“Please, stop this,” Elena whispered, unable to find her voiceas Anthony’s open smile shuttered, the pleased gleam in his eyes going cold and cruel.
Leon Marchetti was ruining everything. Again!
“How dare you,” Leon snarled at her ear, fist clamping down over her arm as he hauled her straight up from the chair. Swinging Elena around to face him, he bent close to growl in her face. “Him I expect this from, but you, Miss Costanzo? Do you have any idea what this looks like?”
“Two friends enjoying a dinner,” Anthony asked, lazing in his chair with his arm bent over the back. “Under the watchful gaze of her guard, I might add.”
“You will let go of Miss Costanzo,” Jamie ground out, his hand resting on the butt of the revolver at his side as careful fingers caught her arm above her cast. “Right. Now.”
“You call this protecting her,” Leon seethed. His face flushed a fiery amber, spots of warm rose blossoming in his cheeks as he rounded on Jamie. “Letting her traipse around like a common whore?”
“I’m not telling you again, sir. Release Miss Costanzo.”
“Someone needs to teach you a lesson, Miss Costanzo.” Leon made a sound of disgust, and it was only Jamie’s hold on her other arm that kept Elena from toppling to the ground as Leon let go.
The few other diners in the cramped room were staring, both the hotel and catering waitstaff bold with their interest. Humiliation burned through her veins white hot, sending frigid tears down her warming cheeks.
“Get me out of here,” she mumbled to Jamie, dizzy and feeling as if she’d gotten the wind knocked out of her.
Her last chance was gone as Leon turned on his brother, their violent whispers rising to growls and snarls as Jamie half carried Elena from the room. Leon was the first born. He would tell Anthony to have nothing to do with a pariah such as her now. That she’d ruin them along with herself.
Elena knew better than to eat with a man alone, yet she’d defied all the rules to beg Anthony Marchetti for his help. Those same rules that said she was wanton and sullied just by sitting across from him were the ones that had kept her safe in that very spot. Anthony would never have done anything to her.
As soon as they made her room, Elena collapsed onto the bed with her weeping. Unable to stop the flood of misery, she clutched a pillow tight and sobbed into the suffocating down.
“They know you’re here now,” Jamie ground out as he hauled out her suitcase.
“It doesn’t matter,” Elena whimpered, curling up around herself.
“You’ll move to my room. No one knows which one I took.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Elena shrieked, throwing the false comfort of the pillow that reeked of so many others away. “I’m ruined in Marchetti’s eyes. He won’t let Anthony have anything to do with me. There’s no other way!”
“Don’t say that, kid,” Jamie said as he knelt before her, giving her shoulder an awkward pat as Elena continued to sob. “We’ll find something else.”
“It’s not the same, Jamie. I… I don’t know how to exist out there. Nothing I was taught ever prepared me for a life out in your world, do you understand? If I can’t find an Alpha who will take me in, there’s nothing left for me.”
“We’ll find someone.”
“Where?” Elena flung her arms up into the air, despair thick on her tongue as she crawled back up onto the bed to bury her face in the covers. Ashamed of her outburst as much as she was terrified of the future.
“There’s still time, miss. I’ll help you as long as I can, even if I have to teach you a trade myself.”
“I can see it now,” Elena mumbled around a weak laugh that grated through her throat. “An Omega bodyguard.”
“Fine. I’ll give you tonight to wallow in self-pity, buttomorrow we’re working on a real plan. Not pinning all your hopes on that horse’s ass.” Jamie gave her head another awkward pat before stopping before the door. “You lock this up behind me, miss.”
“Yeah, fine,” Elena said, syllables smearing together as exhaustion suddenly stole over her.
Groaning, she flopped her way further up the bed, wondering at the heat working its way through her, shimmering under her skin. As if her mortification from earlier came all in a rush, her entire body lit up as she struggled to be free of the suffocating layers of her clothes. One shoe dangling from her toe, the other tossed somewhere across the room, Elena laid on her back with arms and legs spread wide.
She was so very tired, her efforts having sapped what strength she had left. Despite Jamie’s fears, she knew no one would come pounding on her door save the guard himself. Reasoning she would just close her eyes for a moment before rising to throw the locks, Elena let out a shuddering exhale and settled into the bed.
EIGHT
ELENA
Elena groaned as she was jerked into consciousness, hands fluttering at her sides. Confusion swelled on a green, sticky tide and sucked her into fathomless depths. Her body twisted, a hiss slipping over her lips as a thin line burned the skin of her hip before her entire body jerked once again.
