Menacingly✔️

Chapter Thirty-One

"I really don't know what to do with her Mike? She won't talk to be, she won't touch me, she doesn't want to be around me. I just want to know what the hell is going on in her mind. She's afraid, terrified of something and I don't know what the fuck it is. I need to know, I'm worried about her."

"I'm sure she'll come around some time Adriano." Mike replied, trying to make his brother feel better but it was no good.

"It's been a week Mike." That was correct: it had been a full week since that night in Adriano's restaurant when Angela started freaking out. He continued to try and comfort her that night but she kept pulling away, never saying a word. And sometimes during the week, she would try to pretend she was okay but it was no good. She was too shaken up and Derek hadn't even seen her. To say Adriano was worried about her was an understatement; he needed her to tell him what was wrong. He wanted to make it better, no matter what it was.

"Hey you remember you told me about her ex?" Mike's question made Adriano's head shot up to look directly at him, for he knew his younger brother was holding back right now. He looked uncomfortable; he was fidgeting, avoiding eye contact with Adriano.

"Yeah?"Adriano urged him to go on.

"Well I just thought of something but maybe it's a little silly you know. Never mind, forget I said anything-"

"You have to tell me now, even if what you say isn't true. I need something."

"Well..." Mike had a grim expression on his face and was hesitating. "I think something bad happened to her, maybe with him or someone else- I don't know. We were out getting dinner last week after seeing her friend, I told you she was acting a little weird. And I put my hand up to call a waiter for the bill-"

"Mike spit it out already." Adriano just needed to know what the point of this story was now.

"She flinched; she almost jumped out of her seat when I raised my hand, like I was about to hit her or somethin'." Adriano didn't know what to think about what Mike had just told me. After a couple of seconds he had a spark of a memory, one he had almost forgotten. Adriano remembered the night Angela had been trying to close the cupboard door afterward. He put his hand out quickly, she had been sitting on the counter and she flinched, like he was going to hit her. The exact same thing had happened with Mike and it left Adriano with a feeling of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach.

"What's that mean?" Adriano said, sounding quite unsure. He didn't want to have to say it himself, so got Mike to speak instead.

"It means she probably wasn't treated very nicely before, whether it was her ex or not." Mike trailed off, sounding very concerned. He too felt nervous about the whole thing.

Adriano couldn't stop thinking about it, about, her and how she was feeling at that moment. And without even noticing, he thought his whole way through the day and was soon making his way home again to see her.

Angela was chopping up vegetables, getting the dinner ready for her and Adriano. She didn't hear him opening or closing the door behind him. She didn't even hear him walking up towards her as she stood at the kitchen counter. Adriano walked hesitantly behind her.

"Hey." He said gently causing her to leap up in surprise. She immediately turned, holding the knife out to use as a weapon against whoever it was she thought could be behind her. She heart was racing, she gasped loudly but soon her breathing steadied and the room fell into an uncomfortable tension as Adriano's eyes bore into hers. He didn't know what to say, too shocked to even know what to think for a couple of seconds. His eyes were wide but Angela had tried to play down her actions now.

"You scared me." She said meekly, not able to look him in the eye. She chose to focus her eyes on the shoulder of his suit jacket instead. The knife felt heavy in her hand now and because Adriano had still yet to even move from his spot, she turned around and began chopping again. It was too quiet for Angela so she began humming to herself to try and calm her nerves. These past few days had been tough for her, all she could think about was the terrifying thoughts of Derek and how he had haunted her past. It was hard to pretend everything was okay when her thoughts made her want to ground to just swallow her up.