“Massimo?” I called out to him in a groggy voice but frowned when I reached around me and found myself to be sleeping alone in bed.
A quick glance at my phone through sleep heavy, squinting eyes told me that it was a few minutes before half one in the morning. It was about the time Massimo said he would be here and almost immediately, my lips turned up at the corners.
There was a sleepy, gleeful grin on my face as I threw back my sheets and swung my legs out of bed. As it was just Massimo and I hoped that it would be an incentive for some mind-blowing sex before we went to sleep – or in my back, went back to sleep – I didn’t bother pulling on some pants as I walked into the living room. Instead, I remained dressed in only the oversized shirt I wore to bed, wearing nothing underneath.
As soon as I opened my bedroom door, I knew something was wrong. Something was off, and it certainly didn’t feel like it was Massimo in the apartment.
Forget Massimo! It didn’t feel like the person in the apartment was anyone familiar.
My breath hitched in my throat as I stood in the doorway of my bedroom, gazing into the dark living room. I could only make out the outline of things as my eyes spanned the room, looking for the possible someone that I had heard moving about earlier when I was in bed.
There was no one sitting on the sofa. The TV was still off from how I had left it. The kitchen was clean, and everything was put away. The lights were sill off. Everything was in its place and as it should be. Everything but one thing.
The apartment door was open. Not wide open, only a sliver open, but still open, nonetheless. The dim light from the hallway peaked through and lighted up the area by the door, but I couldn’t remember leaving it open.
I specifically remembered offering to leave it unlocked for Massimo so he could just let himself in, but he had declined, so I hadn’t bothered. Instead, I had left it closed and locked for him to pick the lock as he wished, but I knew this wasn’t Massimo’s doing.
Massimo wouldn’t try to scare me like this. Not when he could be cuddling in bed instead. He was far too serious and mature for something as childish as making it look like someone had broken into my apartment to scare me.
A few moments of silence had passed, and I was convinced that there was no one in the apartment with me. Nothing looked out of place, nothing moved, despite me calling out for them to reveal themselves to me on several occasions. Not that I expected an intruder to actually fall for that in the first place.
Perhaps it had all been a figment of my imagination…but then that wouldn’t explain why my apartment door was still open.
I had two options here. Retreat back into me bedroom and lock the door or do that after I locked the apartment door. Massimo said he would drop by around this time so it couldn’t be long until he arrived, and then I would be back to feeling safe. But sitting in my room, locked and scared didn’t sit right with me knowing that my apartment door would be open, and anyone could just walk in and out of it as they pleased. Or perhaps, the person who had been here in the first place – the same person that had left the front door open – could return.
And then I’d truly be in trouble.
My mind was reeling, and my heart was thumping quick as I took a tentative step out of my bedroom and into the apartment. I glanced left and right, but still couldn’t spot anything in the darkness.
Quick to rid myself of it, I slapped my hand against the wall to my right a few times until I successfully pressed the button. The room came to life as light engulfed it, and I kept my fingers tight around the door handle in case I needed to rush back into my room for safety.
“Hello?” I called out, frantically turning my head in all directions as I glanced around my small apartment, but even in the light, nothing seemed out of place. There didn’t seem to be anyone here either. “I’ve got a knife on me, and I’m not afraid to use it,” I fibbed, and then an idea sprang to mind.
Do I grab a knife from the kitchen on the way to protect myself, or was that too risky? Would that be a waste of valuable seconds, and would I come to regret it later? Or would I regret not grabbing a weapon if – or possibly when – the intruder returned?
Was there even a need to protect myself since it didn’t seem like anyone was here?
Was I imagining things? Had there really been someone in my apartment with me, or was my mind playing tricks on me?
Regardless of the answer, I was too spooked to take any chances. Gulping down a deep breath, I took another tentative step forward, and was quick to follow it up with another one quickly after that. My head was turning in all directions, surveying the apartment and my surroundings, but there was nothing out of place. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears as I rushed to the door and slammed it shut. I turned the knob and locked the door.
Immediately, I felt so much safer. Releasing a heavy sigh of relief, I turned around and pressed my back to the door.
And then the lights went off again.
A sharp scream escaped me as I blinked in the darkness, needing a few moments to get used to it.
“Who’s there?” I called out in the dark, trying to regulate my breathing. Alerting the intruder that I was scared would only give them the upper hand. “Don’t be a coward! Reveal yourself to me!”
“Coward?” an unfamiliar voice snorted before they chuckled, clearly taking great humour in the situation. “For how terrified you are right now, it’s bold of you to call me a coward,” the man snorted. Judging from the sound of his voice, I could tell that he wasn’t far from me and when I strained my eyes, I could make out the dark figure of him stood a few feet from me, leaning casually against the kitchen counter as if he owned the place.
“I’m not scared of you,” I was quick to deny even though terrified was exactly how I was feeling right now.
If my heart started beating any faster, I was sure that I would suffer from a heart attack. Call me a coward, but I had never been in such a situation before and all that I had to go off of were the blonde bimbos in all those horror movies that were stupid enough to get themselves killed.
While I may be blonde, I refused to be stupid and I most certainly refused to allow this man, whoever he was, to kill me.
I had far too much life left to live. I had a degree to finish, and then a possible masters to pursue before I became the best possible journalist and article writer that I could be.
My eldest brother had started talking about wanting to propose to his long-term girlfriend soon, and I was already looking forward to attending the wedding in a year or two. And then I looked forward to eventually becoming an aunt, because I knew Alexey and his girlfriend were looking forward to having children of their own in the near future.
