The Twelve Zenati Pt. 14

The three of them squeezed into the back of the car as the bodyguards occupied the front and took off as soon as the door was closed. Noah wasn't sure he wasn't going to throw up as he remained silent during the drive, his mind working over what sort of accident could have possibly occurred between the text she had sent and now and wanting to ask but not trusting his reaction to the answer. He looked over at Genesis who kept swearing at his phone.

"Are you okay?" Olivia asked softly as he looked down at her.

"Don't worry about me," Noah said equally softly. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. Marcella's tough, nothing hurts her," Olivia shrugged. "She'll be demanding they let her go home if someone was silly enough to make her go to the hospital. She has a real phobia about them. That's why she didn't visit me much until I went to the clinic, I guess. She won't let them keep her in there. She'll probably be gone by the time we get there," Olivia said without any emotion at all.

"Let's hope that's true then," Noah agreed. If Marcie was well enough to leave, then it meant nothing truly bad had happened to her and his stomach could stop threatening to empty itself on the people around him.

"You don't want to see her either?" Olivia whispered misunderstanding his meaning.

"Why don't you want to see her?" Noah frowned surprised by her question.

"If she is hurt, she won't want us there. She never does," Olivia looked down as she realised Genesis was now listening to her. "Or she never did. She doesn't like to look weak."

"How often did she get hurt when you were younger?" Noah frowned even more.

"A lot until she got sent away," She sighed. The guilt of how Marcella had constantly protected her from her father's tempers even when she had purposefully disobeyed him weighed her down again, and she sank further into the seat. "When she came back it wasn't so bad even after Apollo left, except Papa made her leave again."

"She was sent away and came back with Apollo?" Noah asked confused by what Olivia was saying.

Olivia was saved from answering as they pulled up at the emergency department and got out of the car with one of her bodyguards.

"I'll just wait here," she pointed to the waiting room chairs. "You can let me know how she is when you find out. Trust me she won't want me in there," Olivia said with certainty.

"I'll wait with the Pixie," Noah sighed sinking down on a chair beside her and waving Genesis towards the emergency department. Despite the overwhelming urge he felt to burst in and demand answers not only of the medical staff but the men who were supposed to be watching over Marcella and see that she was okay for himself, he sat and took a breath. He wanted to know why she wouldn't want to see the people she cared about when she was hurt or injured or weak.

"You don't have to stay with me, Smith is here," Olivia pointed to the bodyguard.

"Marcie isn't accident prone, is she?" Noah asked. "She was hurt a lot because someone hurt her?" At a nod of Olivia's head and a guilty flash of her eyes, before she lowered her head again, he continued. "Your father hurt her?" he pressed and got another nod of her head. "Then he sent her away," he prodded further. "Where did he send her?"

"Away," Olivia shrugged. "She was different she came back but not like Jessa. Neither of them wouldn talk about it except that Marcella made me promise to leave home before I got sent away. When I was almost eighteen, she told me I had to leave. She gave me all her savings and told me to sail to Jessa in Adelaide, but ..."

"You left with Kevin instead," he nodded finishing off her stilted whisper for her and considered what Olivia was saying. "Marcie met Apollo while she was away and he came home with her?" Noah asked again.

"Yeah, he was a frog, not a toad. Not a frog prince either, just a frog," Olivia confirmed.

"What does that mean?" he asked with a frown.

"They're taking her for a scan," Genesis interrupted. "But she looks like she's fine. She's still running her mouth and arguing with everyone as usual, so I expect they'll let her go home tonight."

"Great," Noah said. "I'll go check on her quickly and head up to see Dom." He stood and once again swallowed down the nausea that made him feel like he was going to lose his lunch.

"She won't want to see you," Olivia said quietly.

"It's true," Genesis said. "She's refusing to see anyone except Vivienne who is with her at the moment. I talked to Helena and Gid. She doesn't remember getting hit by the car, but she swears she wasn't pushed."

"Wait what?" Noah shook his head and realised he didn't know the details of her accident having assumed it was a car accident.

