جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 140

The thump of the front door pulled Andre from the depths of sleep and a really hot dream. He stretched and enjoyed the tingles going through his body. He opened his eyes, and they immediately began tracing the thin cracks in the cheap plaster above as he thought of how Cassandra hated it. He sighed.He looked down and saw he'd kicked the sheets off. He also noticed he was at full mast and poking straight up.SHIT!He looked to the door, and a jolt of guilt and fear shot through him. Did she see?Andre desperately didn't want to offend Cassandra. When she took him in two years ago, he'd been in a horrible place in his life, and she'd saved him. He owed her so much, and he needed her! When she let him live with her in her small apartment, he immediately worked on making himself useful to her.He cleaned the apartment, made the meals, did their laundry, and shopped for their groceries. These were skills his last stepmother had trained him to do.His mind tried to shy away from memories o

As their previous home was in the neighboring state, the police contacted local authorities to dig up the garden. In the meantime, they gathered more information from Cassandra about Pietro's wives.Before Leslie, Pietro had been married to Eleanor Vandenstein, Andre's birth mother. Cassandra's memories of her were of a nervous woman, always worrying and never happy. She also didn't bond well with children, even her own. She suffered chronic weakness and ultimately committed suicide when Andre was five and Cassandra was nine. She recalled her father scolding the woman about how poor a mother she was compared to Cassandra's mother, Kira, and how prestigious the Marin family was back in his home country of Georgia compared to the Vandenstein's in America.Cassandra didn't understand then but now realized he was speaking of his wife's family, not his own, the Volkovs. She told the police she had no memories of her own mother as she must have been just a year old when Pietro emigrated to

A little more than ninety minutes after he got home, he heard keys in the door and wandered over to greet her."Seriously, piss off, TJ!""Come on, don't be so cold, bitch."Andre frowned and yanked the door open. Cassandra gripped the handle tight, so she stumbled inside, away from their neighbor and into Andre's arms.He noted the big man had been standing entirely too close to Cassandra. TJ shifted his bleary eyes to look into Andre's dark eyes."Don't call Cassandra a bitch. Don't touch her. Never again. Do you hear me?" Andre growled menacingly as he gently eased his sister behind him.TJ blinked at the rage he saw building in those dark eyes. Even baked as he was, he recognized the threat of the smaller man. It felt like he was facing down a rabid animal, one twitch away from ripping his face off with his teeth! He raised his palms in surrender as he leaned away and stepped back toward his door across the hall."It's cool! Jus' trying to be frien'ly. Shit," TJ grumbled. He never

The halls were emptying as students rushed to their first classes. A few teachers were still standing outside their doors and watched him pass.Mr. Cochrane, his skinny, grey-haired geography teacher, wore a disturbed expression on his flushed face. Andre thought he looked angry or disgusted, but he couldn't be sure. The man glanced at the office worker, then turned to shuffle back into his classroom.At the end of the corridor leading to the front office, in the last doorway, was Mrs. Jäger. She was Andre's math teacher and the physical opposite of Mr. Cochrane. Where he was short, old, and frail, she stood five-foot-eleven in sensible flats with svelte curves and fit muscles. The proportions of her significant breasts suggested surgical assistance. As he passed, she was watching him with an intensity that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He immediately dropped his eyes."Ilsa!" Mrs. Phillips scolded quietly, snapping the tall blonde's eyes to her. She nodded to Phillips and

Back in the ward, Andre listened to hear if the nurse who'd fled was coming back. When she didn't, he did his best to try to forget it ever happened. His skin crawled, and he desperately wanted a shower to clean her touch from his skin.As he moved, his injuries throbbed, and he realized the nurse had forgotten to bring him the pain meds.His mind's internal dialog screamed at him that he deserved this and wasn't worthy of Cassandra.He closed his eyes and prayed she would come to get him soon. He didn't like this place.-=-Cassandra was struggling with her rage as she rode the bus to the hospital. Her piece of shit bank manager had given her a hard time about taking the sick day. He'd kept her on the phone, asking her how she would make up the time she was stealing from the bank. She was proud that she'd been able to keep her voice steady as she listed off the times when he and others at the branch had extended their lunch period, arrived late, or not at all. At the same time, she w