Owned? - Chapter 74：A cunning man

Caesar and Nora placed miss Lebberly’s body in the bag and took her out of the room. Many servants had gathered around to see what had happened.

After Caesar and Nora, Arius and I started descending the stairs.

Everyone whispered about what had happened.

My heart was still pounding in my chest.

I glanced at Arius, there were blood splatters on his face and shirt but he walked without any care and with confidence.

He didn’t clean the blood because he wanted everyone to see the consequences of betraying him.

I gulped and sighed as I walked behind him all the way to the first floor.

Nora and Caesar took the body to the car and drove away to get miss Lebberly permanently out of sight.

Arius and I watched them leave from the main castle door, then went back in.

I could see that all the workers were trying to keep themselves low. I guess it does serve as a good reminder that you shouldn’t betray a person from the underworld, especially when he’s a mafian boss.

While no one was ready to approach Arius in his current position, a middle aged maid made her way to him quite elegantly.

She presented him with a hot wet towel to clean the blood from his skin without saying anything.

Arius smiled at her and raised his hand to make a gesture.

The maid made some sign with her hands in reply.

Oh! She’s mute.

“Azalea.” He called my name and I looked at him, “This is Samina. She taught me how to sign.”

“Oh! Nice to meet you.” I got my hand out to shake hers and she happily shook it.

Arius glanced at me, “She’s deaf.”

“Oh!” I panicked and Arius snickered.

“There’s no need to fret. She can read your lips.”

“Oh…”

He wiped the blood off his skin neatly and handed the towel back to her, then raised his hands to ask for something.

She nodded and left.

“Young master.” Another maid approached us, she was younger than me, “Would you like to have lunch?”

“Yes.”

“Please come to the dining hall. We’ll serve it immediately.”

“Okay.” Arius answered and we made our way to have lunch.

It took some time but all the servants started digesting the incident and went back to their usual work.

***

In the evening Arius and I sat in his room waiting for Nora and Caesar to come back.

I sighed deeply remembering the incident from this morning.

It made me feel so bad.

You can never know a person completely.

One can be so dear to you while for another person he or she could be the worst enemy.

“What’s wrong?” Arius asked.

“This morning.” I started, “I really thought you were going to kill her.” I’m glad he didn’t, he just injured her arm, the blood from there splattered on him and he used that as enough evidence.

Although he did have her leave the country. To everybody she’s ever known here except a few people, she was dead.

“I would have killed her if it wasn’t for you.”

I looked at him astonished, “For me?” I honestly didn’t think he’d ever not kill a person for me. He didn’t meet my eyes, “But why?”

“…” He stared out the window at the darkening sky.

“Arius?” I said his name in a playful voice.

He clicked his tongue, “I didn’t want you hating me. Not even the slightest.”

Awww.

My heart melted at his words.

I can’t believe he could ever be this squishy.  I hugged him and kissed his cheek.

He was startled by my action but then smirked and kissed me passionately. Just as things started getting steamy the door banged open revealing Nora and Caesar.

“I knew it!” She yelled and looked at Caesar while pointing her finger at us, “What did I say?! These two sluts would be at it.”

Caesar didn’t say anything just grabbed the door knob and closed the door as if apologizing for the interruption.

“Wait! Come back!” I stood up from the sofa and walked to the door that Nora opened again.

“You sure?” She squinted her eyes at me, “You’re not so busy ‘doing something?’” She made a ‘not impressed’ face at me.

“Come on Nora.” I tried convincing her, “We were waiting for you to return. Did everything go smoothly?” Caesar nodded at my question but Nora didn’t leave the topic.

“A nice way of waiting.” She put her thumbs up and even made Caesar do it.

She was making me feel embarrassed by every sentence, “Waiting while making babies is good too.” She looked at Caesar, “Right?”

Caesar tilted his head, “But Arius doesn’t want babies.” He looked at Nora, “He doesn’t want an heir.”

The words made me feel fuzzy and strange.

I looked back at Arius who didn’t meet my eyes.

“Arius?”

“Hmm?” He kept looking at the table as if it was made of unicorn skin.

“You really don’t want a kid?”

“No.” His answer was simple, short and stern.

I glanced back at Nora and Caesar. Nora was now feeling guilty but it sort of made sense. Back when Macy claimed that she had his child he was more worried about the fact that he had a kid rather than it came from a random woman.

The playful atmosphere was taken over by a heavy one.

I understood why he didn’t want an heir.

He didn’t want the things he went through to be faced by his kid.

But…

His decision was just too sad.

The heavy atmosphere was broken when there was a knock on the door. Caesar opened it and Samina entered the room with dinner.

“You want to eat in the room?” Caesar asked Arius and made his way to the sofa.

“I told her to bring dinner for all of us here along with some wine. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Dinner was mostly quiet. I didn’t quite feel like eating so I just had a glass of wine.

“How far is mount Sephra?” Nora asked.

“From here it’s pretty close.” Arius answered.

“Is it big?”

“It covers a lot of area and people often say it’s like a maze.”

After dinner Caesar took Nora to her room since she wasn’t feeling well. It was a little strange, she was fine until a few moments ago.

Then Arius stood up and started making his way out.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“To clean myself up.” He grinned, “Wanna join me?”

“Yes.” I answered his joke seriously and walked up to him, “Let’s go.”

He wasn’t expecting that and got confused for a few seconds.

“Wait, are you really coming with me?”

“I need to talk to you.” I glanced back at him as I kept walking, “And what better place than the bath?” I felt a bit dizzy but ignored it.

He smirked, “Is that so?”

“Yep.”

I wanted to talk to him about his fears.

Or maybe I wanted to talk to him because of myself.

As I kept walking I felt sleepy again but tried to push it back.

Maybe I got ahead of myself when we became a couple but I really thought about having a family with him.

Was I getting ahead of myself… ?

Suddenly I felt the world spin around me and darkness started getting over me.

Before I fell to the ground Arius caught me in his arms.

“It finally took effect.” He smiled, ” Sleep.” He whispered and I drifted into unconsciousness.