Chapter XXI

After a few hours I woke up again, groggy. I was just about to sit up in bed when I screamed loudly. Damn my hand, I had been leaning on it.

My wrist was slightly swollen and had already taken on an unhealthy color.

I bent it and supported it with the other. Careful not to move my injured hand, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. After carefully washing my face with water, I looked out the window. It was already early in the evening and the sun was about to set. I had slept longer than I thought.

I left the room and made my way to the dining room. I hope I can find something to eat, because I'm dying of hunger. I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and this fake kidnapping has used up all my energy.

I was just about to cross the threshold when I heard two voices coming from another room.

I followed them until I reached the room in question. The door was ajar, so I leaned against the wall and listened to the conversation.

The first voice I recognized was Dante's.

"How could you not warn me?" He asked in an angry tone. "But no, you didn't tell Luca or Marco either!"

"I don't have to justify myself to you, I'm still Don and I do what I think is right."

That sounded like Sergio.

"Father, but why not me? I could have controlled the situation better than Pablo." It was Luca. So the two of them didn't know about it? It doesn't really matter whether they were there or not, it wouldn't have changed anything anyway.

"I would have looked after her." Wait a minute, Luca would have looked after me?

"What do you mean, you would have looked after her. She's my fiancée, if anyone does it, it's me!"

Are they really arguing about who would have looked after me? God, where have I ended up?

"First Marco and now you! Didn't I make it clear to you that she belongs to me!"

Excuse me? He's crazy. What about me being his. I'm not a Ferrari. And what does he actually mean when he says he warned them?

"First of all, stop questioning my decisions!" Towards the end, Sergio got louder and louder. He obviously didn't like the fact that his sons didn't agree with his decision. "And secondly, you two would have just been a nuisance. You can't tell me that you sat here quietly while Guy hit her." I heard glass breaking on the floor.

"He hit her?? I'll kill him. Nobody touches what belongs to me, nobody!" Dante shouted angrily through the whole house.

Guy, that's the name of the attacker. I heard footsteps and quickly ran away from the door. I had just made it into the dining room when I heard Dante's voice again. He was already in the hallway.

"Pablo?...Pablo!!!" he shouted. I listened to his shouting from the dining room in the hallway. "Dante, calm down, you can't change it now anyway. She's fine." Luca now joined Dante, who was walking back and forth in the hallway. "Pablo!"

Oh damn, he's coming closer. I quickly went to the table and sat down on a chair. Damn, what am I going to do now? Dante and Luca came into the dining room.

"Dante, calm down, Pablo can't help it, he just did..." Suddenly Lucca stopped.

The two of them were standing in the doorway. Oh God, I was just sitting here on the chair. I have to do something, somehow distract myself from the fact that I was eavesdropping. Or at least pretend to be doing something. Slowly I heard the footsteps coming closer. Goosebumps spread across the back of my neck and I shivered a little.

Oh, why did I panic so much? I mean, he had screamed so loudly that Ivan in Moscow must have heard him. So he shouldn't be surprised that I had heard it. He didn't have to know that this also applied to the conversation in the room.

I frantically grabbed a water jug to pour myself some and screamed. I let go of the jug again abruptly, spilling some water.

I was so distracted that I grabbed the water with my injured hand.

Dante was standing next to me in a flash and Lucca also moved abruptly behind me.

"What is it? What happened?" Dante's tone was louder than usual from his tirade of anger. I flinched a little at the volume and hissed again at the movements.

I looked up at Dante, who was standing next to me and eyeing me critically.

When his gaze fell on my hand, his expression turned to stone.

"What did you do?" With these words, he sat down next to me and grabbed my hand to inspect it. I suppressed another cry of pain, as his action was more than just jerky.

"I asked you something!" he pressed for an answer.

"I didn't do anything. It's been hurting since I woke up."

Why does he even want to know? I mean, it's not like he's treated me like a human being since I arrived.

"Then why don't you call out to me?" He cleared his throat and added "or someone."

I looked up at him. He sounded worried, although his tone was still cool.

What's wrong with him? I carefully pulled my hand back to me and placed it on top of the good one for support.

"Well, that didn't go well, I was tied up and ..." I couldn't say anything else because he jumped up and looked at me reproachfully.

"You mean since you woke up during the kidnapping? Are you kidding me? I asked you if you were hurt."

Now his tone changed from concerned to stern and he pulled me back by the arm of my chair.

"Get up and go to your room, I'll get a doctor." I felt like a child who was being grounded. Why is he bossing me around? And what are these changing tones of voice for now? Can't he decide on one?

Like a stubborn child, I stayed sitting on my chair and looked straight. He's also the only one who thinks I'm going to jump when he says hop.

"Anastasia, I said NOW" he shouted the last word again and I was frightened.

My gaze darted to Lucca, who just looked at his brother in disbelief. I jumped off the chair and left the room.

What is he thinking? How on earth was he talking to me?

I slammed my bedroom door and went back to bed. Then I took my phone and, carefully so as not to put any strain on my hand, wrote Ivan a short message saying that I was fine and that I missed him terribly.

Not even 15 minutes later, my door opened. I had my eyes slightly closed and was about to fall asleep again. Dante came into the room, followed by a man I didn't know and Luca.

"Hello, Miss Petrova, I'm Giovanni and I'm the family doctor. I'm here to look at your hand."

The man was in his early 40s and already had grey streaks at his temples. He had a small brown suitcase with him and his eyes were bright and friendly.

I nodded and Dante made room for the doctor so that he could sit next to my bed.

"Do you know how this happened?" Giovanni asked me after he put on his gloves.

In response, I just shook my head.

"Okay, that's okay. I'll take a look at them now."