𝓦𝓱𝓸𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼

❃ Chapter Twenty Seven - Friend

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Zoe
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I was searching the doors down the hallway, looking for the number of the one apartment in which Jerome's friend lived. When I didn't find it on this floor either, I returned to Xen, waiting patiently by the stairwell. Dressed in that flimsy gown only, she was shivering from head to toe, hugging herself in the hope of some heat, but surely without luck.

My body was already numbed out from the cold, all left of heat inside me being the image of Jerome turning the car on by the wires after he'd broken the window with his elbow. And it actually started from when he manhandled Adriano. There was just something... that made my ovaries twist at the sight of him in casual action. Not the type of action that usually got him injured... more the type of thing you needed fixing and he was there and his biceps and triceps rippled with the movement, just a little bit to awake that raw hunger in someone...

Yeah... that was smoking hot! And momentarily, my only source of heat.

I pulled Xen up the cool, cement steps in the building, heading to the sixth and last floor. I limped up the stairs as she walked normally. Earlier, after we left the car and before we came up here, I had stepped into a piece of glass. After I pulled the glass from my foot, the blood poured how it had from Jerome's wound.

Oh, God, he better have taken care of that wound. That was a nasty wound...

As I looked around, I pulled Xen by the arm, hoping the warmth would increase with the motion. My eyes laced on every door, until it reached exactly the one I was searching for, the one at the end of the hallway.

I rushed Xen after me, stopping right in front of the door. Hoping I wouldn't wake up the neighbors, I pressed my finger on the doorbell, hearing a little chirping sound come from inside. Retracting my finger two seconds later, I waited... and I waited... and I waited.

My brows arched, hope begging in my chest whoever Jerome's friend was, to actually be home!

I pressed the button again, this time for more than just two seconds. I pressed it repetitively, up until I heard a masculine voice come from inside. "I'm fucking coming!"

I took my hand away just as the wooden door was swung open and a man in what must've been his middle or late forties, wearing a bathrobe with some strapped PJ pants appeared in the doorway. He was around Jerome's height, just as muscled, but clearly older from the wrinkles on his figure. His hair was shortly cropped, a golden shade of blonde and his eyes, squinted from tiredness, were the deepest blue I've ever seen. He surely was attractive, but... yeah, definitely not Jerome.

"What the hell do you want at this hour?" He grumbled, not even looking at us as he passed a hand over his face.

"Uhh," I cleared my throat, feeling Xen cower behind me because of his scary appearance. As scary as it was, I refused to stutter, "Jerome Black sent us here."

His brows immediately lifted, messy, golden strands nearly touching his dark brows. He looked at me, then he looked me up and down with those blue peepers. They drifted back to my sister, looking at her the same way he looked at me. Like he was wondering whether we were real.

"I'm sorry... I don't think I got that," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes, "Who sent you here?"

"Jerome Black," I raised the paper with he message Jerome had asked me to give the man. The message was in Spanish and it read, Time to reciprocate, B.

The man rubbed his eyes more as he looked at the paper with furrowed brows. Crumbling the paper in his fist, he dropped his head back and cursed, "That son of a bitch!"