Chapter 7-Concussion
1663 Words
Elora’s POV
My world is spinning. I can hardly breathe.
When my eyes open, I'm in the arms of someone. “s**t, he's here.” The person says, and I recognize the voice to be Moses’s.
“Who?!” His companion hisses. We're outside, I think. I know from the cold and the glimpses of the tarred ground when I open my eyes.
“Salvatore Alejandro.”
The way Moses says the name is with a certain hint of fear.
Salvatore.
My head is spinning again. I'm quickly losing consciousness. I think I'm bleeding from my scalp where they hit me.
“Put her down, boy.” The voice is familiar.
“And who are you to f*****g tell me what to do?” Moses sounds a little shaky. I hear the click of a gun.
“You know very well who I am. Even your empty-headed boss knows me. Now put the lady down and get lost.”
It's a threat.
Sounds are becoming muffled to me. I feel like I should sleep.
“You mother fucker!”
Bang!
The sound jolts me from the oblivion that's calling my name and I cry aloud. Moses shakes. “Carlos! Carlos!!”
“Put her down, or I'll finish him off.”
The next second, Moses flings me to the ground with force. I want to protect my head, but I can barely move my arms. The sash of my robe comes undone, and I feel the night's cold on the bare skin of my stomach and part of my chest.
I moan weakly, but there's no strength in my arm to continue. I can't breathe.
I hear a few grunts and struggles, a curse in Spanish and then two shots.
“Bastards.”
Someone comes over me as my mind begins to slip away. Their hands are cold as ice, and they smell of blood and cedar. The person lifts me from the ground, covering my nakedness with a robe.
As I finally lost my senses, I heard Salvatore say, “Couldn't stay put, could you, Señora.”
***
When I open my eyes, I'm back in my husband's room. I groan and try to move; my head is hurting badly.
I hear a tray.
“You're awake, Elora.” It's Damien. He comes into my field of vision with a bowl of soup. There's a stern look on his face.
“Get up and have this,” he says curtly, dropping the tray on the bedside table. I rub my eyes, noticing he's dressed. The sun is rising outside.
Huh.
I opened my mouth to thank him for the soup, but he beat me to speaking. “Who the f**k told you to leave the room, huh? You knew there was a shooting, you could have stayed put!”
My head is banging, so the loudness of his words puts me off. I grab my ears.
“I-I…”
“You what? Those men would have taken you, used you as leverage. And you know the funny thing?” My husband adjusts his tie. I looked up at him, seeing the scowl on his chiseled face.
“I wouldn't have even bothered. They'd have killed you once you showed no importance.”
Of course, I knew that, but hearing it now— very much in pain and still winded from the encounter— makes me ache.
“But… Cassandra…”
He doesn't hear me; flying out the door almost as soon as he's done talking.
I'm left to my own devices, watching the morning sun come up lazily.
For the rest of the day, the house was quiet. I don't bother moving until evening, when I hear a ruckus outside. For a moment, I was scared, horrified that it was another attack.
But I heard some maids outside the door saying something about Damien's anger. He was back. I get up from bed and pull on some comfortable clothes before leaving.
The halls are clean— the trail of Cassandra's blood is gone. I walk slowly so I don't fall from my headache. Downstairs, the entire family is gathered and Damien is throwing a fit.
“I will kill them all! They'll die!” he shouts, shattering some glass ballet figurines.
“How dare they?!”
“How did they get into our manor?!”
I paused at the landing because I didn't want to add to his anger. If he saw me, he'd be angry for a fact and would probably throw the glass shards at my face.
“Calm down, Damien,” a smooth voice says. Like a hungry fool, my eyes searched the room before landing on a handsome, pale and sexy man. Salvatore.
He's not in a suit for the first time; wearing only a tee and some PJs. There's a bandage around his arm.
I remember last night when he defended me…
He got hurt?
“There's no need to shout. It won't help matters. Tomorrow, we will pay the dogs a friendly visit. That would put them in their place.”
Damien is still fuming but has no other way to counter this logic. I clear my throat a little — which is quite the noise in the quiet living room. Some eyes turned to me. Among whom is Damien.
Like I predicted, he's not happy.
“What are you doing here? What is she doing here?”
Desperate for something to rant about, he took me as a victim. He storms up to me and grabs my arm.
“This stupid wife of mine couldn't stay put last night! She was taken. If she had been pregnant, our family would have had no choice but to risk everything to save her. You have been a lucky girl. Real lucky!”
I shook my head. “That's not…”
Smash!
A hard hand collides with my face. “Are you challenging me girl?!”
I'm trying my best not to sob. Everyone in the living room is quiet— they don't care. I raised my head to meet the eyes of Salvatore. He's looking at me with no emotion. As usual.
But behind his eyes, he's challenging me to speak up.
I can see it in the way he subtly raises his eyebrows.
I was to be obedient no matter the torture. However, what use would it be if Damien did not respect me even a little bit? I immediately got up from the ground where I had fallen and shouted back at him.
“I didn't do it on purpose! You think I wanted to risk my life? I am not insane… I am not! Cassandra was shot! I had come out to protect her!”
The room is still. For the first time, everyone starts to look around for her.
Even Damien pauses to look around. “Cassandra? Where is she? Did they take her as well?!”
I moved away from Damien's, realizing I had not registered what had happened to her afterward. Damien's mother runs upstairs; “guards! Guards!”
I tell Damien what has happened, and his face turns from rage to confusion to a relative mix of stupidity and gratitude. I didn't give him the chance to speak, running back upstairs.
They check the servant's passageway and find her passed out. Immediately, an ambulance is called and the majority of the family members follow, including Damien.
I walked alone to my room, hoping to get some rest immediately.
However, I stop in my tracks.
“The quiet Elora finally made some noise,” he laughs.
It's Salvatore.
I turned around to face him. Embarrassment floods me immediately when I remember the passion for Damien and how I had used him to get through it.
The man nears me; I don't move away. “You don't need to be shy,” he says, and I assume it's because I'm red from shame.
My eyes fell from his intense gaze to the wound on his arm. Unconsciously, I reached out to them. “I'm so…sorry. I was stupid. I shouldn't have been caught.”
Salvatore grabs the arm I'm using to touch him. My body stills.
The halls are extremely quiet. There's almost no one at home.
“You shouldn't apologize. You saved Cassie’s life. That wasn't stupid.”
I looked at my feet. I didn't save Cassie's life; in fact, I had forgotten she existed up until the moment I had to defend myself to Damien.
“T-thank you, señor” I say, whispering. The man came closer, so I could smell the fresh scent of cedar on him. He takes my chin and lifts it up. Those eyes are cold as usual; looking as though he knew something I didn't.
“Salvatore. I want to hear you say it.”
I'm painfully aware of how close he is to me. I can feel his breath mingling with mine, feel the heat emitting from his skin.
Shit. This is wrong.
“This…what are we doing, Salvatore?”
His eyes dilate when I say his name. It's like he barely heard me ask a question. He leans down, traces my collar bone with a slender finger.
My knees are shaking— I'm forgetting I almost had a concussion.
There's no one at home.
We're alone.
Go on, do what you want…
“You want this, don't you, perfect little wife?” He asks, lips grazing my cheek. My lower belly is tightening.
Even though the family is not home, maids still are. But my body is not letting me think straight.
I tightened my thighs. “My… I'm married— to your stepbrother.”
“Are you now?” Those lips graze over my ear and his tongue teases for just a second.
Fuck it.
Like a crazed woman, I let out a sigh and grabbed his neck.
Our lips crash in a hot, sweltering kiss.
I'm horny for my husband's stepbrother!
- Writer
