Free Web NovelChapter 94: Stay Still
The bedroom door clicked open. Roderick stepped inside, his dark suit perfectly pressed, his expression neutral but this time tinged with worry and impatience.
He stopped two steps from the bed, looking at Salvatore, who was still sitting in the armchair with his phone in his hand.
"Salvatore," Roderick said, his voice a low murmur. "We need to go."
Salvatore didn’t look up from his phone. His thumb flicked across the screen. "Postpone it. We’ll do it another time."
Roderick shifted his weight, his eyes moving from the Don to the bed. Milo remained perfectly still beneath the heavy blankets, his bandaged hands resting limply over his chest.
"Are you going to stay here all day?"
"No. But Andrew said he’ll wake up soon," Salvatore said, his tone flat and non-negotiable. "I don’t want to leave and let him scratch himself. He might panic, and I just don’t want to think about anything else today."
Roderick was already standing by with his phone.
Salvatore finally looked up at Roderick. "Check on Andro. How is he?"
"We’re still holding him," Roderick answered, his face serious. "Are you sure you don’t want to kill him today? The Hartley name still carries weight with the older families down south. It might cause us more problems if we don’t resolve this soon."
Salvatore’s expression hardened. "Not today. Keep him alive. I want to make sure Milo sees him one last time before I blow his head off. He needs to see that the Hartleys can’t touch him anymore."
Roderick let out a short, quiet sigh through his nose. "Up to you. What about Nero? Alben is keeping him. I don’t like the idea. It’s better to kill him right away."
"Let him stay with Alben," Salvatore said, his voice dropping into a harsh tone. "As long as Alben knows what he’s doing with that bastard, I’ll allow it. But I need to make sure he suffers. Nero doesn’t get an easy death."
Roderick looked at Salvatore for a long moment, reading the absolute lack of mercy in his posture, and nodded once. "Understood."
"How is Teo?" Salvatore asked suddenly.
"He just cried quietly," Roderick said. "You know how he normally is. He doesn’t speak much, but with Milo he started talking a lot. I saw him crying all night. It seems he genuinely regrets it."
Salvatore nodded once, his eyes returning to Milo’s pale face. "We’ll see. Let him think about what he’s done."
"And Milo?" Roderick asked, looking at the white bandages around the young man’s ears. "Will he be okay?"
"He just needs a lot of time to recover," Salvatore said. "I’ll check on him myself. Especially over the next three days."
Roderick looked at the dark purple bruises along Milo’s jawline, his expression turning grave. "It looks like it was really bad down there."
Salvatore looked at Milo, and the quiet rage that had consumed him before flared up behind his gray eyes. His jaw clenched tightly. "They treated him like an animal. They tied him down and used itchy powder to torture him."
He looked back at Roderick, his voice cutting like glass. "That is why Nero stays alive in Alben’s house. A bullet is too quick for what he did."
Roderick nodded, understanding the boundary. "Okay. If you need anything, just call me."
"Yes," Salvatore said. "Just check the dock. Gallahan seems to be starting to make a move now that the Hartleys are gone. Watch the borders."
"I’ll handle it," Roderick said, turning and walking out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him without a sound.
Salvatore typed a final command into his phone, locked the screen, and slid the device into his pocket. He stood up from the armchair, his joints popping slightly from hours of stillness.
He walked to the edge of the bed and sat down on the mattress, the bed dipping slightly under his weight.
A low, ragged breath broke the silence of the room.
Milo’s head shifted against the pillow, his brown hair rustling against the linen. His eyelids fluttered, his brow furrowing instantly as his consciousness began to break through the heavy layer of sedatives.
Salvatore was on alert. He waited.
The transition wasn’t smooth. The moment his brain woke up, Milo’s nervous system was flooded with sensory information.
Milo groaned, a tight, choked sound in his throat. He couldn’t hear the quiet room. Inside his head, everything sounded muffled, as if he were underwater, and every small sound—the rustle of the blankets, his own breath—rebounded inside his skull like a loud, distorted echo.
The residual steroid cream inside his ear canals felt thick and heavy, causing a deep, throbbing ache that vibrated straight down into his jaw.
His eyes flew open, his hazel irises wide and completely unfocused with panic. He didn’t see the bedroom walls; his mind was still trapped in the damp, cold squalor of the Hartley basement.
"It’s... it’s burning," Milo gasped, his voice raspy and dry.
