SACRIFICE | MAFIA ROMANCE | SMUT

CHAPTER TWELVE

Disembodied footsteps thudded around me. I felt a soft, warm hand knead aback my neck before two muscular arms elevated me off the ground.

Rousing to the sound of wearied, murmuring words, I pressed my cheek to my keeper's chest, oddly embracing his closeness.

"Alexa," Jace rasped in my ear, lips brushing my lobe, "I need you to open your eyes."

I smelt a night of vodka on his breath. Nose wrinkling, I licked my dry lips, unquenchable thirst thickening my throat. "My head hurts."

He positioned me on something cold, gently placing my back to a wall.

I lazily opened my eyes, hands numb, rested on the kitchen counter.

Jace dipped his head. Through sad, red brimmed eyes, his studious concern flickered over my twisted features. "Shit," he murmurs, cupping a hand to his mouth. "Let me clean you up."

Eyebrows snapping together in bafflement, I evaluated our previous disarray. He's yet to clean the aftermath of our shambolic altercation. Broken bottles, glass and that hideous lace mar the wooden floor alongside overturned furniture and damaged picturesque canvases. "What happened to the ocean?" I croaked, scrutinising the paintings impaired four corners and ruptured art.

Jace stayed tight-lipped, drenching a hand towel with cold water. He inspected the scratches on my thighs, checked for glass shards and cleaned painless wounds attentively.

Breathing out an alleviated breath, I swallowed to satiate thirst, examining his inflamed, busted knuckles. "What happened to your hands?"

His fingers tightened around the cloth. "I got mad." Leaving me on the counter, he meandered between overturned disruption and returned with a leather satchel. He individually organised medical equipment beside me. "Here." He handed me an unopened vodka bottle. "Get some of this down you."

Confusion weighed worryingly on my chest. "Why?" In a careful, guarded manner, he pressed a cold compress beneath my eye, and excruciating pain zapped through me, right to the bone. "Holy shit," I shrieked, whacking his hand away, noting fresh blood on the cloth. "Jace..."

"Lid-cheek," he said tightly, biting his lower lip. "You need stitches."

I am confident that I paled. "Please tell me that you're joking," I argued, touching my raw flesh with analytic fingertips. Blood dampens my fingers, too much blood. "I'm going to be sick."

"No," he protests, unscrewing the vodka, cajoling me to drink. "Get it down you."

Nausea pirouettes in my stomach. "No, Jace. I am seriously going to vomit—" I dry-heaved, shoulders hunching forward. I bury my head in the sink, retching nothing but bile-tasting saliva.

Jace rubbed my back, dabbing dribble from my lips and chin. "You need to drink vodka."

Puffing out a regrouping breath, I set the bottle to my lips, guzzling ferocious dauntlessness. "Will it scar?" I asked, using the back of my hand to wipe my mouth. "I don't want any needles."

"I don't know," he answered honestly, preparing and snipping adhesive strips. "And I am not using a needle, Alexa. I do need to close the cut, though."

I wriggled my clammy fingers, rubbing them on the ruined purple dress. "Thank God."

Jace washed his hands, snapped on a pair of sterile gloves and pinched the hollowness beneath my eye.

Hissing through gritted teeth, I straightened, closing my eyes as he applied strips. "Why do you stockpile gloves?" I wondered aloud, downing another vodka shot. "It's weird."