𝙳𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝 | 𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝟷

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢

𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎

☆═━┈┈━═☆

Three hours later, I was walking into the building with my friends behind me.

Elena and Juliana said they would go up to Sofia's apartment and stay there with her just so she wasn't alone. Logan had disappeared shortly after Sofia left the gala and had never returned. So when I saw him sitting in the lobby, I was ready to lay him out flat on the tiled floor. We were never raised to put our hands on women, and the fact that Logan decided to bruise Sofia made my blood boil. With Elena and Juliana stumbling into the elevator, it left us in the lobby with just the sorry excuse that was my brother.

"Why the fuck are you here?"

The words that tumbled out of my mouth made his spine stiffen, turning so he could look at me. I wish I could say I was taken aback, but his puffy eyes and red nose did nothing to make me feel bad for him. "I just want to talk to her. Tell her I'm sorry, I shouldn't of done what I did."

"Get the fuck out," Bucky's voice surprised even me, I didn't think he would ever come to Sofia's defense, but no matter how much he despised Sofia, he wouldn't let someone other than us scare her. "Go, I'll take care of it."

I just nodded, too tired to argue with my brother. I pulled out my key card, scanning it against the elevator and climbing in, hitting the up button. I was so ready to just go to bed, to take a much needed shower and climb into bed with no reason to be up early. I leaned back against the metal wall, the cooling feeling soothing the anger that flickered in my chest. The dinging of the elevator made me peel my eyes open, the city lights illuminating my house in a golden glow. I kicked off my shoes by the counter, unbuttoning my pants as I climbed the stairs to my loft.

And then I froze, because in the middle of my bed laid Sofia, her chest rising and falling slowly.

She wore my sweatshirt, the gray material swallowing her, the hood hiding half of her face. Everything was starting to make sense, Logan had access to every apartment in this complex, all but mine. Sofia chose her safety over kindness, and she found safety in my home. As I walked around to pull the sheets over her, I noticed the empty bottle of vodka. Vodka that was full when I left two days ago. She had drank the entire bottle.

My heart started to hammer, she hadn't eaten anything, I needed to get her up and get food into her so she wasn't puking on an empty stomach. I sat on the edge of the bed, carefully lifting Sofia into my lap, "Fia," I pushed the hood off her head, a groan leaving her lips when the city lights sparkled against her face, "you need to wake up baby, I need you to eat something." Another groan left her lips, her head rolling into my shoulder. "C'mon baby," I sat her up more, her green eyes slowly opening, "how much did you drink?"

"I'll pay you back," her words were slurred, eyes falling shut once more, "he followed me and I was scared, so I ran away."

She ran from her brain is what she was trying to tell me. "I don't want you to pay me back," that made her eyes open again, a cold hand coming up to play with my bottom lip when I spoke, "if I take you downstairs you'll be able to eat something?" When she nodded, I shifted her so her legs were on either side of my hips, lifting her up to walk towards my kitchen, her arms held me tightly, her hands locked together on the back of my neck.

"The ring," Sofia whispered, tired words filling the space, "it's not in any of our collections, you had it made."

"I did." I flicked the light on before setting her on the barstool, turning to grab a glass for water, filling it up before pushing it in front of her, "drink."