I rose to my feet, striding out of my office with clammy hands. I didn't know why my blood wouldn't stop burning hot—why my heart wouldn't stop beating fast as I got into the car and ordered my chauffeur to take me to the store.
She was probably trying to get on my nerves like she always did.
But why did I find that so hard to believe?
My brows furrowed at the sight of the commotion outside the store. There was a cop’s van right outside, and the paramedics were waiting at the other end of the road. I bolted out of the car the moment it came to a halt. I marched impatiently toward the entrance.
"We can't let you go in, sir." One of the cops tried to stop me.
"My girl is in there!" I fired. "So I suggest you get your hands off me before I'm forced to do something we both won't like." Ilooked away from him only to see some thugs being led to the van in cuffs.
I raced past him, barging into the store. Everywhere looked like it was turned upside down, as a truck had run right through it.
Some medics in scrubs were huddled at a corner in the store, trying to check something or someone. My heart picked up a faster pace as I strode toward them.
I had never known fear like this, so raw, so thick, so consuming. My heart stopped when I laid eyes on her unconscious frame, sprawled on the floor lifelessly with a gash on the side of her head.
"Get away from her!" I growled, closing in on them.
"You have to calm down. She'll be fine. We just need to get her to the hospital." One of the medics tried to explain.
"I don't care. Give her to me. I'll contact my doctor, and he'll take care of her." My voice was tinged with a foreign emotion—fear.
"We can't move her!" she yelled at me. "If we move her too much, things will grow out of control."
"I—"
"We need to get her to the hospital. Now."
I was like a hawk all through her stay at the hospital. I wouldn't let them get close to her, not until the doctors persuaded me. Even after she was stable, I wasn't willing to let her stay at the hospital anymore. I had her moved to my place, where I could watch her.
She got mugged at the store. She had only gone there to do some shopping, and she left there unconscious, almost dead.
Not long ago, I had to save her from her assailants, who tried to assault her at the alley the night she found out about who I was. I saved her. I didn't let them live. I killed every last one ofthem without remorse. And this time, I wasn't even there to do anything, even when they laid a finger on her.
Anger coursed through my veins, threatening to rip them apart. My jaw clenched so tightly, it hurt as I stared at the bandage wrapped around her temple.
They touched her. They hurt her.
The cops had them in custody, but it was taking all of my restraint not to hunt them down and give them a gruesome death for hurting her. My throat tightened at the thought of what she must have been thinking, how scared she must have been when it all went down.
She looked a lot less pale than she was when I brought her home a few days ago. But seeing her lying there, not glaring at me with those brown eyes or watching me with fascination, she often tried to hide tore me apart.
She was in this position because of me.
Heck, she shouldn't have been around me in the first place. That first night we fucked should have been all there was to our entanglement. I should have let her go; instead, I let my greed consume me. I let my obsession with her cloud my judgment and make me weak. I let those fucking brown eyes tug at my heartstrings.
I didn't have a heart. I wasn't supposed to care. Men with empires never try to have it all. You either have power that could open doors for you or a love that would drive you down the path of destruction. I tried to have both, and it burned me.
Seeing her, lying there, unconsciously cracked something in me, something I had been trying to piece back, but it just couldn't work out. Then it dawned on me. I was attached to her, and that was about to be my downfall.
I couldn't have that.
Her soft, broken whimper snapped me out of my thoughts. I didn't know how I got up from where I was, but I was beside her in no time. Her lashes fluttered open, then a groan left her lips.
"Luca?" she squinted her eyes at me. It took her a while to register her surroundings. "There…there was a man….at the store…."
"Shhh," I cautioned her, helping her sit up and prop the pillows. "How do you feel?"
