James & Alessandro Part 14

My eyes searched frantically around the area for any suspicious person, but found no one. I then glanced down at the piece of paper to confirm the words written on it before cursing under my breath and crumbling the paper into a small ball to hide it away in the pocket of my pants.

Pivoting on my feet, I strode back into the house with a dash as panic seized my body. With a distraught look in my eyes, the thoughts in my head all became disoriented, forming into a puddle of mesh while my throbbing heart went haywire, where the surrounding noises fell on deafening ears.

'They have come… they have come to kill me. I have to get away from here quickly.' The thoughts kept circling in my head until a concerned voice called out to me.

"Sir?"

Coming to a halt as the voice shook me out of my daze, my head whipped around to face Luca, who stood behind me in his training attire. Behind him stood two other men.

Luca looked at me with a frowning look of concern hearing the elaborated harsh breathing that escaped my lips because of my earlier sprint and now I was wheezing as the tempo in my stride had only increased together with my beating heart.

"Is everything okay, sir?" Taking one step to me, he reached out his hand only for me to take a step back as beads of sweat dripped down from the side of my face off my chin.

I nodded, taking a big gulp of air to calm myself down. "Yes, I am alright. Do you need me for something?"

He brought his hand that was left in the air awkwardly back, letting it rest at his side. "You promised us you would spar with us today, but you didn't come so we went looking for you. Did something happen?" his eyes raked over my face that had difficulty in mustering up a smile to ease their worry, resulting in me putting on a wry smile that deepened the scowl on their faces. Ever since I had won the fight with Luca, I became closer with the men at this place and earned their respect to the level where they even would quire me to teach them some tricks or to spar with them.

They would still mock me because of my small stature, but the words that were meant to bite and spite me before now sounded dorky and engaging. I never had siblings, but I've got the feeling that if I had, that they would exactly be like these annoying men.

"Right, the training," I breathed, glancing behind me impatiently as I had to figure out quickly how to get away from here. "sorry, something else urgently came up. I promise to make it up to you guys later." Empty words of promise left my mouth, and I faced away from them to continue striding down the hallway.

"W-Wait sir!" Luca called out to me to stop me from where I stood. Glancing over my shoulder, I ushered, "What?"

Stiffly, he used his hand to scratch the back of his head as he opened his mouth to close them again, finding it difficult to find the words to get his message across.

"Everybody knows about the bet between you and the Don, and we know that you're being kept here against your will but…" his words trailed off into silence as he averted his gaze to an empty space and I felt the irritation surge in me as I didn't have the time for this.

"Spit it out Luca."

"Could you please consider staying here?" Came his quiet words to widen my eyes by a fraction as the words that had left his lips came unexpected.

"That's surprising to hear from the person who wanted me gone the most." I pointed out to see him shut his eyes, wallowing in regret for his attitude to me at the beginning.

"I know, and I am sorry for that, but the Don really needs you. Ever since you came, the Done had been smiling more often and punishing us less for our mistakes,"

You bastards, you just want to keep me here to prevent your Don from lashing out at you guys, I thought disgruntled as I fished out his real purpose. They just want to use me as a beef jerky for the hungry beast.

"And we also need you, sir. You have helped us improve a lot in this short amount of time and we all enjoy your presence." He added with a sheepish smile. Though I felt sulky thinking that they wanted to use me as a stress ball reliever for their Don, I could hear the sincerity laced in his voice, causing the guilt in me to well up.

"I will think about it." My answer came out in a whisper before I continued to waltz again, leaving the men standing in the corridor.

I busted through the door leading into the Alessandro's office, not caring anymore if I was going to be caught at this point. Without wasting anymore time I began pulling out the drawers of the desk, rummaging through them in search of something resembling a key that could unbidden the collar sealed on my neck. "I am sure that he uses some type of small device to control the collar." I muttered under my breath as I flipped through books and papers to see if he had hid something between them.

After having completely tarnished Alessandro's desk, I huffed in frustration as I wasn't even close to finding something that remotely could be the key. "There's no way that he would let it linger around for someone to take. He must carry it around."

"Hmm?" My eyes fell on a file that got opened during my scavenging hunt, laying on top of the desk. My interest got piqued when I saw my name written on a page next to a horrible picture of me taken on a holiday.

I picked the file up and leisurely flipped through it. He really did a thorough background check on me, I thought as I stared at the dismembered pictures of my foster family. Having seen enough, I was about to close the file when a handwritten page caught my attention. All the previous pages were printed out, but this one was written with a pen, with some words scratched out clumsily just to be written over again.

The words written on it mentioned my personal stuff, from my favorite food to my dislikes and likes. It even talked about my habits, which went unnoticed by me until now.

