❧ 𝐂𝐑𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 - 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 ☙
"i've got this anxious feeling, but it goes away for a minute
when i'm with you, breathing."
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"Lena found her?" I asked, staring down at the lifeless woman laying on the floor. I bent down, placing two fingers on her neck, searching for a pulse, but there was none. She was shot twice in stomach, and was bleeding from somewhere in her hand.
Her dark hair had stuck to her own blood, which was spread across the alley. Indicating signs of struggle, there was some more blood swiped across the stone walls. "Yeah, during her.. route." Alec answered. The woman's white shirt was drenched in blood, but even through the shades of red I could see the faint writing through the fabric.
Koslov.
The handwriting was blurred and messy, but still readable.
"Fuck." I muttered.
The Russians beginning to kill again meant that they had recovered. Whatever injuries that both of the brothers had endured clearly didn't take them out for as long as I had hoped. Lena told me that Kyler had gotten away at the Auction before she could make a mark on him, and I assumed that Kayden wasn't so bruised anymore either.
"Why her?" I turned to Alec, standing upright. He shrugged. "Don't know. It's probably about Karson or some shit like that."
I had almost forgotten about him. The oldest brother who died almost exactly three years ago. I never understood why it took Kyler so long to go after whoever killed his brother, it confused me, but apparently he thought that now was the right time.
Their names mixed me the fuck up too. Karson was the oldest, killed by.. nobody knew, hence the dead body on the street. Kyler, the middle child, and Kayden the youngest out of the three.
I turned to one of my men who was standing at the front of the alleyway, keeping watch. "Voglio che altri tre uomini vengano a pulire, e poi altri tre a pattugliare per i Russi. (I want three men to clean this up, and then three more to patrol for Russians.)" I ordered.
"Isn't six men a lot? I mean, whoever did this must've left hours ago."
"Don't question my judgement." I snapped. My feelings towards Alec at the moment were complicated. The whole situation wasn't all that big, and he could have probably managed without me. But it was whatever, and what was done was done, and he knew better than to bring up what he saw in the kitchen anyways.
"Alright, man."
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We spent the next couple of hours walking through the dark streets of New York, coming across nothing but drug addicts and homeless people. I seemed to have noticed more of them— the homeless, after Violet had encountered the homeless woman on the street.
I didn't care that she took my money. Why would I? She could have taken millions and I would be fine with it. If it was in her hands, it was hers.
Taking all of my time to collect my thoughts, they all circled back to her. I wanted to think about what could've happened if Alec hadn't barged in like he did, but I couldn't. Instead, I thought about how genuinely concerned I was for her.
She was hurt, hurt by a man. I knew her better than to think that she would let that slide. That man— her ex, he manipulated her. Her mind was twisted because of him. She knew that what he did wasn't okay, hell, she told me that she knew, but she was okay with it. She was still protecting him after what he did to her.
Then unexpectedly, my phone rang. I pulled the vibrating object from my pocket to see that Violet's number was pinned on my screen. As she called, I could feel my heart skip a beat, the urgency in her voice instantly catching my attention.
"I know— I know that you just left for something important but uhm.. I don't have anyone else to call anymore and.." Listening intently, I could sense the vulnerability in her voice as she hesitated, choking searching for the right words. And then, with a trembling pause, she continued, expressing a need that pierced through the phone line.
"I need you. I really need you right now."
Then she hung up, just like that.
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I rushed up the stairs towards Violet's bedroom. Her door was already slightly opened until I pushed it further, but she wasn't in her room.
My heart pounded in my chest, worrying that something might've happened to her. Then I heard the shower running from her bathroom. I took a step into her closet, only to find it nearly destroyed.
There were articles of clothing everywhere, and nearly every inch of the floor was covered. Her drawers had been rummaged through, and the hangers hung empty in the organizers. She tore the space apart.
Hesitantly, I peeked my head through the partially open bathroom door, my desire to check on her battling with the need to respect her privacy, but I didn't think she was showering.
As I stepped inside, my senses were met with the faint scent of steam. The air was humid from all of the hot water that was falling down from the shower head.
My suspicions were confirmed as my gaze fell upon her figure. She sat huddled within the glass enclosure, her knees pulled close to her chest, and her head buried in her lap. It was an image that etched itself into my memory—the vulnerability in her posture contrasting sharply with the woman that I was with earlier today.
I had a feeling that everything had gotten worse during the time that it took me to come back home.
The clothes that clung to her skin were heavy with water. Even her hair, usually straight and soft, was damp and disheveled.
I took cautious steps towards her, the sound of my shoes on the tile catching her attention. Slowly, she lifted her head.
In that moment, I saw her as I had never seen her before—fragile, broken, and defeated. The rawness in her eyes, nearly bloodshot from the tears she had shed, was a painful reflection of the torment she was experiencing.
