Strange feelings

Salvatore’s POV

I have been in alot of situations like this. This wasn’t the first time an enemy was sending an incredibly perfect looking woman to me to test if I would fall for her so he would start to plan by befall. It has never worked so far, and I wasn’t about to allow it to happen this time.

After I checked on Enzo, I headed down to the dungeon using the elevator, because there were way too many stairs and I was feeling stressed. I didn’t want to sleep without getting to the bottom of this, also. When I got down to my dungeon which had materials used for torture so gruesome that it made me feel disturbed sometimes, I creaked the door open.

The ambiance of the dungeon was enough to bring out the truth in a lot of people, and it was tested and trusted. The few of them that chose to cover up for someone instead of saving their lives mostly left with a few limbs missing or sometimes even as a corpse. As nice as Eduardo was, he was behind most of the murders here and he doesn’t have an ounce of regret after it probably because he thinks they deserve it, which they most of the time do.

I headed to one of the empty cells which I supposed the lady was in. I supposed her body had been scanned in case there were any weapons, so I opened up the door. She was sitting on the ground, her hands encircling her legs to her chest. She looked so helpless and scared that I was tempted to let her go, but somewhere in me, something protested against that.

“Are you ready to tell me who sent you here?” I crouched down to her level.

Upon closer inspection, I could see the bruises on her face. There was a purple spot on her neck, and a palm mark on her cheek. She looked disheveled, scared and cold. Another temptation to touch her face whooshed by me but I quickly shrugged it off.

“No one sent me here,” her tiny voice murmured. “I was trying to get some fresh air, I told you, when someone chased me and the best option I had was to get into your car boot which was slightly open.” She narrated. 

“Why would someone be chasing you?” I raised a brow. “That place held the most influential people in this city. You would think it would have no room for petty criminals.”

“He is not a criminal,” she turned her gaze to me, looking at me in my eyes for the first time since I came here. “He is my husband’s guard. If he took me back to him, then something worse than this,” she gestured at her face. “Would happen to me.”

My eyes glanced briefly at the bruises again, then back to her sorrowful yet alluring eyes.

“Who is your husband?” I dared to ask.

She looked away, her throat working up and down, “I… I can’t tell you.”

“Why is that?” I pressed further.

“He is going to kill me if he finds out I told anyone about this,” she said, then she quickly turned to face me. “I swear on my life, I don’t have an ulterior motive coming here. What I told you is the truth, and I wished I could prove it to you but I can't, unfortunately.”

“What did you expect when you escaped in someone’s car? Didn’t you think you would fall into worse hands than whoever… this your husband is.” I asked her.

“I did. I weighed the options at the moment, and falling into the hands and staying at the mercy of a stranger seemed better than facing this again.” Her voice broke at the end of her sentence, and I could swear I felt a little bit of humanity twitch in me.

“So what do you want from me now?” I asked. “Does sitting here, in my dungeon, feel more alluring to you than your husband’s place or what?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, then her eyes darted down to the floor slowly. She looked like she was about to cry, which I would hate because I didn’t want things to get weird. I wasn’t a fan of sitting near emotional women, because I would be too stunned to say anything. She looked like she had been through a lot, and perhaps she needed my help.

This was against my rules. I didn’t let strangers in, especially not a beautiful woman like her that could be sent to me as a weapon. I shouldn’t trust her, but for the first time in my life, I was choosing to ignore the voice at the back of my head. I knew if I didn’t help her, the poor girl was probably going to face a situation so terrible and unimaginable.

I have always seen myself as a heartless man, but that, I couldn’t stomach. I would let her stay with me here for a while before she finds something to do, and then she would leave.

“Listen,” I voiced out, and her eyes darted to me almost immediately. “You could stay here for a while, but we should get this straight first. This isn’t your new home or anything.”

She looked surprised at first, then suddenly her eyes lit up as if I had just offered her the world. She threw her hands around my shoulder, taking me by surprise, then planted a little kiss on my lips. I felt like a million galaxies had exploded in me as she leaned back, staring at me so happily and elated. What the fuck just happened to me?

“Thank you so much.” Her eyes were filled with so much gratitude.

It baffled me how the first lady I have ever taken down to my dungeon made me feel something no one has ever made me feel. That felt so… surreal. I tried to push it back to my head as I got up to my feet, and she excitedly did so too. We left the dungeon, and we met a guard of mine standing in front of the door.

I called for his attention, and he rushed towards me, “Yes sir?”

“Take her to an empty bedroom,” I ordered. “Have some guards watch her room also.”

He nodded before they both left, and I dared not take a glance at the lady. I wasn’t stupid. As much as I wanted to help her, my suspicions were not completely clear. I headed upstairs to my room to spend more time with my son, hoping to the Lord that I forgot about what the lady’s touch on my skin ignited in me.