19
“Out you get,” he demanded, grabbing my leg and gently dragging me out, only for me to cry out in pain. “Whoa.” He stopped and reassessed. “What happened?”
“I fell over, you asshole,” I snarled. “How about you just leave me here to die because I just don’t fucking care anymore.”
“Wait, what?” Lev said. “So, you can’t run?”
“I can barely walk,” I yelled at him, so angry. “I fucking hate you, so get out of my face.”
“Do you want us to kill you first or what?” Nicolae joked, but it fell flat, even with his brother.
“Bro, I’m sick of this shit,” Ez groaned. “Adina, did you sprain your ankle?”
“Yes,” I cried as my heart softened at his caring tone.
“Don’t be fooled, dumbass,” Nicolae ranted, “she's probably fucking with you. Man, you’d believe anything.”
“Crawl out, Adina,” Lev added also in a caring tone. The only one out of the three that had not even an ounce of sympathy was the oldest fuckwit brother.
Hesitating a few seconds to consider whether it was a good idea, I then surrendered, mostly because I was fed up, slid out from under the rock, exhausted and hissing like a rattlesnake, and when a warm hand touched me, I slapped them away.
“I can manage, asshole,” I shrilled. “I shouldn’t have run in the first place, stupid, fucking game, like stupid fucking children. ”
Ez snorted in laughter while I could feel the intense gaze drilling holes into my skull from Nicolae. He was unimpressed that my injured ankle and fiery attitude ruined his game. Fuck him. Fuck the oldest son.
I crawled out onto my knees, placed a foot on the ground, then stood up on one foot, and when I placed my swollen foot on the ground, I cried out in pain, and my knees gave way. Strong arms grabbed me before I hit the ground, and those strong arms belonged to the oldest son.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, slapping him away, but he refused to let go.
“Stubborn woman,” he mumbled, unaffected by my slapping hands. Then he lifted me off the ground, threw me over his shoulder, and a hand patted my ass. Lev grabbed my bag and shook it, hearing the rattling of the tools I took from the basement.
“Was that thrilling for you?” I snarled at him, digging my fingernails into his back. “Did you get a kick chasing an unarmed woman throughout the forest?”
“Not as fun as I hoped,” he admitted under his breath.
“Why? Because it was too easy? I don’t run as fast as a deer and scale the side of a cliff like a goat, so it was hardly a difficult hunt,” I agreed with him as a waft of his cologne infiltrated my senses as he moved swiftly down the ridge.
Every step was confident and strong of a man who had been through this forest-covered hill many times before.
Lev and Ezrah walked in front of us, shining the way with flashlights, and every breath he took seemed to calm my soul, which was weird considering that he was trying to kill me only a few moments ago.
“You talk too much,” he mumbled as his hand gripped the back of my thigh, then moved upward toward my butt cheek, and I tensed in apprehension about what his hand was about to do. Only for it to move to the back of my thigh again.
I turned my head to the left to gaze out at the campus dotted in lights down below before we stepped into another cluster of trees.
Nicolae’s boots slipped on the soft, wet earth, and he gripped me tight as I gulped, hoping he wouldn’t drop me.
He stalled, took a deep breath, and then continued stepping downwards.
“You alright, Sickle?” Lev asked, “I can take over if she’s getting too heavy.”
I held my breath, hoping he would swap me with someone that I trusted a little bit more than him, but he exhaled and answered, “Nah, I’m alright. She ain’t that heavy, she yacks too much.”
“What are you going to do to me when we get back to your frat house?” I asked him.
“Throw you back in the basement,” he replied gruffly.
“Is that a threat or are you joking?” I expressed, tensing at the thought of being locked up in that toxic, petrol-fumed space.
“If we let you, you’ll go running to the police, won’t you?” he stated flatly. “You’ve been trouble since you got here.”
“And who brought me here? I assure you it wasn’t me,” I educated him. “I was quite happy attending another college in my hometown before my stepmother planted the idea in my father’s head to send me to this shithole.”
“It wasn’t our idea either, but when we caught wind that you were transferring to Castlehill, we made plans to ensure that your life here was hell after-
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted, “After my father put your father in prison because he ordered a hit on him. Moral of the story…don’t order a hit on someone smarter than you.
He tensed in irritation at my deliberate insult. “Trust me, we regretted it. You’ve been nothing but a damn pain in the ass. But ah,” he treads carefully over a log before continuing, “in case you hadn’t noticed, our father is still alive.”
“Well…I don’t know what was going on in his head,” I sighed as emotional pain welled up in my chest again, but I exhaled against his back, pleased that it was dark.
He smacked his gums, then hummed a little as if deliberating his words, “Kinda seems suspicious to me, don’t you think?”
Lev glanced back to check on us and added, “Yep, I agree,” while remaining quietly curious to hear what else the oldest Warwick son had to say.
“I mean…it was her who sent you here, right?” he said, slipping a little again, then paused to adjust his grip on me before continuing.
“Yes. To get me out of the way,” I said, refusing to divulge everything that I had been thinking, but I’ll drop the odd thing. “She wants my father’s money, just like you do. But I’m not going to let that happen.”
“We have our own money, so we don’t need or want your father's money, but we do want territory,” he confessed.
“Too bad. You’re not getting it,” I said far too confidently.
