His Red Right Hand

#6 Change of seen

"Did they arrive?" her voice asked immediately

"Yes, Z. Mia and Romeo are here. Richard is showing them up to their room right now" a hazy voice assured her over her phone.

"Safely?" she pressed.

"Yes, Mija. They arrived here safely. Are you ever going to tell me why you suddenly decided to take up my offer?"

"Things are not safe in Illyria anymore, Tia" Zara sighed, a finger gently tearing at her dry lips. Her eyes flittered around the packed boxes in her living room. "that's all I can tell you right now..."

"I read the newspapers," Tia Lily said after a beat. "You should have come up as well, Zara"

"Soon. Tia, I need to leave now. I'll text you later" Zara said quickly as the moving truck backed up into her driveway.

"Ok, Mija. Take care." Lily said before Zara pocketed the device and walked out to the driveway.

Three men in overalls exited the truck. Two made their way to open the back of the vehicle as one approached her with a paperwork, the name of the moving company etched on his clothing.

Zara frowned, worry seeping into her belly.

"Ms Accardi?" the man asked.

"Yes? What is going on here?" she asked with a hand in her hair and another one at her waist.

"We are here to help you move," the man said awkwardly. He pointed to the name on the truck as well as the slogan that clearly identified them as movers.

"I didn't call any movers, sir," she said softly.

"Well, we got a call that asked us to be here on time to help" he shrugged and handed her the form that backed up what he said.

Zara scanned the document. That was her name and her address but that was not her telephone number and that was definitely not a payment she had authorised.

"Just give me a moment," she told the man who simply shrugged and walked towards his men to explain the situation.

Zara pulled out her phone and dialled the number provided on the document. She held it to her ears as her eyes scanned her neighbourhood.

"Hi, who is this?" she asked as soon as the person picked up the phone.

"You called, shouldn't you know better?" a vaguely familiar voice answered.

"..there seems to be some kind of mix-up. I didn't order a movers truck and according to these documents, it was you who did. So, um.. I'm just calling to let you know so these gentlemen can get the correct address..." she said softly.

"There's no mix-up, Zara. These men will help you move into your new apartment." the voice said, almost bored.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Not as well as I'd like, but we can change that." the man chuckled.

Zara frowned. "Um, well. Ok. Thanks for the hospitality. But I'll pass." without waiting a moment, she hung up the phone and looked down at in confusion.

"Ma'am, have you decided?" the loading man asked.

"...um?" Zara sighed. Why not? It was already paid for, albeit she didn't know who it was from, but..he clearly did? It couldn't be. Surely he had more important things to concern himself with than her life. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that it was none other than the Sinclair. There wasn't a man more invested in her life than that low life.

"Sure, why not?" Zara conceded, her eyes shifting from the mountain of boxes in her home to the help in front of her "You can start with the furniture and then move onto the boxes, yes?"

"Of course, ma'am," the man said. Zara glanced at his name tag.

"Thank you, Ricardo" she smiled.

▪○▪

It was several hours later that Zara found her way into her studio apartment and flopped onto her bed. She watched the boxes and furniture crowd her living space as well as her kitchen and felt loneliness creep into her bones. Never in a million years did she think she would be forced to move out of her family home. But she just couldn't bare to live in the large house all by herself anymore. There were far too many memories lurking there to haunt her. At least with Mia and Romeo, she had a chance of making new ones. The best possible outcome was renting the space out to a lovely family and using the money to pay her rent and send her aunt some money to help out with the twins.

Her next few days would be busy because her OCD would not let her rest until the space was settled into. She never could survive not making space for something she had just bought.

Sighing, Zara switched off the lights to her apartment and tucked herself into her comforter. Turning on her side she unplugged her phone from the charger and was surprised to see a Whatsapp message from Ronan Sinclair.

His unsaved name glared at her through the lock screen.

"Settled in?" it read.

Her mind raced a thousand ways. Where did he get her number? Why is his name on her phone as if she has his contact saved?

Using her Touch ID, Zara opened the application and found his name missing, in its places were his digits and an option to declare it spam. Temptation coiled around her, as her finger hovered over the Spam button.

"Did you leave me on seen or are you thinking of a clever comeback?"

Zara almost dropped her phone in shock. He was online!

"Don't have better things to do?"

"I do, but I'd rather do you."

"You're absolutely appalling."

"I don't think you shared that opinion of me when you all but wrapped yourself around me the other night"

Zara's cheeks flushed.

"You and I both know that you're lying. I was too injured to move."

It was a long five minutes until he replied: "You're right, I confused my dream with reality"

Zara didn't know what to say. His responses were straight out flirtatious, there was no confusing them. But he couldn't possibly mean them, could he? He was just trying to get under her skin. Gosh! Even if he did mean them, there was no way she would ever even consider getting involved in an emotionally disabled man. Zara typed a quick farewell but decided against it. It would be much more infuriating for him to be left of seen.

She exited his chat and resumed her conversations with her siblings and replied to the sporadic texts from her friends, checked her Instagram and Snapchat and lurked on her LinkedIn, looking for any openings that might interest her. Eventually, she switched off her phone and propped open a new book: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.

The Irony.

•▪•

A/N 1.2K? You guys are far too kind! Thank you for all your kind encouragement, I appreciate each and every one of them.

I am a new writer and so inspiration comes to me slowly, I base my female characters on a version of myself I perhaps inspire to be and recently, I haven't been inspired much. What I'm trying to get at is; updates will be slow.

Thank you for your repeated support!