He immediately tried to lift his hands to dig his fingers into his ears to stop the deep, internal stinging.
But before his bandaged fingers could reach his face, Salvatore’s large, heavy hands closed around his wrists.
"No," Salvatore said. His voice was a deep, steady rumble, but to Milo’s sensitive eardrums, the sound vibrated inside his head like thunder, distorted and loud.
Milo flinched violently, trying to pull his arms back. He looked up, his blurry vision finally clearing enough to recognize the broad shoulders and the dark suit of the Don sitting over him.
The memory of his last conscious moments before the basement rushed back, the apartment hotel, the fake security guard, and the cold look Salvatore had given him in the office after the photograph vanished.
Milo’s chest tightened with sudden, suffocating terror. He believed he was still a prisoner, that Salvatore was still furious with him over the theft.
"I’m... I’m sorry, Sir," Milo choked out, his throat dry and scraping like sandpaper. He tried to speak louder because he couldn’t hear his own words clearly through the muffled blockage in his ears.
"I... I didn’t steal the box. I didn’t take the photo. Please... don’t kill me."
Salvatore’s expression remained steady, but his grip on Milo’s wrists softened, holding them firmly but without the crushing force from before.
He reached over to the nightstand with his free hand, picking up a glass of fresh water with a flexible straw.
"Drink," Salvatore said, leaning down so Milo could see his lips move in the dim light of the room. freёweɓnovel.com
He slipped his hand behind Milo’s neck, lifting his head slightly off the pillow.
Milo trembled, his lips shaking as he caught the edge of the straw. He drank slowly, the cold liquid soothing the raw tissue of his throat, though the sound of his own swallowing echoed inside his ears like heavy thuds.
Once the glass was back on the table, Salvatore gently pinned Milo’s bandaged hands against the mattress, keeping his weight forward so Milo couldn’t reach his face.
Milo looked up at him through a layer of fresh tears, his body still shaking from the lingering shock.
"I’m sorry, Sir... I didn’t lie to you."
Salvatore let out a slow, heavy sigh. He looked at Milo’s swollen lip and the pink, raw skin along his neck where the chemical had burned through his pores.
The guilt of having used the boy as bait for Teo weighed heavily on his chest.
"No," Salvatore said, speaking clearly and slowly so Milo could follow the words. "It’s not your mistake. It’s mine."
Milo blinked, his pupils still dilated from the medication. He couldn’t fully understand the words through the muffled ringing in his head.
He tried to shift his legs, but his body felt incredibly heavy and unresponsive.
Salvatore didn’t wait for him to process the explanation. He slid his large arm beneath Milo’s shoulders, lifting his upper body off the mattress, and pulled the young man against his chest.
He wrapped his arms around Milo’s back, holding him in a tight, crushing embrace that completely enveloped Milo’s smaller frame.
Milo went rigid at first, his breath catching in his throat. He was entirely exposed beneath the blankets, his skin sensitive to the rough texture of Salvatore’s suit.
But the expected blow didn’t come. Instead, the heavy, solid warmth of Salvatore’s body pressed against him, shielding him from the cold air of the room.
"You might not hear me well today," Salvatore murmured, his breath hot and steady against the skin of Milo’s neck. "But it’s not your fault."
Milo’s fingers twitched against Salvatore’s back, the thick white bandages preventing him from gripping the fabric properly.
The intense pain in his ears and the throbbing welts on his thighs were still there, but the raw, freezing terror of the basement began to dissolve under the weight of the Don’s embrace.
Salvatore’s chest rose and fell against his own in a slow, steady rhythm, forcing Milo’s frantic breathing to match his pace.
Milo couldn’t hear the world outside, and his body was still broken, but as Salvatore held him tighter, pressing his palm flat against Milo’s spine to keep him from moving, Milo closed his eyes.
The scent of tobacco, soap, and soft perfume surrounded him completely.
Had Salvatore forgiven him?
It seemed so, as all day today, the man had cared for him as if he were a patient.
Milo tried to resist when Salvatore undressed him to wash him. He didn’t understand what the man said, but it seemed Salvatore was murmuring impatiently as he held his hands.
"Stay still."
But Milo tried to crawl away.
"No, you’re not going anywhere." Salvatore wasn’t patient, instead of washing Milo on the bed, he lifted the young man and carried him into the bathroom.
