Chapter 162 Worried about him
ELENA'S POV.
~I'm not going to save you because of your love for me but because of mine for you~
Andrey loved me. It was a world shattering admission. Every fiber of my being wanted to light up like a Christmas tree or explode like fireworks. There should have been untold joy and comfort that came from hearing him say those words.
But instead, something cold coiled in my stomach the moment he turned away.
The slam of the front door rattled the walls, too hard, almost inhuman like he had more strength than any normal man should.
However the front door slammed in my face and he left. Andrey was gone. Leaving me cold and shocked, unable to process what just happened. While he might return my feelings, he wasn't here and the viscous rage in his dark eyes had terrified me, even if it wasn't directed at me.
My heart clenched. There had been something feral in that look, wild, raw, barely leashed. I told myself it was just anger… just stress… but some instinct deep inside me whispered danger.
That wonderfully amazing man paid off the debt i owed to the hospital. Even hours after he left, I was still stunned he had done that for me. While I was tearing myself apart with worry, there was some slight consolation in knowing he cared.
Andrey always moved like a man who was used to taking care of things, too used to it. As if he’d been raised to protect, to dominate, to make problems vanish.
Finding out how much Andrey had paid to keep me exclusively for three months was another shock. Five million dollars and he acted like it was nothing. I believed his rage at learning the potion I had received was justified. Luke and Viktor might have been skimming more from the top than I realized.
They would have forced me to continue the contracts until I couldn't open my legs any longer.
My stomach twisted.
If Andrey had truly lost control downstairs, if that rage in his eyes was a warning, I couldn't imagine what he was doing now.
It felt like the whole city trembled with his absence.
Now that Andrey knew the truth and wanted to end the contracts, it was unsettling to think of what he might be doing right now. How was he going to take care of it?. What power did Andrey have as a business man to end the IIllicit contracts?!.
I laughed to myself. It was evident. There was more to that. Andrey was probably a mafia.
A chill prickled the back of my neck.
Probably? No definitely. There was a heaviness about him, an authority that wasn’t learned. It was bred. Born.
Something about him felt… ancient. Not old, but primal.
Living with Andrey for two months and meeting his family, showed me a few glimpses behind the screen wall of the Volkov family. Little things here and there that caught up my attention. It was like a secret in the back of my head that i didn't want to face. Especially when I thought Andrey and I was nothing more than a contract.
I couldn’t explain why the Volkov household sometimes felt charged, almost electric, like energy hummed through the walls.
Or why their arguments sounded like growls.
Or why Andrey’s gaze sometimes glowed faintly in the dark.
Maybe in another life, I would have been afraid of that. In my life before meeting Viktor and signing the first contract. The days when I was young and naive, still clinging to my sense of innocence. That was gone now and I could see through those rose flower glasses.
Andrey Volkov was more than a simple business man. There was more to his Russian background than he let on, but I didn't care. Perhaps I should have. Maybe my love for Andrey one day with get me in trouble.. Although looking at my current situation, maybe it already did.
I was pacing along the wall of the three windows in Andrey's bedroom when my phone on the bedside table rang. Pulling myself away from the open windows, Iooking down on the street from the third floor was difficult. This place had been my post for most of the day as I made call after call and watched like a sentry, waiting for him to come home. But I had to see who was calling incase it was him.
My body felt wound like a spring, vibrating with some instinctual dread I couldn't name.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
"Hello", i answered barely looking at the screen after fumbling with my phone in rush.
"Is he still not home?", Mira's voice filled up my ears and my shoulders dropped. Halfway through the day, I called his aunt to ask if she knew where he was with no luck.
"No he is not, he hasn't returned any of my calls or my texts", The worry was eating me alive. I wanted to crumble onto the floor and pull my hair out.
Mira paused long enough that I imagined her and the other Volkovs pacing too, worried not just about Andrey but about what Andrey might do.
"Antonio is looking for him too. I will call you if we find him", Mira sighed on the other side of the line. I could imagine her rubbing her temple with her perfectly manicured red nails.
Her tone held something sharp, anxious.
"Let me know if he comes home, pretty girl, okay?",
Her thick Russian accent and her soothing matronly voice made me think she was like the aunt I never got. A bond formed between us with the time we spent together after my fall.
I was grateful to have her presence then and her help now.
"I will Mira. Thank you", After hanging up, I couldn't hold the tears back any longer.
Every emotion boiling inside of me came out in an eruption.. A sob wracked my body and i sat on the edge of Andrey's bed to support myself.
The scent of him lingered in the sheets, rich, smoky, masculine. Something earthy beneath it, something wild. I clung to it like a lifeline.
Hot tears poured down my cheeks as I cried. Each breath in was like a fire to my lungs and it hurt to breathe..
~ What are you doing?~
I sobbed holding his pillow to my chest and inhaling his scent for some sense of comfort. Through the open curtains, I watched as the day passed and the sun vanished from the sky. I cried until I was so exhausted, I couldn't stay awake any longer. At some point my crying turned into erratic shudders and sniffles.
The room grew darker. Heavier.
Almost as if the night itself held its breath.
I finally passed out, curled up at Andrey's side on the bed.
My dreams were fraught with nothing more than shadows in my life that haunted me. Right now it felt like they were too many of them. Heavy, viscous nightmare shadows that pressed onto me till I thought I would suffocate in my dreams.
A bang downstairs jerked me from my sleep. The walls shuddered from the force of it. At first I thought it was perhaps a thunder. My sleep hazed eyes glanced at the window, then saw a black sky of dim stars. When I heard heavy footsteps following running upstairs, my heart lept into my throat.
Those footsteps were too strong. Too fast.
Too predatory.
"Andrey", His name clawed it's way to my throat, spewing out in a rush. I shoved myself from the bed, at the same time the bedroom door burst open, slamming against the wall.
The wood cracked.
Not like a normal door, more like it had been hit by something with terrifying strength.
And then he appeared.