Chapter Eighteen
Vida
A s I watch Ciro drive, my pulse slows, and my strength begins to slip away, leaving me weak and heavy, as if the world has dulled. What once felt like lightning inside of me has now turned into a soft ache, and all that remains is the hollow calm after the storm. Maybe it is my bleeding thigh, or the satisfaction of doing something so bold? Maybe it’s the fact that I made him bleed, and that I actually hurt him? Whatever it is, it’s made me tired and I long to be back in that room he’d locked me in, on the bed that somehow seemed inviting the moment I saw it. I just want to lie down and let the darkness take me. But as he parks in front of the house, a part of me knows this isn’t over. I’d kept my emotions intact as I stormed to meet him, and he might’ve done the same, but now we are home, and I can feel it in my bones that all hell is about to break loose.
“Get out,” he commands, opening the back door and staring down at me.
My leg had gone numb at some point on the way here, making it near impossible for me to move. This isn’t the right time for this, I think to myself, trying not to look at Ciro as he watches me struggle to get out of the car.
“I’ll carry you,” he says, watching me closely.
This had to be a trap, and I’m not about to fall for it. He literally threw me into the car only a few minutes ago, threatened to take more than just my blood tonight, and drove in silence. Now he is offering to help me? No, this screams it’s a real fucking trap.
“No, I can walk,” I protest, trying hard to mask my pain.
“Little chaos, I wasn’t asking,” he says, picking me up into his arms, just like he did a few days ago.
“I said I can walk, put me down,” I grit out, trying to wiggle free.
“Fucking stay still or you’ll hit your head,” he orders, carefully opening the door and walking us into the house.
Silence.
Is it just me, or have the stairs become more daunting? How does the house feel so tall from the inside, while when I jumped out the window, it didn’t seem as high? Or maybe it is, and my aching body is proof of that.
“You need a bath,” he says, placing me gently on the bed.
“I need to dress my wound,” I correct, turning to look at my thigh which now looks like dead meat.
I watch Ciro walk towards the bathroom, pausing to stare at the broken window, before walking to a corner I can’t see. After a few moments of rustling, he emerges with a first-aid kit.
“You fix me and I’ll fix you,” he says, towering over me.
“What?” I arch an eyebrow at him.
“I won’t repeat myself. I have a bleeding lip and neck, courtesy of you,” he replies, bringing my attention back to his swollen, bleeding lip.
“You can’t be serious. I literally can’t feel my leg and why do I need your help? I can do it myself.”
“You can’t, not when I have this,” he says, holding up the kit between us.
“Stop fooling around, Ciro. This could get infected,” I frown.
“You should’ve thought of that when you decided to fucking break the window and leave.”
“And you should have never locked me in here in the first place,” I shoot back.
I’m tired and can start to feel my body shutting down. This is all unnecessary. I know Ciro well enough to know he’s not bluffing. I need to get my wound cleaned since I am the one who will be living with an infected leg if he doesn’t do something.
“Ready?” he asks, like he can read my mind.
“Yes. Sit,” I order with a sigh. This man has pushed me to limits I never thought I’d reach, yet he still humbles me in ways I hate.
“You can’t clean my lip and neck from there. Here,” he says, picking me up and placing me on his lap like I weigh nothing.
“What are you doing?!” I protest, trying to get up.
“Getting this over with,” he says, sounding completely unbothered by our new position and staring at nothing in particular.
“I can stand and clean it up. I don’t need to sit on you.”
“Vida, clean my fucking bleeding lip and get off me. I don’t like you being this close either.”
There’s something about the way he says those words that hurts. I don’t like it either, but I wouldn’t have said it so harshly, like he was a disease.
After applying some alcohol to the cotton wool, I gently press it against his lip. For a cut that deep, he stays surprisingly calm. Doesn’t it hurt? I want it to hurt. After rubbing in some ointment, I do the same steps with his neck.
I want to tell him how much I hate being this close to him too, how my thigh is aching in this position, and how I could easily just sit on the bed and dress his wounds from there, but the words catch in my throat as my nose comes within inches on his neck and I’m forced to breathe in his scent.
Ciro
Her fucking scent! Sweet, s harp and so damn annoying. And these stupid, full, wild curls, just as wild as she is, and God, her weight on me, it’s too real, carving into my nerves without even trying. Shit! Fucking hell!
Vida
I couldn’t tell you if it wa s because there were more wound marks from my nails on his neck that was making this drag on, but God, send me to hell if it is because I want to stay here a little longer and smell him. He smells of wood, scented wood like Agarwood, like the perfect mix of oud perfume, earthy, musky, and rich. Who would have thought such a strong scent would come from a flower?
Wait, what am I doing? I am supposed to be cleaning his wounds, not getting lost in his scent. This is insane, I’m done! He can finish this up himself.
As I move to put some distance between us, my whole body freezes as his hands grip my waist to steady me.
“Steady,” he whispers, his warm breath caressing my skin.
All possible thoughts leave me for a long moment before my brain starts to work again. Wasn’t I about to get up? Why am I still in his lap, focusing on his wound, rubbing ointment into his skin, and still fucking sniffing his oud scent?! What is fucking wrong with me?
“Done!” I manage to say after five more minutes of ointment rubbing and wound covering… and of course, sniffing him.
“Lie down. I’ll take care of you,” he mutters gently.
I have to be hallucinating. I must have lost so much blood that my brain is finally betraying me, because why else would my stomach twist at his words? Why do I want to lay down and be a good girl for him? Good girl?! Yup, I have officially lost it! My romance books have finally corrupted my mind. How on earth can I even think of that right now, when the man I hate the most, after Raphael and Donato, is kneeling beside me now and is unwrapping the makeshift bandage I had tied around my wound?
“This might hurt, little chaos,” he says, pausing to look up at me with those brown eyes of his. Never did I think they’d hold anything but emptiness, but I swear I see something else flicker in them. Something I can’t quite name.
“Little chaos?” I hear him whisper.
Why is he whispering? Why do I feel dizzy?
“Ciro,” I call, my voice too low for me to even hear myself.
“Chaos, stay with me,” he whispers again, his voice echoing in my ears.
“Fuck! Little chaos, please stay with me, baby,” he says. No, I can’t have heard him right. The way he sounds, almost like he is afraid of losing me to the darkness, that can’t be right. And baby? Ciro Ballera would never call me that. He wouldn’t.
But as I drift into silence and nothingness, I think of the name. Chaos, little chaos, Fuck! I love that silly name.