The Price of Gold | Fortune's Fool #1

15 | no safety net

warning: scenes of violence

• [ n o  s a f e t y  n e t ] •

♥ louisa ♥

MY HANDS SHOOK as I quickly darted across the bedroom to pick up my white dress from yesterday. I held it up in the air, inspecting what damage had been done to it, and momentarily ignoring the pain I felt everywhere.

The upper right seam had been mercilessly torn apart and one of the strings on the back had been ripped in half. Apart from that, there was very little damage.

"I'll get away with it," I lowly murmured to myself.

Silently, I slipped it on, my eyes searching the familiar wide space of Logan's bedroom. The walls seemed to emptily stare at me and watch my every move; they were flatly covered in black wallpaper to coordinate with the velvet duvet. Logan's house lacked the feelings of a home.

I'd only ever seen his room in two states.

Very precisely organised by his maids or a dangerous mess with broken objects thrown everywhere.

After last night, the scene that lay before me was the latter.

Some shards of glass had sunk deep into the ebony carpet from the cabinet that usually sat in the corner of the room. The bulk of the glass cabinet was tipped to the side, the shape of it fractured from the impact at which it had been thrown last night.

The wooden chair that was usually kept beside the desk had been a victim to Logan's fury too. Three of its broken legs were dotted across his bedrooms, revealing areas of splintered wood, with the fourth leg thrown out of the shattered window.

A brief sight of my reflection in Logan's floor-length mirror brought me out of my daze.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Bruises covered my body, their colour varying from purples to greens to pink. Across my upper thigh and back were a series of scratches and marks where my skin had been broken; a deep red scab had begun forming over them to prevent the blood flow.

Regardless, that was nothing compared to the huge lump that was on my right cheek. The skin was sore and swollen from impact and an ugly, red, huge mound had erupted from it. It seemed to spread up to my right eye, slightly impairing my vision. My mascara seemed to have joined the show too, smudging manically under my eyes from floods of tears.

He's usually careful. He's usually careful about shit like this.

I scrambled for my purse, hoping I'd brought some foundation or concealer to Talisa's party yet I already knew I was trying in vain.

My eyes jumped to the clock.

It was 9.10 and a Sunday.

Logan lived in a pretty secluded area of London, Hampstead, with only a high-end hairdresser and therapist on the street. Surely, I'd be able to get home without anybody picking up on my current disaster of a state.

I'd have called the chauffeur but my phone was dead.

If I kept a low profile with my head down, I should have been able to make it to the bus stop. After four stops, I'd be home.

I knew I was pushing my luck however I was also aware of the horrors I'd have to face if Logan returned from his shower and saw I was still here.

My breath caught in my throat as I picked the least bad of those options and rapidly left his house.

———— 9 hours earlier ————

I sat in complete silence in the passenger seat, trying to shove the lump in my throat away. In all honesty, I didn't mind the heavy sound of nothingness that echoed in the Lamborghini as the thoughts rushing through my head were enough to occupy me.