Semua Bab Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance : Bab 101 - Bab 110

There had been too much silence.The type of silence that suppressed the scent of lilac, and failed to soothe it. The type of silence suppresses seconds like choices.Eleanor sat back too, back straight and stubbornly. Her hands—her beautiful hands that had waited at dukes and signed without a shake—broke the deal. They knotted against the corner of the vanity cloth, folded and refolded again, jostled and jockeyed once more.Harrison was tense in the house.He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, a man never asked to yield an inch of space. He hacked half a wall away behind him.And he continued:"You said seventy burned."The voice was thick but the words fell like boulders into water that did not move. Ripples spread out until the air itself was taut as a wire.Eleanor's throat closed up tight. She looked at her arm, once and then again, as though holiness worked into the fabric would clean the skin."That is what the numbers were," she gasped to him, voice weighted in silk. "I took

Lavender soap filled the guest room with its fragrance but the scent nauseated her throat with its bitterness. She was curled on the bed, her fists tightly balled into a hard one as if to even relax for an instant, her entire body would break apart like pieces of fragile glass.Daylight was cruel. It crept through the lace curtains and whitewashed out all the shadows, lighting up every bruise out of darkness, every mark on her body, every memory of the night she wished to cast off like a dried seed pod. She burrowed as small as possible into the blanket around her shoulders, but light always had a way of seeping in.She hadn't slept. She'd tried to close her eyes, ride through the pounding drum of the house waking, but as soon as she'd done it, she'd felt faces — sneering faces, laughing mouths, the instant when pride had been ripped from her among them. The image recurred in revenge, over and over in her brain.Her own heart still pounding too hard, a rabbit trapped in the teeth of h

The corridor of the hallway became silent. Not silent in the way the kind was calm, but silent in the way the tense kind is, due to too many voices simultaneously. Eleanor stayed one beat too long with her hand remaining on the doorframe, and listened for the stifled sound of feet.As soon as she was finally alone in her own bedroom, she shut the door with considerate gentleness — not click, not slam, but soft wood on wood. Slamming would be a confession of nerves. Clicking would be a confession of temper. No, Eleanor confessed nothing.The air closed around her like a trap. It was heavy. Fragrant. Nauseating. The lilacs in the box now wilted and emitted a stifling stench in the heavy air, and she was frightened for the first time that they were perfumed with something rotting, not perfume.She floated into the room on her own haughtiness, the silk fabric whispering over the carpet, but her own step was too clumsy to her own ears. She sat upon the vanity stool and allowed herself to l

Leya – Early Morning Seven was ringing in Leya's head when she woke up. Wrist ached more today, fresh as if the injury had reopened itself overnight. She raised herself slowly, wrapping the meager shawl tighter around her shoulders. The room began to chill, a thin window letting through the thinnest line possible of pale light. Downstairs, the floorboards groaned with life. Blackwood House was stirring. But Leya didn't move. The tea on the side of her last night still remained on the nightstand, a thin sheen of cold over it. She slept alone still for an unusually long time. And then there was the knock. Three knuckles rapping against the wood. Thud. Thud. Thud. The door creaked open by itself. Vivian burst in, stench and cold, rings glinting under the bleak morning light. "Still sleeping?" Vivian's voice was sweet but toxic, silk with a knife beneath. Her eyes scanned Leya's rumpled hair, her pale face. "Already forgotten your duties?" Leya tried to sit up, and her wrist throbb

Leya – Servants' HallHer arms ached with every backward stroke with the mop. Scent of soap clung to her, searing her nostrils. Her bandaged wrist throbbed with every movement, but she didn't quit because she couldn't.Vivian's disapproving voice was still ringing in her head — "If not, I'll have your name in Samuel's ear before dinner."And Leya had swallowed the bitter truth, head between her knees, for she knew the truth of it: Vivian's one word, and her family would be on the street.The floor was burnished with candlelight as she wrung out the mop once more. That was when Eleanor arrived, perfume preceding her like smoke. A crystal glass in her hand.Oh, dear," Eleanor sighed softly, voice honey. "Working through the pain."Leya nodded. "It's my fault, Miss.""Mm." Eleanor leaned in closer. "Let me help."And then — by accident, in error — she knocked the glass over Leya's wrist, wetting the bandage, cutting into it with tiny shreds of melted salt.She seared with pain like fire.