chiara
Alessandro drove for fifteen minutes on the back roads. Rain beat down hard on the windshield, and I tried so desperately to stop the blood from gushing out of my bullet wound. But the pain was quickly spreading through my leg, making it worse. He looked in the rearview mirror to make sure we weren’t being followed, then pulled into the old, abandoned junkyard.
He drove by a woman sitting in a running car and held his hand up to say hello, and then he parked this car toward the back. I stared through the window at the woman, my brows furrowed. As he parked, I took off my shirt and tied it around my wound so I wouldn’t bleed to death.
After Alessandro got out of the car, he opened my door and raised a brow at me being almost naked. “If you want me to fuck you, reginetta, all you have to do is ask.”
I tried to move around to face him, but the pain shot up my leg again.
“Fuck,” I cursed, taking deep breaths through my nose.
Calm yourself, Chiara. It doesn’t hurt that bad.
I used all my strength to pull myself out of the car and land on my one good leg. Then, I tried hard to hobble out of the car to the woman’s SUV—because I guessed we were just trusting random people to pick us up now.
But when I placed my foot on the ground, I almost collapsed.
Alessandro crossed his arms over his chest, the rain hitting him right on his perfect fucking face. “Does the princess need help?”
I tried not to let him get under my skin and stared over at him. “Don’t push it,” I said through clenched teeth. His smirk widened, and he stepped back, about to make another snarky remark that I didn’t want to deal with so I said, “Please.”
I hated how desperate I sounded. I hated the smug look on his face when the word tumbled out of my mouth. I hated how I felt when he leaned down and picked me right up into the air with his chest so close to mine, his hands touching my skin.
He placed me into the backseat of the woman’s car, and I rested my leg on the seat next to me. The blonde woman hummed from the front seat, a big smile stretched across her face as she looked back and forth between us. Her makeup was done, hair pulled back into a high ponytail. I pressed my red-colored lips together and tried to forget the stupid smile she had given Alessandro when he got into the passenger seat.
Who was she? And why the hell was she picking us up again?
“Bring us to my place,” Alessandro said.
“I am not going to your place.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I want to go home.” So I could meet Ray and get my wound patched up. It was hurting like fucking hell, and Alessandro wanted to take me back to his place?
He reached back, placed his hand on my calf, and squeezed. Just as I had done with his wound a few days ago. I winced, pain shooting up my leg, and cried out.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked.
I punched him hard in the arm. What was wrong with him? All I ever wanted was to go out on jobs for Dad and help the family, and all everyone wanted was for me to shut up and look pretty, pretend I wasn’t hurting on the inside.
The blonde didn’t say a word to me the entire time she drove us to his house. Instead, she looked back at me a few times, her gaze lingering longer than I would’ve liked. I rested my head back against the window, trying hard not to cry from the pain. If I had gone by myself, if Alessandro hadn’t come, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Every moment, I was stuck in this god-awful car with this woman, whose perfume actually smelled good but was caked on too much, my vision blurred more and more. I could barely feel my calf, even with the immense pain. I tried hard to focus on the rain running down the car window and found my eyes closing softly.
“Reginetta, keep your eyes open,” he said.
I fluttered my eyes and groaned. I felt like I was going in and out of consciousness, not really thinking straight. I took a deep breath and rested my head back against the window. Words started tumbling out of my mouth, words I could barely hear or comprehend myself.
“The only place you can order me around, asshole, is in bed,” I said. And then I passed out.
* * *
I woke up hours later, being carried into an apartment that I hadn’t been to before. The woman hurried into one of the hallways to search for something. I didn’t know how much blood I’d lost, but I could see Alessandro’s perfect fucking face as his brows furrowed, and there was some tension in it.
His gray eyes were searching the apartment, and I brushed my fingers against his jaw. Something about him was so … so different. I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was my severe lack of blood making me think this man was attractive.
But his skin felt good under my fingers, and I inhaled his scent and rested my head on his shoulder, trying hard to keep my eyes open. When he looked down at me, he muttered something in Italian that I didn’t understand and finally set me on the couch, propping my leg up on the white suede.
“B-but … it’s going to get it bloody,” I said, barely able to tilt my head up from my lying position to watch all my blood drip out. It was too difficult to even move at this point.
I tried to push myself up, but he pushed me back down.
“No,” he said.
The woman came back over with some medical supplies, and I assumed she wasn’t Alessandro’s secret lover but a medic he had kept secret from the family. We had a doctor who could treat us—Ray—but … I guessed Alessandro needed his own. For whatever reason.
She spoke in Italian to Alessandro, and I sat there, trying to decipher what she was saying. I stared up at him, watching his neutral expression as he nodded and stared down at my wound.
“The bullet went into your calf muscle. No major arteries were hit. You’re being dramatic, reginetta.” He looked down at me with the smallest smirk on his face.
And I had the urge to hit him for calling me dramatic, but instead, I let out a low, guttural belly laugh. I clutched my stomach, the pain only making me hurt worse, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe it was how this whole thing was unbelievable … or that while I had been shot, now bleeding profusely and totally shirtless … I felt better than I had felt in a long time.
Alessandro’s lips curled into a genuine smile, and my heart warmed at the mere sight.