Her Five Protectors

NINE

Athena does not know why is she so dumb as she finds herself standing in front of Vincenzo's office.

Vincenzo was not present in the dining table for dinner and Athena could not help but feel concern. No-one better than her understands the pain of being hungry or getting starved. Her worried thoughts led her here.

Holding a plate of food, Athena struggles to build up her courage to enter. She forcefully pushes her negative thoughts away and finally knocks.

Vincenzo glances up at the door and then back at his watch. His brothers are not present in the mansion as they went out to finish some pending work of theirs.

"Come in." He says and continues to read through some alliance documents. He looks up and his brows furrows in genuine surprise.

"What are you doing here, Ariana?" He asks her.

Athena lifts the plate of food up slightly like those innocent criminals showing the evidence who have not murdered anyone but got accused.

"Food." She whispers.

"Thank you for your concern, Ariana. However I don't feel hungry, you can take it back." Vincenzo tells her, though internally seeming a little eager to see her reaction. Athena nods her head slightly but gives a sad puppy look to the food on plate.

"Starving is not good....Very bad. Don't feel good." She mumbles in a low and sad tone. But Vincenzo's sharp ears easily picked her words. For some reason, he feels strange. As Athena is about to leave the room, he calls her.

"Wait, Ariana!" He stops her. She looks back at him confused.

"You can settle it down there." He points at the small coffee table in the room. That strange feeling in his chest just increases as a small smile makes its way up on her lips. He has never seen her smiling since the time she came here.

Her face glows and her eyes sparkles a little. It is almost mesmerising.

She sets the food down carefully and without another word, walks out of the room. Vincenzo could not help but make a difference between Ariana and Athena.

Ariana is a sharp, classy yet a hot-headed girl. She is just a wild party animal. Ariana always approached Vincenzo whenever she needed some extra cash and his credit cards for shopping. She was not the one who would usually care if any of her brothers had not eaten due to the work load and stress.

On the other hand, Athena is shy, gentle and soft spoken. The purity reflects on her face. Athena seems to care more about others' well beings. She is not the one who is demanding for anything here. It might be only fear but she obediently follows everything she is told to do.

Athena and Ariana might look alike but their personalities are different.

Next early morning, Athena sits up from the bed frustrated since she could not sleep. There is an uneasiness settled in her stomach and it is making her feel uncomfortable.

Following the routine, she cleans Ariana's room. After that, she takes a shower and dresses up in a cute green sundress. She mostly likes the collection of sundresses which are very few in Ariana's closet. She puts her slippers on and makes her way downstairs, heading straight to the kitchen.

It is early like 4 in the morning and the kitchen is empty. The maids and servants usually starts making breakfast at 7 in the morning. Right now, the kitchen is wholly empty.

The uneasiness and discomfort keeps growing in her stomach with each passing second, so she searches through the cupboard to find something interesting. Suddenly an idea pops in her mind and she shuffles through the cupboards. Finally searching everything, she settles the stuff down and smiles a little before starting the magic.

At sharp 6:45 in the morning, the cooks and maids arrived. Their pupils dilates upon seeing Athena in there. Their jaws touches the ground after seeing the huge amount of freshly baked cookies.

"Here." Athena hands the first tray to them with her cheeks red due to shyness as their whole attention is fixed on her and she is not really used to being stare it.

"Y-you could have told u-us Madame if you wanted to eat cookies." One of the old aged cook said in a shaky tone.

"My name is A-ariana and I wanted to bake." Athena tells them a lie and a truth at the same time, her weird introduction just makes the atmosphere a little awkward.

"These, for you all." She mumbles while pointing at the tray.

"Eat and tell how is it?" She asks in a hopeful tone. Hesitantly, each of them took one. Athena watches them like a scared kitten and her reckless nerves finally eases down as they smile. It looks quite genuine.

"This is amazing." They compliment her truthfully. Athena grins and carefully picks up the second tray.

"Who is it for?" A maid asks her.

"For big guys." She points at the guards through the window. With that, she skips out with a small smile. Baking helps her a lot to wash away every uneasiness and now she feels good.

On the other hand, the maids and cooks looks at each other confused. They had never seen Ariana in kitchen and she never even interacted with the maids or servants of the family excluding the times when she wanted something. Ariana was a bossy girl who liked to order around them but today they all noticed a change. She did changed a lot.

The bodyguards outside stares at Athena like she has grown a second head when she offers them cookies. They remain emotionless though and shake their heads, refusing the sweet offer.

"P-please." Athena whispers. She is still so scared in their presence and she wants nothing but to run away from their sight but she cannot do that. Because the cookies are at sake.

Seeing the fear and sadness on her face, they took the cookies albeit reluctantly. Athena smiles and her sadness vanishes. She looks at them nervously as they take a first bite.

"It tastes amazing!"

"Thank you, Madame!"

"You will make a great cook- I mean you are already so good at everything you do!"

"I can't get enough of it! They are really great!"

Athena beams at their positive and loud criticism.

"Sir Alexander's car is coming." Someone yells out, breaking the harmonious atmosphere. Athena frowns a little as everyone begins to rush towards their respective posts.

The gates open and Alexander's car comes racing inside with full speed. It stops near Athena and with a confused look on his face, Alexander steps out.

"What are you doing here?" He raises his brow.

"Were you planning to runaway again?" He asks and tightly grips her wrist. The tray slips out of her hold and falls. Athena starts to tremble as he looks at her with so much anger in his eyes.

"ANSWER ME!" Athena flinches when he yells at her. He is so scary...Athena cries out in her mind.

"Sir! Madame Ariana was only here so we could try out the cookies she baked." A guard finally musters the courage to intervene.

Alexander raises his brow and continues to look down at her. A single tear slides down her cheek. His anger melts away right there.

He was not mostly angry at Athena. He was angry because a deal did not end well. Without thinking, he just decided to lash out at her.

He releases her wrist out of his painful grip and his eyebrows shoots up in genuine surprise as he looks down at the bruise on it. Her senstive skin was always like this. It always bruises easily.

He also noticed that her hands are also a little burnt while baking. Now he feels like a total asshole. He internally groans and grabs her wrist gently this time.

He drags her inside.

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