“Well…that’s where you’re wrong,” his tone cocky and annoying. “Your stepmother, Leslie, has already contacted our mother, wanting to make a deal.”
“What?” I shrieked, horrified. “She can’t do that. It’s not her land. It’s not her territory.”
He scoffed, “I’m just telling you what my mother told me, right after she spoke to our father about it,” he explained.
“But Leslie has no authority over our business and territory,” I asserted.
“Obviously, she does have authority, or else she wouldn’t have contacted my family,” he said, as house lights beamed through the trees as we descended on the Lud frat house, and my heart sank.
We stepped out behind the Lud, mini castle, and Nicolae headed straight to the basement. “No, please, don’t put me back in here. Please,” I begged.
“Just for now,” he promised, although I didn’t believe him.
The door was already unlocked as he carried me down the stairs and then bent to let me land on the soft mattress. “I’ll get ice and a bandage,” Ezrah called from the top of the stairs as Lev trotted down to the floor and sat on the mattress next to me.
“I’m gonna stay with her, alright,” he told Nicolae as he gently wrapped his hand around my shoe, untied my laces, and carefully slid it off.
Nicolae hesitated before answering with an unenthused, “Whatever.” He wasn’t pleased about it, but they couldn’t leave me down here alone when I could barely walk. Or was I expecting compassion from men who were incapable of it?
I winced in pain as Lev took my sock off and assessed my swollen ankle with warm hands. “It doesn't look broken. I think you’ve just sprained it badly.”
“Are you going to let me go to class?” I looked over Lev’s shoulder to Nicolae, whose eyes were focused on my ankle.
His broad shoulders shrugged, “I don’t know.” He then rubbed his chin with the back of his fist. “What difference does it make?”
I scoffed, understanding his logic. “Probably none. Since I have nothing to live for, do you mean? The deal I made with my father was to work for my degree, and then he’d reward me with a position in his company.
Yes, those plans have now been ruined by his death.
So, what is the point? Well…good question. ”
“Adina, there’s always something to live for-”
Nicolae grunted, amused, “She’s dramatic. Can’t you tell when a woman is fucking with your emotions so she can dig the knife in when you turn your back?”
“Bro, who the fuck screwed you over?” Lev snarled as the oldest son flinched as if he wasn’t used to being spoken to that way by Lev. Maybe Lev found his balls.
But instead of bowing out, Lev continued, “Her father committed suicide.
Her mother is dead after a long illness, and her stepmother is currently screwing her over, and you seem to think she's the one who will screw us over. With what? What exactly would she screw us over with when she has nothing? Man, you need to chill the fuck out.”
“Too fucking bad,” Nicolae argued. “She’s staying put, or she’ll call the police like last time.”
“Fine,” Lev agreed on that part, although I doubted Lev cared about schooling, unlike the Warwick brothers.
I noticed from the moment I met Lev that he was a loner, preferring to stay on the outside of groups.
For Lev Ashthorn, being here at Castlehill was like wearing an ill-fitted jacket every damn day.
Ezrah returned with a bucket of ice still containing cans of beer. “This is mine,” he said, showing me an ankle brace, “I couldn’t find bandages, so this should do.”
“Lay back and relax,” Lev instructed, and I was reluctant to do so, but I knew it would hurt less if I were chilled out. I lay my head back on bundled blankets that were thrown down here to keep me warm, took a deep breath as my eyes were fixed on the men who kept me trapped.
Ezrah took a handful of ice and gently pressed the cubes against the swelling, and I recoiled in pain before my ankle turned numb a few moments later and I exhaled.
I glanced at Nicolae, who was standing over us, arms folded across his chest, and was surprised that he had been watching my face, then looked away when I noticed.
That gaze I’d never forget. The same gaze that watched me in the library between the books.
It was him. I was so sure it was him, and I wondered if he was going to admit it to my face.
His eyes shifted to my ankle, where Ezrah and Lev were running ice cubes over my skin, then those dark eyes ran along my legs to the place between my thighs.
As his stare ran over my stomach to my breasts, I placed my hand on my thigh, ready to give him the middle finger when that gaze found the place between my thighs again. He then shot me a scowl as being caught out, turned away so I couldn’t see that little smirk on his shitty face.
“I’m heading inside,” he announced, “walking up the stairs.”
“Good,” I shouted after him. “Fuck you. Sorry, I messed up your sadistic, fucked up hunting game.”
“He’s not normally like that,” Ezrah mumbled once his older brother was gone.
“Like what?” I flinched when Lev gently dried my foot with a towel. “An asshole? I have yet to see any evidence of him being anything but an asshole.”
“He’s right, though, you do yack a lot,” Ezrah pointed out as he unfastened the straps of the brace and then slid his hand under my heel to gently lift my foot.
“Fuck him. He tried to kill me. Treated me like a fawn that gigantic ego needed to chase so he could feel better about himself. Man, he,” pointing my finger to the door where he was only a few seconds ago, “needs therapy. Like, big time.”
“He had no intention of killing you, Adina,” Ezrah tried to console me, but it wasn’t working.
“I disagree,” I shrilled, getting even more agitated. “You saw with your own eyes what he was like. Freaking madman psycho.”
“Seriously, sweetheart, if he wanted to kill you, he would’ve done it by now,” he pressed, folding the Velcro straps around my ankle.
“Well, there’s still time,” I hit back.