MasukShare
7
Terakhir Diperbarui:
2025-04-24 08:47:28
Bab terbaru
The Vision She Hid 125
By the third morning my childhood house had learned our breathing. Old timber does that, if it likes you—it eases the groan out of stairs you take too often, and lets doors you shouldn’t open close in silence. The olives in the courtyard made their slow green gossip in the breeze and the fountain tapped its patient knuckles against the warm stone, counting time like a polite creditor. In the guest room just off my father’s library, the air had the clean, mean smell of antiseptic sitting on top of books and leather.Elky’s face was getting color back, which is to say he looked less like a statue about to reveal a miracle and more like a sinner who’d found a comfy chair. The bandage under his shirt pulled when he breathed, a tidy rectangle of pain that insisted on good posture. He had accepted it the way he accepts everything he can’t outsmart: with a grunt, a joke, and the quiet fury of a guy who knows biology charges interest if neglected.The grumpy family doctor—Theo Karamannis, our
The Vision She Hid 124
Christofides family doctor had the bedside manner of a traffic warden and the hands of a locksmith. He was small, square guy in signature thick glasses that always looked as if they were disappointed in him. He came in and rolled his sleeves with the same emotion other men reserve for washing their socks. The guy’s name was Dr. Theo Karamannis but everyone called him “Doc” the way people call storms “bad weather” as if the term covers it.He’d been stitching men like Elky since bullets were invented or just shortly after that. He tutted at the wound, then threaded the needle like a priest loading a sermon. The room smelled of iodine, leather, and that particular aftertaste of adrenaline that sits on the teeth and counts your sins.We were in a side room off my father’s library, the one with the deep green walls and the view of the olives in the courtyard. A reading lamp leaned over the makeshift surgical tray. The rain had decided to take the night off, and the windowpane wore the ci
The Vision She Hid 123
The chandelier had finally stopped fidgeting. It hung there like a veteran who’d learned better than to flinch at loud noises. My best friend in the room, a dusty crown of dim bulbs thinking about sainthood. The oak table below it now looked like a butcher’s conscience—cleaned in a hurry, not that convincingly. Blood sat in the seams where the wood joined, a stubborn punctuation telling the rushed sentences to mind their manners. Someone had wiped the surface with linen that used to be white and now had a future as vital evidence. The survived elders of Jennings clan leaned around that table the way old vines lean on a fence: too frightened to stand for themselves, too proud to climb under it.My father lifted his hands, palms out, the international sign for I come in peace and also for Don’t shoot the man you may need to clean your mess. The room eased, the way a sore jaw eases when the dentist finally stops talking about flossing. Even the smoke took a breath. Nicos could calm a rio
The Vision She Hid 122
The chandelier had decided to reenact the fall of a minor empire. It swung over the council table with the grim dignity of a tired monarch, throwing dice of light across the oak. The table wore blood like a bad necktie—too loud, too fresh, and impossible to forget. It had been polished in the morning by a woman with chapped hands and good posture. Now it was tacky to the touch, recording fingerprints for vigilant criminal investigators.The room smelled like stale cigars, cold brass, and the kind of fear you feel after a shoot out. The semi-alive elders leaned in their chairs with the theatrical weariness of men who mistaken for ruins. Their cuff links glinted as if the jewelry had the right to vote in their places. Someone had dropped a whiskey glass in the confusion and a lone cube of ice was on a slow tour across the floor, melting like it was desperate to disappear from there.Elky stood half a step from my shoulder, all usual angles, the kind of man who could lean against air and
The Vision She Hid 121
Eventually things got quieter, as they usually do on such occasions. The yellowish smoke that lingered had the personality of a mad uncle—loud dressed, overstaying, and smelling like the wrong decade. It clung to the chandelier, which still swung lazily over the long oak table, but was considering early retirement. Blood was still drying on the wood, tacky and dark, the kind that remembered the noise it came with. Chairs sat still but crooked, a stack of old men in expensive suits wore the same crookedness in their backs, and the air hummed with that post-battle tinnitus that reminds you your nerves are still there.I’d washed my hands and that sickening smell wouldn’t go away, that’s for sure. I felt the blood ghosting my fingers, a memory my skin couldn’t get rid of. Big Elky stood near the head of the table, shoulders soft the way cats look soft—until you feel the claws. On the wall behind him, a map of territories and routes had slid askew. Someone had punched a hole clean throug
The Vision She Hid 120
The chandelier swayed first. Not the polite shimmy it usually does when men argue too loud, but a full shudder, crystals clinking like mean gossipers trying to outrun the truth. At first I thought it was nerves in the rafters—then the rumble followed. The sound of V5 engines outside, low and hungry. The kind of engines that don’t do idle; they lurk.The long-awaited verdict never came. The gavel in puffy manicured hand with age spots froze halfway down. Then the windows shattered, a burst of light and noise came in so fast it felt like God had gotten drunk and emptied his ashtray on us. Automatic fire tore through the stained glass window—saints, angels, and devils all shredded into a rain of colored shards. The saints fell hardest and shattered in smallest pieces. They always do.The room detonated in chaos. Elders dove under the thick oak table, the same table where they’d been weighing human lives like pork bellies just some ten seconds ago. Now they all cowered like timid schoolbo
Anda juga akan menyukai
Mafia Lord's Innocent Bride
Rabia Sajal Niazi104.9K DibacaMy Mafia Husband
Rashmi Agrawal149.8K DibacaMafia Vengeance
KATHLEEN HAYAT169.1K DibacaHis Betrothed
Taniya Ashley205.9K DibacaIn Bed with a Ruthless Kidnapper Mafia
Ledisia Agler567 DibacaMafia's Captive Desire
Mk Ãy443 DibacaReckless Hearts
Val Sims18.8K DibacaTO HATE, TO TOUCH, TO RUIN
Krystal Bahmz713 Dibaca
