AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Take it off or I’m going to go find a pair of scissors or a knife to tear it off you!” she yells. My lips part, surprised at how agitated she is.
“Calm down. You need to calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down. Just take off your fucking shirt, Ezra Beaufort!” she snaps, and despite the shitty situation, the corners of my lips twitch as I watch her. As horrible as it sounds, I like hearing her say my name like that.
She narrows her eyes at me and takes a threatening step forward. I sigh, as I resign myself to the fact that she’s determined to see if I'm injured for herself. I have two choices; either take the shirt off and try to brush off the wound, which I doubt she’ll buy, or walk away, which would undoubtedly worsen the situation. Either way, I might end up losing her.
I gulp and start unbuttoning the shirt with my left hand, doing it as slowly as I can. Her eyes are thin slits at this point, but she’s still here. When I undo the last button, I shrug the shirt off.
She gasps when she takes in the bandage wrapped around my upper arm. “What is this, Ezra?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s been taken care of, see? I saw a doctor and everything.” I try to assure her, lifting the arm and smiling through the pain to ease her worries, but her frown just deepens.
“You’ve been to the hospital, and you didn’t think to call me? I should have been there!”
Oh, crap. “I didn’tgoto the hospital.”
“But you just said–”
“A doctor that wasn’t on call.” Kilian. The Morattis’ in-house doctor.
Her eyes go wide. I don’t know what she’s thinking but she runs her hands gently down the bandage, then she opens the Velcro holding it in place and starts unrolling it.
“Charlotte.” I grab her wrist. “Don’t.”
“Don’t even think about stopping me, Ezra. I’m so mad at you right now,” she warns, dragging her wrist away from my hand and then continuing to unroll the bandage. I bite my bottom lip and glance at the ceiling in resignation.
When the bandage is completely unrolled, she folds it neatly, carefully avoiding staring at the wound she has insisted on seeing. When she’s done folding it, she glances at my arm; when she does, she gasps loudly.
I close my eyes as she leans forward to examine my arm closely, studying the point where the bullet had passed through my arm. Thankfully, Killian stitched it up so it’s not as horrible as it was.
“This isn’t a knife wound,” she states, voice a little wobbly. I open my eyes in time to see tears spilling down her face.
My throat closes up, my heart clenching. “Charlie.”
“Did that bastard do this to you?” she whispers through clenched teeth.
“What?”
She glances at me with glassy eyes, her brows furrowed. “I know this is a gunshot wound, Ezra. How would someone working in construction get shot? Someone did this,deliberately.”
“Charlie, I–”
“It was Massimo Moratti, wasn’t it?”
My whole system disrupts. I don’t know when I step forward to grab her upper arms tightly. “How do you know that name? Did he contact you? Did that fucker show up here? I’m going to fucking kill him.” That motherfucking…
“Ezra!”
I glance down to see that I’m grabbing her arms tightly, my nails digging into her flesh. I let her go like I’ve been burned. “I’m sorry, I–” I take a step back, running my left hand through my hair as I try to calm down and think rationally. “When did he contact you?”
“He didn’t. Oh, my God, your arm is bleeding!”
I glance down at my arm to see she’s right. A stitch must’ve gotten loose. Charlie steps forward and demands, “Come with me.”
She grabs my hand and drags me up to the ensuite of our room. She throws the bandage in her hand in the trash and instructs me to sit on the tub ledge while she rummages through the cabinet for the first aid kit. She takes it out. I'm quiet as she cleans off the blood and tries to stave off the bleeding.
“This is going to sting a little,” she whispers as she applies a disinfectant. It hurts like a motherfucker. I ball my hands into a fist, gritting my teeth. Afterwards, she wraps a fresh bandage over my arm.
