6. Valeria
6
Valeria
Tommy doesn’t help me carry anything inside, but he’s happy to make sure I don’t claim one of the rooms that is empty. He insists on keeping me close where he can keep his eyes on me at all times. Unfortunately, it’s in my old room.
His room, I guess.
“Can I have a few hangers, at least? I don’t want to hear you complaining about a pile collecting in the corner.” Dropping everything in my arms onto the bed, I hope the smell of blood that’s radiating in this room doesn’t seep into the fabric of my clothes.
What is that smell, anyway?
I don’t think I actually want to know. Not too fond of the smell.
Tommy motions to his closet, his position against the wall remaining unchanged. Looking like he doesn’t want to lift a finger and help at all, he goes far as to smirk when I huff under my breath.
“I’m not going to make this easy for you. You want something, you can get it.” He crosses his arms over his chest and goes as far as smirking at me. “You’re no longer in a position to get things handed to you.”
I want to hit him. Just one good punch. Even if his face is hard and I break my hand, I don’t care. It’ll be so worth it.
“ Thanks .” Forcing out the word, I stride toward the closet and yank open the doors.
The smell of blood? Yeah, it’s right in here. He’s got dirty clothes thrown on the floor, crusted over with a layer of dark crimson.
My grip on the handle grows tight as I’m hit with the smell head-on. As the scent of iron floods my senses, my heart skips. The smell makes my head spin and my stomach tighten. The food I’d just eaten threatens to come back up.
The stench of death at its source.
Fear wraps itself like fingers in a tight grip around my lungs. Fingers covered in thick-band rings with mismatching jewels. For a few seconds, I forget how to breathe, and those cruel fingers might as well be around my throat, too, suffocating me.
“It’s just a little blood, Valeria.”
Like Elijah is right behind me, I can hear those words sent mocking at me as he whispers them like sweet nothings into my ear.
Flinching, I jerk back to see Tommy is still staring at me. His smirk is no longer on his lips, and his brows are lowered. “What? Change your mind?”
Swallowing down the vile rising in the back of my throat, I shut the door and pluck my clothes back up. Ignoring the signs of a panic setting in, I try to focus on something else. “Something like that.”
I toss my clothes in the corner and decide the closet is off limits. The wrinkles will be worth the cost of forgetting about everything.
“So, if I can’t stay in any room, where are you expecting me to sleep?” Looking back toward his bed, I grimace. “Not with you, I hope.”
“Of course not. No, you’ll be sleeping on the floor.” Without thinking twice, the words roll right off his tongue. “Unless you have a problem with that?”
My hands curl at my sides, and I remind myself that Tommy is just trying to make me suffer. Well, I won’t let him have his way. No matter what, I won’t let him get to me. “No problem at all.”
My face must give away my feelings, because the corners of his eyes crinkle in amusement. I guess there is no hiding my dislike of him.
* * *
My time at the estate is slow. There’s not much to do. Even after a few days, none of that changes. Pretty quickly, I build a routine.
Not wanting to spend too much time in his room, after I wake up with my body sore from the carpeted floors, I walk with my meals to keep myself moving.
With the weight of waiting for Santino to have news about my situation, it only adds to my stress as I keep avoiding my mother. She may be making things easy for me by doing the very same. Or she’s giving me space. Who knows.
I’m not entirely sure she wants to see me, either. Not with the timing of how I left things. If she did, she’d jump me like Camellia has the few times we’ve crossed paths.
Ugh .
Tommy doesn’t hold back his annoyance when he catches me looking around the corner, just in case.
“She spends most of her time in the library. You don’t have to keep acting cautious. She’s harmless.” His brows furrow when I glare at him. “Might as well just get it over with.”
“No thanks.” Continuing to walk, I head toward the garden area. I try to walk a lap around the estate. That takes up a solid hour of the day when I lap around it twice.
“I didn’t take you for the cowardly type,” he throws out, the challenge in his voice. “When did that change?”
Two months ago, if I had to place a time on it.
My silence makes him sigh. “Despite your disappearance, I had to listen to her talk about you more than you can imagine. While your siblings wrote you off as dead, Bia—”
“Tommy!” Turning toward him, I tense up. “I don’t want to hear about it, okay?”
His brows lift, but the surprise on his expression doesn’t last for long. He’s right back to glaring at me. “Every day, she waited for you to come back. She told Leon you would, insisted on it. Then I promised them both that I’d find you, and we see how that turned out.”
He doesn’t lift up his hand to remind me, but he might as well have punched me in the guts with his next blow.
“After Leon passed, Bia still didn’t stop hoping. She refused to mourn for two people she cared about.” He doesn’t stop telling me the words I don’t want to hear, even after I try to walk away from him. “While I know you’re a terrible daughter, your mother still wants you back. Stop avoiding her.”
One thing I never want to acknowledge is this man’s rightness. I just wish he didn’t feel like he needed to guilt-trip me into making it happen.
What if she doesn’t want to see me? It’s been days now, and by now, she should have crossed my path. Has he thought about that?
Wrapping my arms around my body, I consider how our first meeting will go.