My hands slid around the handle of the glass shower, opening the door and stepping in. The steaming hot water instantly wet my clothes, the button up shirt that I wore sticking to my skin.
Violet stood up from off of the ground. "You weren't supposed to come." Shaking her head. "You were supposed to be too busy to come here."
"But I'm here anyways, Red."
"No." Her voice trembling. "No, I changed my mind." Shaking her head even more. "I don't want you here anymore."
"I'm staying."
"No," she said, her voice tinged with frustration as she shook her head, each movement inching her closer to me. Then, a surge of emotion seemed to fuel her actions, and she struck me in the chest with the side of her fist. But I didn't make any move to stop her.
"Why?" Her voice cracked with a mixture of anguish and exasperation. Her fists struck my chest again and again. "Why won't you listen to me?"
I ignored her, standing there planted and still, letting her hit me, letting her yell at me, letting her aim her hurt towards me. Because I knew this feeling all too well.
Something was out of her hands, and she needed a release, and that release was me, and I was okay with it. I would've let her hit me a thousand times if it meant that all of her pain would have transferred to me.
Her strikes became weaker with less force behind them. "Listen to me and leave." She didn't yell at me anymore, instead it came out as more of a gasp. Then she fell into my arms, burying her face into my chest with silent sobs. "Don't listen to me at all." Her voice muffled against me.
I wrapped my arms firmly around her, securing her into my body. I slinked one around the small of her back, and the other cupping the back of her head, smoothing her hair. It took me awhile to realize she was shaking. Her whole body trembled against me, her hands, her arms, her chest, her legs, everywhere.
Her knees gave out on her, and I caught her before slowly lowering ourselves to the ground. "I'm right here," I muttered into her ear. "Who's doing this to you?"
I'd never had anyone break down in front of me like she did. I think everyone was too scared, or maybe I was too. I didn't understand this. Growing up, I was taught to shut out my emotions, to never let them see the light of day, let alone reflect onto a person. Hell, I wasn't even allowed to have feelings.
Violet was the first. The first to ever trust me like this, to trust me to hold and comfort her without judgement. The first person in my twenty four years of living.
"It's Nathan," she finally said through muffled words. I didn't know his name, but I could only assume that it was the poor excuse of a man that was her ex-boyfriend. I already hated him, and had fantasized about 167 different ways to kill him with only my hands.
"He tried to.." She trailed off, "He tried.." but she couldn't bring herself to say it. "He's in a coma because of me, because of what I said to him." Her breathing hitched at her own words, and I held her tighter.
"I don't know why I wasn't enough for him." Her voice croaked, and I think somewhere in my heart made of stone, it broke for her. It broke to see her like this, thinking that she wasn't enough for the skinny little bastard.
"He doesn't matter. Nothing else matters right now except for you. I've got you."
I was going to make sure he stayed in that fucking coma.
We sat like that for a while, our knees in between each other's thighs like zig zags. There was nothing in between us, only the thin fabric of our soaking wet clothes. Violet didn't speak, she just kept her face close to my neck and I let her tears soak into me.
"There's something wrong with me." She whispered, pulling her head away. I didn't say a word, just let her keep talking.
She placed a hand on her chest, gripping the fabric of her hoodie tightly. "I can't— I can't breathe." She choked.
I already knew.
"You're having a panic attack." I told her subconsciously.
She struggled, and it pained me to see her like this, struggling to breathe. "It hurts." She winced. "It hurts so bad, Dominic."
"I know," I whispered, but loud enough for her to hear me over the running water. "I know it does, baby, but you need to breathe."
She looked so scared. Not of me, but of what she was feeling. I don't think she had ever had a panic attack before.
I took her shaking hand, placing it on my chest, right over my heart. "Feel my heart." I said softly. "Do you feel it?"
She nodded.
"Do you feel me breathing?"
She answered, "Yes."
"Match my breathing, okay?" Blinking the water from her eyelashes, she focused on the rise and fall of my chest. Her breaths started to synchronize with mine, her inhales and exhales following the pattern I had set.
We sat there like that for countless other minutes, until she started to calm down. The tears had stopped rolling down her face, and she wasn't struggling to breathe anymore, but she was still shaking.
Slipping her hand away from out of my grasp, she pressed her back to the cold wall of the shower, and leaned her head on my shoulder. We let the scorching hot water drown us, but I had gotten used to the heat of it.
"Will you stay with me tonight?" She said, breaking the silence between us. "I think I would break a window or something if I slept alone."
I almost took too long to respond. The last time I had ever slept next to anyone was.. never. It was one of my very few of my unspoken rules that I didn't really have a reason for. "Yeah," I replied. "I'll stay with you."
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the way he broke his rule for her.. why am i fan girling when i'm the one who made him?
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