Stuck | 18+

Chapter 60

She knew something was wrong and that he didn't want to share it. Not that he ever did, but in the corner of her heart she wanted to know what bothered him, to find a way to soothe it. It was astounding that her nerves crawled to calm him just anytime he was distressed, different from his normal arrogant demeanor intended to nothing but irritate her. She would be unusually at peace at his bawdy remarks and dirty comments, but when he did not make it, turning distant and quiet, she would immediately tick into agitation, wondering what made him perturbed.   

Her growing feelings for him was an absurd turn of events.  She never wanted it to happen. At the end of the day, no matter what he did for her, he still lived as a hideous criminal, heartless murderer and a ruthless sex trafficker, all the things she could never condemn. If she would have been in the position of telling him to stop his atrocities, she knew, she would have. She'd gone to the extents of excruciating efforts to make him a better man but that's not how things worked down in the underworld. And she was smart to never disclose her hatred for his work, for she knew, for him, it was everything. No matter how much he loved her, he didn't love her more than the smell of money, the trickle of blood.  

He had started building his empire from an age when he didn't even know who he was. Alone and involuntarily independent, it was all he knew. It had given him a life, a meaning to his life. A woman who had entered his life only yesterday could not dictate the future of it.  He'd have reacted wildly unpredictable on her. And under any circumstances she didn't want to be his victim more than she already had. 

And yet her chest hurt when he looked in pain, her throat clogged when he tried to express his enshrined feelings. 

This is miserable, she thought, hating someone, but not quite really, caring but not without a pinch of crawling searing guilt, 

loving but not without the delicacy of beautifully garnered loathing.       

She tried to shrug his thoughts off, aware that they were unending. He was as if a disease she tried desperately to get rid off, an illness she could never be immune to. He degraded her organ by organ, cell by cell, manipulating her brain into thinking that he indeed was the cure, the remedy to himself.  She knew it wasn't true but as far as her body and heart went, it was all but a reality she wasn't yet in terms with. 

When it was past evening, she decided to call it a day. He looked disturbed and disheveled even now, his irritation impinging on the moods of his men. He hadn't looked at her, talking was far from it. 

She remembered just this morning he had ever so lovingly slid the star in her neck, calling her his star. It had made her tingle in all the right places, but the Donavan she now looked at was far from the man who had done that. Maybe, Tara thought, this is how he had lived his life, buried under the files, cursing under his breathe. It was only when he walked out of his dungeon of the office that he allowed himself to look around. 

She sighed, wondering whether he'd even notice that she had gotten up, ready to leave. When she stared at him for longer than a minute did his gaze slowly lift from the paper at hand, watching as she held her laptop bag in her hand. 

"You're leaving?" his voice sounded hoarse from how long he hadn't drank a sip of water, 

"Yeah" she said. Her eyes skimmed on his state in pity before turning to the door. Just as she could open it, she turned back to him, seeing that he had already focused back on his table. 

"When would you come?" She asked softly,

"Don't know" he muttered nonchalantly, not looking up from his pile of complicated paperwork.   

Her gaze narrowed at his ignorance, it was irritating the way he disregarded her presence even through the tiniest miscalculated gesture. In any way, she tried to look past it, not taking it upon her heart before barging out the door, making sure it closed with a thud louder than usual. 

.

.

It was past one am when he slowly creaked the door open to their suite, watching as everything laid in dark including his wife who occupied half of the bed by spreading herself weirdly, holding a pillow under knee, her one leg hanging out of the sheets as she slept in delirium. He heard her snoring lightly. He had caught it several times before, and as stranger as it sounded, just like her, he found it adorable too.

He moved closer, slowly to not make any sound. He knew that he genuinely lacked a shower to wash off the exhaustion but before he could, he wanted to watch her just for another moment. Taking his coat off, he watched her earnestly, appreciating the beauty tied forever to him. 

Would I ever get tired of this?

He would not, he knew. 

It was a recently acquired habit that he returned home looking forward to something, and he had absolutely not idea how was he living before without her. He watched the heave of her back as she breathed as if it was something worth standing for an hour and looked at. The more he watched, deeply he realised that soon she wouldn't be able to sleep carelessly on her stomach as she did now. Her womb would grow bigger to accommodate the future of Frantinos. 

The visuals stood in front of his eyes, his reverie as true as reality- him returning to her in the night as she slept  heedlessly in peace, just with a bigger bump of her belly. He'd lie next to her, stroking her bump, tracing for any movement from the baby and she'd- 

All of a sudden his mind kicked something inside, his body froze at the fleeting wild thought that just crossed his mind. His pupils dilated at it, his pulse quickened. 

Why was Dominic carrying the pen drive in the middle of the day?

It wasn't like he wanted to get caught with it. He obviously didn't want it to be discovered. Then why did he carry it with him? or perhaps,

he didn't.

Someone set him up. 

And by someone...his blood rushed cold in his veins watching Tara as his mind churned with thousand things at a time. 

It couldn't be a mere coincidence that he put a pen drive of such potential in his pocket just on the day he attacked Tara, or can it?

This time he watched her with horror. Even in her angelic sleep and harmless stance, she looked dangerously treacherous to him.

Did she slide it in his pocket to divert the blame?

The dizziness followed after his burgeoning emotions. He took a step back in shock, wondering why hadn't he thought of this before. 

The more he thought about it, the obvious it became. 

As much as he had known Dominic, even if he did  snitch, he wouldn't get caught this stupidly. Her desperation to have Dominic killed could be easily explained if she had planned to cage him in this inescapable trap.

It couldn't be, he kept telling himself, not believing that the innocence he had watched flourishing for so long was capable of causing disasters of this measure.