CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

          THE REASON SHE HAD CALLED HIM INSTEAD OF THE POLICE WAS UNKNOWN TO HER, BUT SHE HAD DONE IT ANYWAY IN A STATE OF DESPERATION. Her heart palpitated inside of her chest and she thought she might be having a heart attack by the way she felt her body sag against the cabinets. Her breathing was irregular as she watched the pool of blood get bigger and bigger.    

"Lucy?" his voice was firm, but she could barely register it as he sounded so far away from reality. "Where are you?"

The sound of her ragged breaths and suppressed sobs had not gone unnoticed by him as he demanded her whereabouts. The brunette blinked, unsure of how to get the words out as she tried to find the right ones to use. She hiccuped away another sob and pressed a hand in front of her mouth to stop them from spilling.

Droplets of blood slid down her legs slowly from the small cuts.

"I - I ..." she tried, but couldn't get the words out.

"Where are you?" he sounded angry and she flinched at the harshness in his voice. "What the fuck happened?"

Lucy wiped at her face and winched at the tear in her chin from the fall. Her eyes moved towards the glass that was still protruding from her skin and she was too scared to move her limbs because of it.

She felt her stomach churn as she spat onto the floor beside her, wanting to get rid of the taste of his blood in her mouth, which had gone down the sides of her lips. Her nails dug into the palm of her hand as a distraction, but it did not work.

"I'm not going to repeat myself, Lucy. You better tell me where the fuck you are right now."

"Home," she uttered as her gaze fell onto the lifeless body of her landlord once more. "I think ... I think I killed someone."

It was silent on the other end of the line but she could hear the door of a car slam and she let out a shuddering breath, lowering the phone towards the ground. 

Lucy's arms were too heavy to hold it up any longer and she could still hear his voice as he said something else, but she couldn't make anything out. 

The adrenaline was starting to disappear and she felt tired, so tired she couldn't move her own body anymore.

Lucy was going to lose everything. Her job. Her friends. Anything she cared for would be gone and she thought that perhaps this should have killed her too. She was going to jail and rot there in a tiny cell for the rest of her life. What would a gang leader do? He wasn't coming to save her. He didn't care at all and she shouldn't have called him.

Dead. He was actually dead and she had killed him.

Absentmindedly did she brush her fingers over the skin of her calves, legs still pulled up to her chest and she began picking out small splinters of glass in the process. It stung and she held her breath as she got another one out and it fell to the ground. 

The brunette had no idea how long she had been sitting there. The call was still on but it was silent on the other side or perhaps that was because it laid on the floor and she couldn't hear anything. She rested her head on the cabinets behind her and stared at the wall on the other side of the room, numbly.

Only when her door burst open did she flinch again and snapped her eyes towards the living room where she could see his back as he stepped inside. 

The first thing Rio saw as he got to her apartment was the dead body in the middle of the room laying in a pool of blood. There was glass everywhere and it crunched underneath the weight of his shoes. Then he saw the bloody footprints leading towards the kitchen until his eyes fell onto Lucy, who was curled up on the floor covered in blood herself. 

The women met his eyes the moment he had spotted her and she noticed the deep furrow of his brows as he crouched down in front of her. He said nothing as his eyes moved over ever scrape and cut that he could see. When he did open his mouth she could not hear a thing, her ears were still ringing and all she could do was watch his lips move.

"Oh, darling..." he muttered, a gentle hold on her cheek as he moved her face upwards to see the damage on her chin. "What'd he do to you?"

"You're here." she breathed and did not shy away from his touch.

Rio peered back at the dead man in her living room for another moment before his dark eyes found hers again. "Let's get you up, yeah?"

His arm snaked behind her shoulders and the other held onto her waist as he pulled her to her feet with ease. 

Lucy whined out in pain and closed her eyes as she swayed in his grip. Rio sat her down on the kitchen island with her back to the living room and her legs dangled over the sides of it.

The woman watched him as he went through all her cabinets and found the small emergency kit she had. He didn't say anything as he got to his knees before her and took her ankle in his ring clad hand. He found the larger piece of glass in the sole of her foot and met her gaze momentarily as he pulled it out. 

Lucy pursed her lips and grabbed onto his shoulder and squeezed as pain shot up her entire leg.

"I got you, ma." he said and wrapped a bandage around it. 

"M'sorry," she croacked. "I shouldn't have called you."

He clenched his jaw in response as he removed more small pieces from her skin and gently wiped away the blood before bandaged them too. He held onto her calf and looked up at her and the tear on her chin. 

Rio grabbed the counter beside her outer thighs and got back to his feet, towering over her. Pressing a rag to her face with gentle fingers he brushed damp hair away from her face with the other hand.

"Are you going to tell me what happened, Lucy?"

She almost wanted to burst into tears again for how kind he was being to her and she didn't think she deserved it. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. He nodded slowly and kept the cold rag pressed to her face as he lifted it to look for other injuries.

"Am I going to prison?"

"Nah," he reassured her. "i'll take care of it."

"I'm sorry." she repeated. "I don't know why I called you."

He moved the rag over her cheek to get rid of the dried blood there and offered her a slight lift of his lips. "You call me whenever you want, okay? For whatever you need."

Lucy pulled her brows together at that and he reached to her emergency kit to grab a butterfly bandage. Rio held the back of her head as he lifted her face toward the ceiling and skilfully bandaged her chin. 

The woman saw his eyes move towards Richard and back to her so she stuttered, "He's my landlord." The man kept his hand on the back of her head as he met her gaze and nodded for her to continue. "He's been harassing me for months and tonight he - he showed up drunk and ... he kicked down my door."

"He touch you?" 

"Didn't get the chance."

He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and nodded his head slowly and the rage behind his eyes was evident on his face. "You did good calling me. I'll take care of it, don't worry about it."

"Thank you." she sniffed as his hand slid down her head toward the back of her neck. "I didn't know who else to call. I'll make sure to pay you back for this or something -"

"Shh," he shushed her and shook his head. "none of that. Do you have an overnight bag? You ain't stayin' here."

"Uh," she frowned and went to slide off the counter but he stopped her with a firm hand on her arm. "in my closet."

"I got you." he nodded as he squeezed her thigh. "Stay here."

The woman watched as he disappeared down her hallway and towards her bedroom. She could hear him rummaging through her dresser and closet and she did not have time to feel embarrassed as he was most likely going trough her underwear drawer. 

If she were honest she didn't care much at the moment.

Still, she slid from the counter and held in a painful groan as she put pressure on her foot. Lucy was only wearing a shirt too large for her and she couldn't go outside like this. She clung to the counter and scrunched up her face at the ache in her body.

Lucy couldn't leave her apartment like this because anyone could come in at any moment now that her lock was broken and see what she had done.

The brunette heard his footsteps coming down the hall and when he appeared back into her kitchen he had a black duffel bag slung over his shoulder, which seemed pretty stuffed with whatever it was he had thrown in there.

"I have to clean this first -"

"It's already taken care of, ma." he shook his head and set the bag onto the table while holding a pair of black sweatpants in his other hand. When she went to move her head back to her living room he pressed a hand to her cheek and rubbed small circles over her skin with his thumb. "You don't need to look at that, okay. Come on, let's go."

hello lovely people i'm sorry about this horrible chapter. it did not turn out the way i had in mind but here we are... i tried to not make him so less rio in this but i feel like i failed. anyway still hope you enjoyed this.