Hunted

3

The sunshine snuck through the curtains and danced on Zora's face waking her up gently. She turned on her back and stretched her body and was quickly reminded of her wounds. Zora sat up maneuvering around her injuries which caused her to sit up with frustration. She walked to the en suite bathroom and got ready while she tried to cause herself any further pain.

Dressed and fully awake Zora walks out the door and towards a slight commotion that was in the living room. The noise lowered when she walked in and several unfamiliar people looked at her. The faces didn't seem friendly as they just stared at her. She walked toward the man sitting in a big red velvety chair with a newspaper shoved in his face. She knew this was Beren by his fingers. She cleared her throat hoping to get his attention. He curled the corner of the newspaper towards him and peeped over the top.

"Good morning." He folded the paper and rested it on his lap. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm good." She paused. " I was.."

"Let me introduce you to some people first." He interrupted as he stood up. Zora turned around to the people sitting on the couches. "This is my wife Esin." He pointed to a thin-framed woman with flowy black hair framing her blank and rigid face. Next, he introduced his daughter Bethany and son Bennett. Both of them with the same dark hair their parents had. The daughter took after the mother's emotionless face while the son smiled and waved at Zora which she returned.

"Beren, I was actually wondering if I could actually talk to you...in private." Bethany and Bennett looked on shocked that Zora called their father by his name.

"Follow me."

They walked down another hallway that Zora was sure that he had never been down. Through two heavy dark wood doors was an office the size of a small apartment. Ceiling-length bookcases lined two walls stopping at a large white window that looked out over a large white pool. In front of the window stood a mahogany desk and a high back leather chair. He sat and motioned for her to begin to talk.

"I am extremely grateful for you saving my life. So I just want to say thank you and while I understand you wanting to me stay here to keep me safe. I can't. Thank you for the offer but I...I just can't."

"You're staying here." His voice flat.

"No!" She yelled back. "I'm not. I don't know you, Beren. I don't know those people in there. I don't know anything that is going on. But I do know you're a dangerous man who walked out of my mother's and my lives."

"Zora!" Her name felt foreign to her ears coming out of his mouth.

"I wasn't asking!" She turned around rushing back thru the doors she entered through.

"Zora!" She heard him roar after her.

She kept going moving further and further from him back by the living room they started at. The people still sitting there watching her zoom pass. She finds the front door and pushes it open only making it a few inches out before tripping on the stairs going down. She braces herself to hit the concrete stairs but instead, she is saved midway by Domenico.

"Are you okay?"

Zora looks up at him straightening herself out and walks away from him tears welling up inside her. After she made it down the rest of the stairs she starts off in a jog to get away from this place she was unaccustomed to.

Her pace slowed down tremendously after what seemed like forever of jogging. She had no idea where she was but the further way she got the better she felt. With no phone she hoped soon she would run into a gas station where she could call her best friend to come to pick her up. She hoped it wouldn't be much longer but all that surrounded her were tall trees and one road with barely any cars to enjoy the wind they brought as they raced past her.

She heard an engine coming in the distance behind her so she moved further away from the road for safety. Unlike the rest of the cars, she could hear it slow down next to her. She moved further away from the road as she looked at the matte black car as it slowed down to a crawl next to her. She worried it was one of her father's men to take her back. She braced herself to get ready to run into the woods. The black-tinted passenger window came down.

"Get in." She contemplated his request. His voice low and unthreatening. "I'm not going to take you back. But you can't be walking on the road like this. It's a little ridiculous and unbelievably dangerous."

She turned towards the car which had stopped. She walked towards the car and reached out to the handle before she stopped.

"How do I know you're telling the truth? You're one of my father's men right? You wouldn't disobey an order." He raised one of his perfectly groomed thick eyebrows and chuckled at her questions.

"I work with your father, not for him." She opens the car door slowly sliding her body into the leather seats.

"With?"

"My family has business with your father." The car quickly speeds up as he starts down the road. "I'm down here to ensure that things move smoothly for when my father steps down and I take over soon."

She looks down at her wounds remembering what happened that night. Remembering his eyes. The green eye she saw before she passed out. She turns to him in confusion.

"But you were there that night. You shot that man."

"When you had called your father we were in the area close by checking on..." His eyes scanned her body before going back to the road. "Something. That's how we got there so quickly."

Putting the pieces together in her head of what her mother had told her of her father and the stories she had heard. Adding on to the recent events. As much as she tried to ignore it or be naive about it she knew who her father was.

"So you're are going to be a head of a family?" She swallowed nervous for the respond.

"De Luca." She could feel his gaze upon her. She suppressed any reaction to the name she just heard. Everyone knew this was one of the most if not the most important family for hundreds of miles. Much more dangerous than her father could ever think to be.

"Oh." That was all she could muster.