Will she remind me about missing my father’s funeral? I am sure my disappearance didn’t help his health any more than the cancer that got him. Does she loathe that I never called or sent them any kind of communication?
Ever since I stepped back onto the estate, change has surrounded me. Is my mother a part of that? Or is she still the gentle, caring woman who used to smother me with affection because of her love for her children?
Turning, I move silently, and he follows. We don’t need to continue the conversation; the climb up the grand staircase already tells him where I am going.
How many times, when I was little, did she read to me on that leather couch? All sorts of stories, all ending with romantic tales that had happily ever afters.
Funny enough, I blame her for my high expectations. When she wasn’t trying to prepare me for my duties, she let me slip away into a fantasy land full of Prince Charming types and sexy heroes who swooped the female main lead away.
The memory weighs heavy on my stomach, and my throat feels tighter as I get closer and closer to the door. When I reach it, I pause long enough to listen.
On the other side, I hear the soft murmur of voices. My mother is not alone. I recognize the child-like voice as belonging to my recently met niece.
I guess old habits die hard.
Something about the familiarity of it makes my eyes water, and I don’t have control to make it stop. However, I’ve learned over the years how to stop myself from being overwhelmed by my emotions. So I do what I always do. Count to ten and reset.
Breathing in slowly, I push away from the door and catch Tommy’s curious gaze. His brows come together when I swipe at my cheeks.
“Now isn’t the right time. Next time, for sure.” Turning away from him before he can enjoy my pain, I keep moving to avoid having him call me a coward again.
Little does he know that hearing her voice did more than he can imagine.
* * *
When I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s not to a sore body from sleeping on the floor. Rather, it’s the heavy rush of my heart thumping hard against my ribs. So loud, I’m surprised I didn’t wake up the entire estate. Not just my heart is going at it, but my lungs feel like they’re on fire as I fight to keep my breath steady.
When I touch my throat, my pulse is racing, and a slickness grows on my skin. Not from blood like in my dream, but from sweat. My thumb grazes an old wound that has scarred over, but the pain feels recent.
Another nightmare. Even in a place I should consider safer than back at my apartment, Elijah Sutton’s voice still plagues my thoughts. His brutal promises still make my ears tingle from hearing them whispered softly as the same scene plays out before me.
Some nights are easier than others, but I can’t get away from the man, even in my sleep.
It’s hard to breathe in here. The room, coated in darkness and cast with shadows from the moonlight seeping in, I don’t want to risk looking around and letting my eyes play tricks on me.
Moving to sit up, I tell myself that I’m fine in a soft whisper. When I’m on my feet, I do the very same.
I try to count to ten, but it doesn’t work. With fear, it never does.
Looking toward the door, the light beneath reassures me that I’ll find what I need if I get out of this suffocating room.
Making it all but a few steps, I hear the creak of the mattress behind me.
Hearing the rustle of the blankets, I know it’s Tommy waking up to stop what he probably assumes is my poor attempt at escaping. He doesn’t bother trying to be stealthy. However, it’s the thumps of his steps and the low growl coming from him that makes me question if I’m still dreaming.
Something screams at me to run, to get away. That if I’m caught, I’m done for. I’ll be meeting one hell of a painful death.
Just as I expect him to, he reaches out, and for a moment, I don’t see the guy who’s been a headache for me since I’ve returned. Still coming off the rush of my nightmare, I see a scarred hand reaching for what the man said himself. Retribution.
“Don’t touch me!” The words are ripped from my throat without any thought, and I think we catch both of us off guard.
The scowl on Tommy’s face sobers up into a flat line as he takes me in. First, there’s confusion on his face, then his brows furrow together as he retracts his hand.
“I need air,” I tell him as goosebumps prickle at my skin, and a shiver wracks through me. “Please.”
He doesn’t order me to lay back down, or to stop being a pain in the ass. Instead, he moves to the door and pulls it open, allowing the light on the other side to flood the room. It only offers a slight relief, but it doesn’t put any extra strength back into my legs to move forward. Thankfully, this guy is happy to help.
“Let’s go.” Through his sleep-laced voice, he keeps a few feet between us but motions me to move forward. I’m thankful, but my throat feels like it’s closing in on itself, so I can’t even mutter my thanks. He doesn’t seem to mind, leading me wherever he pleases.
Turns out, it’s straight to the place he caught me. The gardens.
As soon as I step outside, my feet bare to the concrete, I move toward the bench and collapse on it. Sucking in a deep lungful of air, my eyes water. As much as I know letting tears fall will help ease this weight on my chest, I don’t let a single drop leave my eyes.
Tommy doesn’t sit, but I feel his eyes on my back. He doesn’t ask me about what happened, or demand I tell him every detail of what’s wrong with me.
He lets me breathe and calm down until my limbs stop shaking and my heart has calmed down. It doesn’t take seconds, but minutes. Long enough to take in the constellations sparkling up above.
Once I’ve sobered up, I avoid meeting his eye and return inside. Instead of guiding me back to my old room to risk the same thing happening, he guides me to the kitchen to introduce me to the coffee pots.
Little does he know, coffee and I are already far acquainted.
Looks like we’re both done with getting sleep for the night.