"Apollo veered off the highway and went looking for her and found her walking on the foreshore. They talked, and she went to leave. He tried to stop her by grabbing her hand. She tried to pull away from him, he pushed her onto the road, and she was hit by a slow-moving car. She has a head injury and doesn't remember the accident, but she seems fine otherwise. So, if the scan goes well, they'll let her go home with a nurse," Genesis filled him in on what he had found out.

"Fuck," Noah groaned and lifted his hand to scratch the hair at the back of his neck. "He pushed her, into the path of a car?"

"He wouldn't have done that," Olivia shook her head. "He wouldn't hurt her, he's a frog, not a toad."

"Explain," Genesis said more abruptly than he meant to, but he was taken aback by Olivia's insistence that Apollo wouldn't have done what he was accused of.

"He wouldn't hurt her. He stopped her from being hurt. He... he cares about her. He wouldn't have hurt her like that," Olivia said. "He's not a bad guy, a toad. He's a nice guy, a frog. You know like the ones you can kiss because they are nice, but they will never turn into a prince. He was never her prince just a frog, but he helped her and me and Mama. He would never hurt her."

Noah knew he needed to talk to Apollo again. He felt pulled in a million different directions. He needed to make sure Marcella was okay for himself. He needed to be upstairs with Xavier and Emma supporting Dominic. He needed to seek out answers from Apollo and confirm everything he had just learned from Olivia. He took a deep breath and tried to settle his stomach and clear his head.

"Okay, let's go see Apollo," he said and looked at Genesis who nodded in agreement. "Taino is with X and Em. I need to do this."

"Go check in with them, half an hour won't make any difference one way or the other," Genesis suggested. He'd seen the strain of everything going on with Noah build all day, and he wasn't as sure as Gideon was that the woman who was a perpetual pain in his ass was Noah's curse breaker. While he couldn't deny his own symptoms, he still wasn't sure he believed in the family curse such as it was.

"Yeah alright," Noah agreed. "But don't you have a home to move into today?"

"It isn't going anywhere," Genesis chuckled. "We have a lifetime to enjoy it and any other place we decide to live."

*****

Apollo lay back on the couch in the makeshift cell that was his hotel room. He knew he wouldn't be arrested by the police. It wasn't worth the drama it would cause between already tense families. If he had been arrested, he knew the under siege Martinos wouldn't come to his aid. He would have to reach out to his Battaglia cousins if these people took it any further. As it was, he had been questioned and treated like a crazed assassin, jilted lover, and insane member of the now exiled Savoy family. He was none of those things. He would never hurt Marcella. He loved her, it had taken a long time for him to admit that to himself if not her. He hadn't pushed her in front of that car, he had merely done as she asked and let her go and she had stumbled out onto the road.

He'd been horrified when she stumbled. Frozen in shock when he saw the car. Physically ill when she had spun and crashed to the road. Confused when he was told to stay away from her. Angry when he was accused of pushing her. Furious as he had been held against his will from making sure she was okay and accompanying her to the hospital. Now he sat, internally seething while projecting the image of nonchalance and innocence. Every few minutes he asked for updates on Marcella, concern dripping from his voice as it had when they had interrogated him and his reason for coming here and seeking out Marcella.

He was the lovestruck childhood sweetheart come to propose yet again to the woman of his dreams. Or so he portrayed and for all intents and purpose would continue to portray until he had the opportunity to speak to her. They'd made a deal, and he had every intention of making her hold up her end of the bargain. He smiled as he remembered seeing her last year for her birthday and felt his cock stiffened as the memories flashed vividly through his mind.

"Gentlemen," he announced to his prison guards who he had not bothered finding out the names of. "In the hopes that I will be allowed to visit Marcella and ensure she is being looked after, I think I will have a shower and change. It's been a long afternoon." With that, he stood and walked into the bedroom. "Trust me," he turned a depreciating glare on the man who walked into the bedroom after him. "We are ten stories up, I am hardly going to wriggle out of the window and scale down the building. I didn't bring my Spiderman suit for that," he indicated his open luggage.

The men grunted but remained as Apollo gathered some clean clothes and stepped into the bathroom closing the door behind him. Running the shower and stripping, he let the images of Marcella when he had last celebrated her birthday resurface in his mind.

