Chapter 5
He snarls mischievously at me, making my gut wrench in a horrible way.
"Nice to see you, Xanthe," He smiles, his eyes roaming my body.
Here we go, people. Meet my stepdad.
He's still giving me those perverted looks.
He's Xena and I's stepdad, and Tristan's real dad, he married mom weeks after dad passed away.
He was mom's boss, so they'd been having an affair way before dad had died, which is why I always hated this son of a bitch.
I vaguely remember him also forcing my mother into the marriage, which makes him all the more heinous.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, looking around to see two men standing on each side of the room as if guarding the place.
A man was sat next to him on the sofa, probably the other guy he was laughing with earlier in that disgusting way of his.
"I own this place, baby," He smirks, getting up and walking towards us.
Out of fear, I take a step back, and Arsen takes a step in front of me.
I'm surprised at this slight action, but I keep the shock to myself.
"What do you want?" Arsen growls, and Antonio snaps his head towards Arsen.
Antonio's very bulky and...fat, which makes him ten times shorter than Arsen who's way stronger than this idiotic wimp.
"If you're in my building, then you don't talk to me like that, got it? I want the girl," Antonio growls in an answer. Arsen clenches his jaw, and I look down to see his left fist clenched tightly.
Oh, no, Arsen, please don't punch him or he'll never let you get away with it...
I keep on repeating 'please don't' in my head until Arsen speaks up again.
"This is between us two, Antonio, not you and her. And I don't take orders from you," He says, his voice going scarily deep and colder than before.
A shiver runs up my spine.
"She's under my wing, Reed, I have every right to do what I want with her," Antonio hisses, and Arsen glares at him intensely, his fiery, amber eyes burning into him.
"Antonio, you have no rights over her because you're not her biological father. We both know that. If you want her back, I suggest you bring your undermined wife with you," Arsen says calmly, and Antonio immediately tenses, his eyes going red from fury.
"Don't you dare talk about Melissa like that, you fucktard!" He yells so loud that I jump.
God, I forgot just how scary he was.
Arsen, on the other hand, doesn't look fazed even a bit.
Instead of getting scared, he just shrugs.
"If I wanted to say something nice about Melissa, Antonio, I'd go and kill myself. If she hadn't met you, then maybe her heart wouldn't have rotted over like your sorry one, so unless you're picking a fight right now, get over her!" He snarls, pointing at me when saying the latter word.
I appreciate his act towards protection, but I'm not sure I appreciate his choice of words. 'Her' has a name, after all.
After saying what he did, he grabs my arm. And just as he's about to pull me out, Antonio yanks my other hand, causing me to yelp in pain.
That actually hurt, a lot. As if somebody had dislocated my shoulder.
Arsen pauses and turns around to see my other hand being pulled by Antonio's.
I try to wriggle out of his sticky and sweaty fingers, but it's no use, and I can feel my stomach churning with disgust.
I look over at Arsen with fear and disgust in my eyes, and our eyes meet for a millisecond before he looks away abruptly, something flashing through them.
"Let go of her," Arsen snarls, and Antonio just smirks at me with a creepy glint in his eyes.
"Let go of me, you sick bastard," I hiss, and everyone in the room looks at me as if I just said my first words. Which I kind of did, in a way.
Arsen's grip tightens on my wrist.
"No, baby," Antonio laughs disgustingly, and I give him the dirtiest look I can muster.
"Stop calling me that, you pervert," I cry, and Antonio's cackling stops, turning into a scowl.
My heart drops.
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" He shouts, yanking my arm so hard that even Arsen jerks forward a little. I cry out in pain.
Oh boy, this hurts way worse than it would be watching a Hello Kitty marathon. And I hate Hello Kitty.
Right, that's it, time to make a move.
I glare at him intensely. He looks at me and smirks.
"What, baby?" He asks, and that was the final piece to the puzzle to unleash my fury and rage.
I bring my right knee up and kick him in the balls as hard as I can, making him let go of my hand immediately and bend over, groaning in pain.
His servants come rushing up to him, and before any of them can make a move, Arsen tugs on my hand and we both start to run.
We run as fast as we can until we're back at the entrance, and we don't stop until we get to the cars.
