the way I am unable to get it when I want something."

There was a ringing of the doorbell on the other end of the phone.

Elektra frowned and looked at the time on the screen: it was so late. Who’d go to Wendy at this hour?

It can not be Mark Evans.

"Who is it?" Elektra asked.

Wendy paused. She was probably looking at the security footage.

“It's Vincent." said she.

Vincent?

Elektra did not expect that it could be him.

Before she asked what he was going to do, there came Wendy’d disgruntled voice, “What took you so long to bring some night snacks? I’m starving to death."

Wendy hung up the phone, leaving no time for Elektra to respond.

There was a busy tone coming from the receiver...

The room was quiet again. The half-drawn curtains was swirling. The wind was whistling.

Elektra had just taken a bath and was still steaming with heat. Strands of her hair clung to the side of her neck, dripping wet.

Perhaps because of her identity, she's used to being discreet about what she isn’t sure.

Elektra was perturbed and not in the mood to dry her hair. She turned to fetch the cigarette on the table.

The lighter seemed to have been used up. Elektra became even more fretful after she had tried it a few times. She threw the lighter away, went out to find the fire barefooted.

The corridor was sparsely lit, leaving arcs of light on the wall every few meters, like a train going nowhere.

Elektra was walking around aimlessly. When passing by a small corridor, she stopped and saw a half-opened door.

She went over there and pushed it open.

The sudden darkness halted her steps. The moon was shining through the large French window opposite. Some shadows were beginning to appear.

It seemed like a storeroom. All the tall and short furnitures were covered with a layer of white cloth, like ghosts standing up there.

Elektra walked over. She randomly pulled down a piece of cloth. She was chocked to cough up by the sudden dust.

It was a small walnut bookcase. Every shelf was filled to the brim.

Elektra took out a book. After dusting off the dirt, she found that it was actually a piano sheet.

She was a bit taken aback. She began to examine the score on the bookcase.

From Baroque genres to neoclassicism: Bach and Handel to Sergei Rachmaninoff and Debussy, almost every representative work of those masters’ can be found here.

Obviously, these were a collection of Abel’s.

But Elektra never knew that he had collected so many piano sheets.

She indulged herself in a trance and put the sheet back. Bypassing the mess in front, Elektra went towards the window.

The evening breeze carried the moonlight, like a pair of invisible hands gently drew the plain white gauze curtain. A black grand piano came into view behind it.

Elektra tore off the white cloth and saw a golden word“To Roche” on the music stand.

Roche？

She frowned as her fingers were fondling the piano.

Elektra could not remember if ever there was a manufacturer which named a piano “Roche”.

“Have a problem with sleeping?”

A husky male voice came from behind. Her hands on the keys trembled a bit and made a loud noise.

Elektra saw a tall figure standing by the door.

He stood upright, and the dim yellow lights in the corridor made a halo on the top of his head. Abel always seemed to look so serious.

Elektra suddenly remembered that she was barefooted and wearing loose pajamas.

She leaned uneasily toward the piano and curled up one foot behind the other. Unconsciously, Elektra tightened her collar.

It was too dark to see Abel’s face in the room. As always he was a man of few words.

Elektra had to answer him with a whispery “yeah”. She held up the cigarette in her hand and waved it: “I came out to look for fire...”

Abel walked straight to her. As the fir like breath drew near and surrounded her in all directions, Elektra subconsciously took another step backward.

“Plonk...”

She slipped and sat down on the piano suddenly.

A heavy, disjointed sound drifted away, like a sea breeze carrying black clouds around here.

Abel was indeed so tall.

Elektra looked up, only to see his smooth collarbone and the clear-cut Adam's apple near the collar.

The heartbeat suddenly became somewhat irregular now. Her hand that was holding the piano tightened slightly with fingertips suffused with pinky color.

But Abel on the opposite did not seem to have the intention to blame her. After sensing the inappropriate distance, he retreated a little.

Her body was tight and stiff. Elektra suddenly felt there was a toss from her hand. Her cigarette had been in Abel’s hand in the blink of an eye.

The white cigarette was slender and elegant in his hand, with a faint peppermint scent mixed with tobacco leaves. It smelled somewhat lonely.

Abel's expression was flat. He looked away from the cigarette and then looked down at her, a little bit cool and aloof.

“No smoking in my room.”

He didn’t wait for Elektra’s explanation, but smashed it to smithereens.

“...” Elektra didn’t plan to smoke in the room. Having been misunderstood by him, she was at a loss. She opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say.

Abel flicked off the tobacco on his gloves, turned around and went back.

He lifted the white cloth covering the sofa and sat down. Then he looked up at Elektra and asked, “Didn't you say you couldn't sleep?”

"Huh?"

Elektra followed him sideways. She didn't quite understand what he wanted to do next.

Abel didn't explain, but lifted his chin to point to the piano behind her and said, “Play.”

Elektra got puzzled.

She didn't even mention it to Mylan. So how could Abel know?

The nerves, which had been eased a moment earlier, were strained again.

“Your hand.”

In her bewilderment, Elektra heard Abel’s deep voice, “Your finger extensor tendons are more obvious than that of the ordinary people.”

Elektra lowered her head and saw that the meridian on the back of her hand was still obvious in a relaxed state.

Now the penny dropped.

That was why in their first meeting Abel asked her if there was apart from fighting any other long-term hobby of hers. She told a lie, that’s how Abel began to suspect her.

“I thought it was not so important as to be worth mentioning, so…”

Abel did not listen to her explanation. He lifted his chin and ordered, “Play."

A voice commanding and arbitrary.

Elektra had to sit down and lifted the cover.

The moonlight was faint and surreal, like water and smoke, enveloping ebony and ivory with a thin veil.

Elektra put her bare feet on the pedals. A piece of Debussy's “Moonlight" was humming along with the touch of her fingertips.

Her straight back, her long and wet hair curving on the slender neck. The droplets were dripping with moonlight, flowing down the cinnabar mole on her neck that hid deep in the folds of her collar.

Fingers were light and rapid, more like a caress and a tease than a stroke.

Abel felt a spark in his throat. A strange heat was on in the chest.

The night breeze stirred the white gauze curtain in the room, and blew the moonlight out of proportion from the piano. The emotion of the music gradually surged and became a whirlpool.

He saw Elektra close her eyes imperceptibly, and she leaned her head backward.

Her brows furrowed slightly, as though in both pain and joy. Her rich, pale lips opened and closed. She was humming along to the music.

His brain clanged.

As if the scattered flame meets the wind, then burns ungovernably at once.

He suddenly thought of her shadow on the steam diffused bathroom glass, when he glimpsed from the outside inadvertently that night.

She could be so fragile and charming when she had the euphoria of o****m.

Abel suddenly wanted to touch her neck again, like the first time he touched it, delicate and warm. He could feel the vibrant pulsation inside even through the gloves.

A desire that had been dormant seemed to lift up its head. It gave him a direct and frank answer with a vague and swelling pain somewhere in his body.

The sound of the piano stopped suddenly.

It was until he found himself very close by Electra that he came back from his trance.

Her hand was being held tightly in his palm.