She'd arrived at the restaurant dressed in a figure-hugging black pinstriped business suit and expensive Italian leather heels. Before taking her seat, she shot him "the look" from beneath her too thick to be real eyelashes. God, he loved "the look;" the one that suggested so many things, like, "I've missed you," or "I'm hungry for more than just food," or "I'm ready to fight the inevitable." Fuck he loved it when she fought. She knew him so well. They knew each other. He knew she was playing with him today. Playing hard to get as if she didn't want her birthday gift as much as he did. His cock began to throb as he remembered her legs, encased in black seamed stockings, held in place by a sexy lace garter.

He began washing his hair as his cock stiffen by the memory. There was no need to be hasty. Quick jerks were for young men hiding behind the bathroom door, hoping not to be discovered. Real pleasure was worth taking the time. He breathed in the shampoo as it rinsed from his hair and tried to recall the scent she preferred more clearly. She preferred the soft floral scent despite her man-eater lawyer persona. Few would ever get to see her softer side, she hated being seen as vulnerable. As far as he knew aside of the Masters involved in her trial, and even then he couldn't be too sure, no one had ever seen her vulnerable beside himself.

Visions of Marcella in her sexy lingerie on her knees before him, vulnerable and willing, broke his self-imposed restraint, and he gripped his cock. Looking down he admired himself. He rather liked the rich dark colour of his velvety head and that first sparkling drop of pre-cum that bubbled to the surface as he stroked himself with a firm grip.

There was a price of course for the power exchange she gave him for her vulnerability, but he paid it willingly. She was so fucking hot when she let down those walls and became his temporarily. Twice a year they met and twice a year he fell further in love with her. Still, he played by the rules, her rules until the deal they had made ran its course, and she became his permanently.

He used the lightest, most delicate strokes along the entire length and his cock seemed as though it moved toward her hand, begging to be stroked. He placed his fingertips under the ridge of the glans and drummed them ever so lightly just as she would in exactly the way he liked.

Almost exploding, he froze, allowing the orgasm to subside. Feeling his cock throbbing with each heartbeat, he concentrated on *not* coming. It's a unique feeling; holding back the way he did with her, seeing how close she can get him while he denies her what she really wants. He could see her in his mind's eye, mouth open and panting, looking up at him through those thick dark lashes as she leaned forward to taste that first drip of pre-cum and continuing as if starved for the taste.

There was a knock on the door from the fuckers who believed he could hurt Marcella and he groaned. He couldn't hurt her, not the way they thought anyway. He could hurt her only in the most pleasurable ways. Knowing his time was limited he moved on the fantasy in his head to Marcella straddling his lap her elbows and wrists bound tightly behind her thrusting out clamped and swollen nipples which bounced painfully as she rode his cock. Leaning forward he licked tears from her cheek, savouring each one, knowing they were for him and him alone.

Apollo shivered as his fingers slid over his sensitive cock head before grasping it again. Every move of his hand was absolute ecstasy and torture. As he let the scene play out in his mind he enjoyed the sensuous need in his cock and the feel of its heft in his hand. With an attitude of self-mastery and precision, he took himself to the very edge of release and held it there, each long, slow stroke producing a shudder of pleasure. It was becoming impossible to hold out much longer.

As he approached his orgasm, he lowered his head and opened his eyes to admire himself. The veins on his cock shaft added even more texture and colour at this point. The pre-cum was spilling out of his cock now, and he imagined Marcella was there before him and all he had to do was drive home into her to feel the nirvana he craved.

Pleasurable bolts of electricity shot through him and up his spine as the shot the first ropey strand onto the glass screen before him. He watched with open eyes as each subsequent strand criss-crossed over the first in artistic arcs of cum meant not for this but the girl he had come for and was determined to get and convince to finally make good on their deal. Despite the location and the lack of the girl, he viewed the cum streaked glass critically. It was a beautiful mess!

Dipping his finger in one of the streaky lines, he brought it to his mouth and tasted the salty almost metallic cum, imagining Marcella spread out before him as the beautiful mess decorated her body. Yes, that would be perfection. Tomorrow she would be with him as promised, and she would give him "the look" before he took her and loved her the way she needed to be loved. Only he could give her what she needed, and it was time she gave up any pretence that the career and life she was living now was worth making him wait one more year.

*****