Shemustbe okay. She needs to wake up and bat her eyes at me and end the noise in my head. So. Much. Fucking. Noise. Noise since answering her call, uncertain how I’d find her. She needs to be okay, because I don’t have the answers to what it is about this girl yet.
Her nod pauses my anxiety temporarily. Her movements are sluggish, but when her lips wrap around the bottle’s spout and her throat works in tandem, things get a fraction better. She takes three solid chugs before her head falls against my hand, eyes shutting with a sleepy sigh.
“Atta girl.”
With her having puked some of it out of her system and taking in water, I rest her against my pillow, pulling the sheet some of her vomit hit out from beneath her to discard it in the corner of my room. Then, I position her head to the side in case more comes up.
“Rest now,printessa. Just rest.” She probably isn’t listening, but she should know she’s not alone.
I move to the end of the bed, reaching for her hips to remove the scraps of her dress so she can rest more comfortably. As I reach beneath my shirt, the light blooming of bruises on her thighs sweeps a tornado of rage through me.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling—thetruedesire to destroy, to leave her and go back to find him, Vitale or not, toendhim.
That’s not what Serafina needs, and she comes first. So, watching for a sign of discomfort, I slide the scraps off, doing my best to keep my shirt in place. I wait for her to kick me, to believe I’m him. The fact she doesn’t pisses me off, because it’s the result of those fucking drugs.
Once she’s wearing only my shirt, I tug the blanket up, taking extra care tucking her in before backing away into the main part of the dorm. Assuming he used the classic roofie, Rohypnol, she’ll be knocked out for the night and will wake feeling hungover.
“Fucking fuck, this is fucked.”
After checking if she’s moved in the two seconds, I wander to the window, staring at the field, towards the party, wondering if anyone found him yet. It’d be so easy to end him, to bruise him for every mark he’s left on her. He’s lucky he didn’t get far enough to leave lasting physical damage, because, Cosa Nostra war or not, I wouldn’t have stopped.
I pull my phone out, flicking to the image of this guy. His face is majorly bloodied, but Zeno could make something of it—only after he loses his shit.
Fuck, this isn’t the call I wanted to be having, but it’s necessary. With weight in my chest, I click his name. My finger taps its pattern while the call goes through and quickens when he answers.
“Hey, Zeno. Something happened…”
20
SERAFINA
Little miners chip inside my head, the weight of them keeping my head pinned to the pillow. Slowly, they get through the barrier behind my eyelids, which lift to sun streaming through the window above my head.
Elbows on the mattress, I push upright, taking in the blank walls without string lights.
This isn’t my room.
My gaze goes to the bed, the chipping in my mind trying to uncover my memory. Last night’s too much of a blur to make sense of. No memory of getting home or climbing into Lev’s bed. Or…am I wearing his shirt?
My scan finishes on the other side of the room, on the guy seated with his back against the wall, eyes rimmed red and shadowed with over-exhaustion. His mouth is flat, pissed, and he’s fiddling with a switchblade, shutting it, opening it, tracing the blade before repeating the process all over.
“What am I doing in here?” My question burns, my throat on fire. “How much did I drink?”
Lev lowers the knife before standing in a fluid motion, reaching for a water bottle beside him. He uncaps it and hands it to me, his demand silent through a hardened gaze.
Grateful for the water, I chug half the bottle before speaking again. “Why am I in your bed? Did we…?”Oh fuck, we couldn’t have.Zeno would slaughter me. Lev wouldn’t do that, not when I wasthatout of it.
His sneer answers me. “I don’t do inebriated eighteen year olds. How much of the party do you remember?”
The party? Showing up at the house with Amara. Then, we were in the kitchen, and suddenly, she was gone and didn’t come back for me. I tried to find Lev, but he was gone too, except Alessio was there.
Oh God.
Alessio. He begged for five minutes. He handed me a drink and…it was drugged.There was a bedroom. He started speaking, but exactly what he said is lost in faded memories. I was tried, dizzy, and couldn’t fight him when he came at me.
“I couldn’t fight,” I whisper. “I tried, but I was so tired.”
Lev’s watching as I roll through level after level in my mental breakdown until my breath is stilted and my chest burns with the lack of oxygen.