And then there was my own life. My own personal love life…and right now, it felt like Massimo was it for me.
Massimo Mancini made me feel things that I had never felt before. I had always been somewhat of a free spirit, but there was something about Massimo that made me feel so protected and free at the same time. I wasn’t sure what it was or how he did it, but Massimo brought out the best of me. And when I was without him, when we weren’t together even though we were so clearly meant to be together, it felt like the world was crumbling and caving in on me.
We hadn’t even been dating a week and it felt like all of it would come to an end. Except, it would only come to an end – I would only come to an end – if I allowed it to happen. And I wasn’t going to. At least not without a fight.
“What are you doing here? What do you want from me?” I asked the attacker, trying to buy myself some time.
“That’s for me to know and for you to never find out,” he chuckled at his own childish words.
“That’s a bit childish of you,” I snorted, turning my nose up.
“I don’t care about your opinion.”
“Clearly not otherwise you wouldn’t be here to kill me.”
“Who said I was here to kill you?” he chuckled lowly, the sound sending literal shivers down my spine.
I knew this was the moment. Even through the darkness I could see the dark, calculated glint in his eyes that were visible from behind the dark balaclava that he wore to conceal his identity.
If it wasn’t confirmed already before, it certainly was now. This man, whoever he was, was here to kill me and if I didn’t act now, then I was afraid that he would be successful.
The man chuckled darkly before he leaped for me. He hadn’t calculated properly and before he could even get remotely close to me, I pushed myself off from the door and ran to the side. I rounded the coffee table and stood on the other side of the sofa, putting it between us.
“Come here, you bitch!” the man swore at me as he lifted himself up from the ground where he had literally thrown himself at. If I had still been there, he would have been able to grab me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. And I certainly wasn’t going to go down like this. Not at the hands of this nameless man whose intentions were a mystery to me.
“I’m not going to make it easy for you,” I spat as my brain processing what felt like a million thoughts a second, trying to calculate my next move.
“My wrist fucking hurts,” he spat as he approached the sofa, looking far more menacing than he did before he leaped at me. It was no doubt driven from the anger and embarrassment of literally landing on his face. “And I’m going to make you pay for that!”
“Maybe if you’re nice to me, I’ll give you a pack of frozen peas to make it feel better,” I mocked him and rounded the side of the sofa.
He caught onto what I was doing and rushed to meet me in the middle, but I was smarter. I was quick to round the other side and now, our roles were reversed. He was trapped between the wall and the back of the sofa, while I had the rest of the apartment behind me.
If only I could get to the kitchen, then I could grab a knife or something to defend myself with, and then I’d definitely stand a chance of staying alive.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“Like I’m just going to stand here and let you kill me,” I snorted, taking slow, tentative steps back. My eyes remained on him the whole time, watching him, trying to gauge what his next move would be.
“This was supposed to be fucking easy,” the intruder spat, clearly enraged by the fool that I was making out of him. It was just too bad that it was only me here to witness it. “He told me it would be fucking easy!”
“Who?” I asked, my eyes wide with the desperate need to know who was behind all of this. Who had gone to such lengths to send someone to kill me.
“None of your business,” he was quick to deny, almost as if he regretted what he had subconsciously admitted.
“Since it’s me you’re talking about, it sounds like it’s exactly my business.”
“Who wants me dead?” I asked, taking a few more slow steps back.
“I guess I could tell you,” he chuckled darkly, seemingly amused. “It’s not like you’ll be alive to do anything about it.”
Before I could demand him to tell me who hated me enough to want me dead, the sound of footsteps approaching my apartment door stole our attention.
When the sound of the lock slowly turning before a sharp click sounded, indicating that the front door had been unlocked, my attacker and I froze in our respective spots.
My heart skipped a bear and was struck with hope at the prospect that it was Massimo, and I made the stupid mistake of glancing over my shoulder.
The intruder took that moment to round the side of the sofa and leap at me once again. I wasn’t quick like last time, and my actions were slow at first as I prayed Massimo to hurry up and let himself into the apartment. This only made things easier for him as he grabbed me around the shoulders and attempted to spin me around. Afraid that he would try to snap my neck, or worse, I kicked me legs out and struck his knees as hard as I could do.
He toppled to the ground behind me but his grip on my neck remained firm, so he took me down with him.
“Massimo!” I called out, my voice a desperate flee for help as I struggled to escape the grasp of my attacker. He was angry and he was taking it out by shifting his arm from around my shoulders to my neck and tightening as hard as he could, effectively cutting off my air supply.
“Cara!” Massimo answered me immediately, his voice sounding on high alert, but I feared that it was too late.
The intruder continued strangling me, and my kicks and flailing about was doing no good, only making sure that I ran out of breath quicker. Footsteps pounded against the floor as Massimo rushed over and pulled the man off me.
He was quick to throw him off me and pull me into his arms. Massimo forced my head down between my knees, gently rubbing my back to help regulate my breathing.
“I got you, Cara,” Massimo told me, his words ringing in my ear, sounding just as afraid and desperate as I felt as I struggled to breath. “Just focus on breathing, okay? I got you, Cara. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It took several moments, and Massimo didn’t leave my side once, continually reminding me in small whispers to focus on my breathing and nothing else, but I slowly began feeling like I wasn’t going to die anymore.
Once I felt like I was able to breathe again, I frantically turned my head around the apartment to look for him, my attacker, but I couldn’t spot him anywhere and my apartment door was thrown wide open.
When I turned around and locked eyes with Massimo, both our eyes were just as wide and wild as each other’s, before he swiftly turned around and ran out of my apartment.
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Layla Knight
04.02.2022