"What happened? Are you guys alright?" Ameena calls, coming up to us.
She inspects Arsen for injuries, and then me.
I give her a small smile.
"You're not gonna kiss me, are you?" I ask, and Ameena immediately pushes me away by the face, snorting.
"I wouldn't even hug you," She states, and after she rolls her eyes, she laughs, causing me to laugh, because her laugh is very contagious.
But Arsen comes and ruins the fun, by pulling me away from her harshly.
"We don't have time. Get in the car, turn all your devices off, and drive out of here. Xanthe, with me." Arsen commands firmly to us all.
I'm surprised he's not out of breath from that run, because I, on the other hand, am pretty sure I died twice.
I quickly follow him to his Jaguar and crawl in, putting on my seatbelt and thanking the Lord that I didn't bring my phone.
"Ready?" Arsen asks as the others drive off. I look over at him, confused.
"For what?" I ask back, and he just raises his eyebrows, making my stomach go fuzzy.
"For this." He mutters and starts his car.
Before I can protest, or do anything, Arsen hits his gas pedal and in a swift movement, he turns his steering-wheel all the way around, and the car spins as fast as lightning, making me scream.
Before the feeling hits my stomach and causes me to laugh uncontrollably, putting aside the fact that I could die right now.
Everything blurs as Arsen does another drift and before I know it, we're on the main road and driving a number above the speed limit.
I take a deep breath, wanting to feel that tingling feeling in my stomach again, and smile.
"That was awesome! Where'd you learn to do that? Can you teach me?" I ask the last question shyly, bearing in mind that I'm still the kidnapped victim.
"No, Xanthe, I can't. I don't have a spare car and I'm not lending you this one," He says.
When he looks at me, I sigh, raising my eyebrows.
"Fine. But where did you learn to do it?" I ask, and he shrugs.
"I used to be a track racer," He answers coldly as if it's the most normal thing in the world.
Trust me, though, it's not. It's the coolest thing ever! Is there anything he can't do?!
"Used to be?" I ask. He nods, his jaw clenching and unclenching in a mesmerizing kind of way.
"I stopped right after my dad died." He tells me coldly, his eyes guarded and expressionless. I can't tell if he's sad, happy or disappointed.
I think back to yesterday night, and I remember all the pictures of him and his dad.
"Were you close to your dad?" I ask softly. Arsen looks away from my direction but doesn't speak.
The rest of the drive is in silence. I don't ask any more questions, even though there's so many waiting to spill out of my mouth. I just let it be silent. It's nurturing.
Once we reach home, I take my seatbelt off, and I'm about to get out when I notice Arsen not making a move to leave. I look at him curiously.
"You coming?" I ask. He looks at me and raises one of his eyebrows.
To be honest, his right eyebrow is always up. Almost as if he were born like that.
"I have somewhere to go," He answers coldly, looking into my eyes longer than he ever has before.
My cheeks immediately flush from the beauty of his gorgeous, glowing amber eyes.
I close the door after getting out.
As I'm walking back into the house, I turn to see if he's still there.
In a romantic movie, at this point, the guy waits for the girl to walk inside the house and make sure she's safe, then he drives off.
Unfortunately, for hopeless-romantics, my situation was nothing alike. Because when I turned, he wasn't there.
His car had sped off in the amount of time it had taken me to get to the front doors.
I still hate him. It's not like I wanted him to wait for me, this isn't even my house, and he kidnapped me, for Christ's sake!
And that quote; 'When the girl looks back at you, it's obvious she wants you to look back too' is complete bullshit. I remember Xena telling me this from a show she was watching.
I mean, I don't like him like that. My heart isn't yearning for him. It's only got space for my sister. There's no room for anybody else.
Maybe, quite possibly, Ameena, because she technically hasn't done anything wrong. But not anyone else.
As I walk into the house, I feel a sudden pull at my heartstrings.
But you wanted him to look back, didn't you?
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1709 words.
Don't worry, there's more where that came from, and after the next chapter or two, everything's going to be way better...and I'm saying this after having written the next two chapters, and the many after that.
Lol, don't lose hope in this book just yet, guys! And remember...
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