Page 132 of Salvatore

What the hell just happened?

I blink at the void that surrounds me. Baffled. Blindsided.

“Stay away from Salvatore,” Adena sneers. “Keep your hands off my son.”

It’s as if someone else speaks to me from the other side of those bars. Someone I don’t recognize.

“You stupid fucking whore.” Her voice raises. “You think I don’t know who you are? That I haven’t known this whole time?Stronza. You’re just like my daughter.”

My breath catches.

She’d been so kind to me. So understanding.

I backtrack toward escape, the agony of my tattered pride far more unforgiving than what she’s inflicted upon me.

I stumble along the short passage. Shove the secret door closed with a heavy thud. I’m a heaving, mindless mess as I quickly haul the shelf back into place, then run for the stairs, my hand slipping when I grip the railing from the nervous sweat slicking my palm.

I reach the upstairs door and yank it open, then stop dead in the hall.

What do I do now?

I need to leave, but I can’t think straight to figure out how. I’m too hyped on adrenaline and maxed out on emotion. My entire body is freaking out, head to toe perspiration making my pajamas cling to my abdomen, the material sticking to my skin.

I’m literally dripping in sweat.

I glance down to the marble floor, the quietdrip,drip,dripso fucking loud through my mania. But it’s not translucent liquid that hits the tile. I frown at the droplets surrounding my feet, the faint moonlight casting the splatter in hues as dark as obsidian.

Not sweat. Blood.

Shit.

It’s everywhere. Soaked into my clothes. Trailing down my left leg and arm.

The adrenaline has put a kill switch on the pain, but not the bleeding.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Salvatore.” His name rasps from my drying mouth as I stumble away from the basement door. “Help.”

I can barely hear my own voice. Can’t distinguish it through the thunderous pulse in my ears.

Breathing becomes harder. Faster.

I slip my way down the hall, the soles of my feet losing traction with the mass of bodily lubricant coating them. “Salvatore.”

I can’t die like this. Can’t have fled my upbringing to be killed by someone who’d been safely restrained behind bars.

I reach his room, my grip hard to maintain on the door handle from the moisture slickening my palm as I open it. “Sal?—”

“Ivy?” His voice is gruff beneath the ruffle of sheets, the gentle glow from the bedside clock highlighting the darkness of his silhouette as he sits up in bed. “What’s wrong?”

The panic increases. The ability to breathe becomes impossible.

What if he wants me dead, too? What if Adena told him I’d been in the basement and it was his idea to kill me?

“Tell me,” he demands, his shadowed form flinging back the covers to move to his feet.

“I—” I retreat as blood trickles down my thigh. “Please don’t hurt me.”

---