"The corner of my lips twitch when I am up to no good?" I questioned myself and unknowingly brought my hand up to touch my lips, and I felt my cheeks turning red as my heart got soaked in this unexplainable warmth. My heart drummed incessantly, and I hid my face behind the file that I was holding, as if to hide my face that became indistinguishable from a tomato. I was grinning like an idiot from ear to ear.

Ever since I got here, I wanted to unravel the wrapped thoughts that played in Alessandro's mind. Why was he so obsessed with me? What was his hidden agenda? Why is he giving me such a tough time? But after reading this clumsily written paper, I couldn't help but snicker at the image that runs through my mind of Alessandro sitting behind his desk, struggling to figure out what would make me happy while raking his fingers multiple times through his dark locks.

Coming out of my hiding spot, I threw my head back, looking heavenward while letting out a strangled groan. "You're really not making it easy for me to leave you. I am not stupid enough to disregard my own feelings to pretend what I feel right now isn't what you would call 'like', but…" Images of the people in the house flashes before my eyelids.

Their stupid smiles, their annoying remarks, and then the ominous words written on the letter left by my organization brought me back to reality, bringing a faint somber smile to my lips. "There's no need for anyone to get hurt because of me."

I placed the file back on the desk and walked out of the room, grinding my brain for different ideas to get out of the house.

A sigh escaped from my lips as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. A long bathrobe hid away my naked body after a long bath. My cheeks were rosy, and my hair was damp, but the determination twinkling in my eyes was more prominent than ever.

I had decided to sleep with Alessandro tonight. Sleeping with him would ensure my victory and he would have to let me go. Of course, the man himself had no idea about it, and I am not sure how I am going to make him sleep with me, but we will see. I could just wait for tomorrow and lie to him about how I don't like him, but there are two problems surrounding that plan. One is that I am not sure whether my lie would go unnoticed by the observant eyes of Alessandro and the other thing is that the people of my organization will come for me tomorrow, but they never said when.

They love surprising people after all; I rolled my eyes at my deriding thoughts. So, to make sure that they wouldn't attack the place out of nowhere, I have to leave tonight, since their target from the beginning was me.

I walked away from the full body mirror to the door that led out of my bedroom to the hallway. Opening it, my heart stopped beating for a second and I took in a sharp breath at the view of a dark, tall, looming figure in front of me. I clenched tightly my fists at my sides as if to suppress the shriek that wanted to erupt from my throat.

Realizing who it was, my body went slack and released a relieved sigh. "Bear, I love you, but we have to talk about this; you can't keep scaring me like this."

Bear's eyebrows slanted downwards as he wore an apologetic look, muttering in a quiet voice, "Sorry."

I brought my hand up to pat his arm. "It's okay, big guy. I was on my way to your Don. Is he in his room?"

I observed how Bear's brow arched with intrigue to why I was looking for Alessandro at this time of the night.

To ease his curiosity, I asserted, "I am going to tell him I like him. Isn't it great? I have made up my mind to stay." I offered him a smile, not even baffled at the lie that easily flowed out of my mouth as I would not confess my feelings but was going to set forth the plan of sleeping with Alessandro and to make him lose the bet. But I didn't have the heart to tell Bear the truth, especially when his face lit up with delight, tugging at the guilt wrapped around my heart.

He nodded his head enthusiastically. "Don… is in his room. I will… bring you." With a smile plastered on his face, he guided me happily to Alessandro's bedroom.

Standing in front of the door, I turned to face Bear. "Thank you. You can leave now."

"But I… need to guard… Comare." He shook his head, refusing to leave me unguarded even though the safest place in this house was being next to Alessandro.

Pondering on how to get Bear to leave me alone so that he wouldn't listen to the words exchanged inside the room, a sly smile grew on my face.

"I didn't know that Bear had a nasty side to him." I grinned like a Cheshire Cat, and that mischievous grin only grew in width watching the confusion overtake Bear's expression.

"Don't act innocent," I chimed teasingly. "I am only wearing a bathrobe and I am going to confess to your Don. I don't have to tell you what's going to happen next, right?"

I stared at the dark brown eyes that twitched wide open as realization finally started to the dawn on him. Giving the innocent man one last nudge, I jest, "Do you want to hear my cries that bad?"

He shook his head vehemently, waving his hands in front of him while the rouge tint on his face grew few shades darker and for a second, I thought that the poor man's head would combust in flames.

"No...! I will... leave." The jittery man scampered away in the dimly lit hallway. On seeing his retracting figure disappear with haste, snickers erupted from my lips.

"I will never get tired of teasing him."

Not even a second later, the smile on my lips damped as the nerves settled back in my body, as the events that were going to happen now were unknown. Facing the door, I brought my hand up, took a big gulp of air before knocking on it three times.

"Come in."