Stuck | 18+

Chapter 51

He took a step closer, coming eye to eye, not aware of the storm that built behind her eyes,

"Just like your mother"  

It echoed in her mind, again and again, like relentless knocking that she remained bound helpless to cease. Her greatest fear had confronted her today, something that she been most scared of being called- 

just like your mother. 

It was a heinous slap in her face.

Tara's memory inundated with flashes of that grave sunny morning. She blinked stricken by the vivid memory of her mother lifelessly limping to the ground, shot in her heart.  Her father had been too incensed to even glance at woman he had shot dead, storming out the room next second, leaving little Tara to mourn alone. 

Tara's mother had looked for love in a man who wasn't her husband, and that's all she had ever done to get murdered in front of her young daughter. As much as his uncle was guilty of the affair, he had simply apologised, continuing with his life like before, just with a little more alcohol, a little less geniality.  

And simply like that, her past had caught up with her, pulling her down the infernal end of her mother's sins. Tara realised there was no point in fighting her implacable father for his pre-made opinions. It was what he always looked in his daughter- his wife, her eyes, her hair, her skin. 

Whatever had been his intention, the hurt sunk deeper in her heart, like interspersed smoke of the quenched fire.  

"Just like her mother what?" Donavan's voice abruptly burst the bubble of her turmoil, joining the heated harangue of her father. 

Donavan's eyes settled on the way Tara looked up her father in a wounding gaze, her fists gathering the fabric of her gown to contain her hatred.  But more palpably he noticed the glimmering candles of chandelier reflecting in the tear hanging at the edge of her eye, threating to spill an angry drop any moment. 

As much as perplexed he was to witness it, like a bolting thunder, rage shot across his veins, twitching to snap anyone's neck who had caused it.

Seeing Donavan entering the circumstance, the man immediately took a step back, concealing his face with a smile, knowing his gullible daughter wouldn't dare open her mouth.  Little had he imagined, Tara he once knew was someone else, the woman he had just crossed paths with was far different. 

"I was telling her she looks beautiful" he tried to mollify the heat, waving it off with an awkward chortle. 

Donavan's gaze did not move from Tara as she took a deep breathe in, pushing the tear back inside her eyes, calming her senses. 

"What did he say?" 

It was a straight question, expecting nothing but truth. She sensed the edge to his tone, angry but concerning, burning but warm. Her heart stirred at the realization that someone took notice of the battles beneath her skin, someone cared to notice that there was more to her face than layers of make-up. 

"I told you I was tell-" Donavan stopped the man's blabber by stretching his hand out in stop, not wavering his gaze from Tara, expecting her and only her to answer. 

Tara for once felt secured under the very roof, protected by her husband and oddly enough she decided to stop covering for her imperious father's incessant mouth. 

"He said I must've..." she felt ashamed to continue, "I must have had an affair with Dominic that you...that you killed him" 

The veins on Donavan's neck vividly popped out, the only sign of his slipping restraints. 

"What about your mother?" Donavan shot, wanting to know every bit of the old man's slander before beheading him. 

Tara hesitated for a moment, knowing there was nothing to hide from don,

"She...she left my father for his brother, and so.." she stalled, glancing briefly at her struck father before saying, "...so he thinks I am just like he-"

Before she could even finish her sentence Donavan's fist had swung in the defensive man's direction, his brutal punch landing painfully on his jaw, successfully dislocating it. Tara gasped at the unexpected action, hearing neighbouring guests' pants at the man's glutaral scream, but Donavan seemed far from done. He took menacing steps to the man as he tried to haul himself back in fear, unable to form comprehensible words at the condition of his face. 

Before he did something far from appropriate for the occasion, Tara stood in his way, halting his progress to the soon to be dead man. 

"Noo" she yelled trying to stop his strides. Even with the hindrance of her body's barricade he continued to stalk after the man, adamant on taking his life today, too high on anger to be listening to her. The brooding silence engulfed the mansion, hundreds of stares witnessing Don's wrath as Tara bent backwards to assuage it. Nicolas watched unperturbed from his corner, sipping on his vodka, enjoying the mayhem. 

"Please listen to me...noo" She screamed, this time gripping his face with both of her tiny arms, forcing him to look in her eyes, bringing him back to the reality. He watched her beautiful eyes for a moment, yet again realising how emblemed they were on his heart. 

"Let him go, he's not worth it" She whispered in his senses, more pleading than demanding, standing right between him and her father who gruntingly tried to get up from the floor, his young girlfriend out of sight, probably running out of the mansion afraid of the viciousness.

Donavan halted there for seconds, in the arms of his wife that soothed his ache. She had long forgotten her father's piercing remarks, realizing there stood someone more hurt than her, someone more protective of her than she was for herself. 

"Let him go" she whispered again, shedding the formerly longing tear, only this time not in anger but something else, something she hadn't imagined feeling for anyone in this world, something she knew was forbidden for her to feel.

He watched her in pain, wondering why she had to be this forgiving for the bastard who had crossed the limits of atrocities. Or perhaps she wasn't, perhaps she only sought the peace this evening, it was just who she was, wanting no blood in the mansion, begging for mercy just for the sake of it. 

He whisper yelled something in Italian. The circling guards immediately moved on their feet, hauling the now unconscious man up, dragging him out. 

"Please take him to the hospital" She requested to the guards, unsure whether they would even take orders from her.  

Donavan's eyes furrowed, hating that she cared even minimally for the scornful man.

She stared right back in his eyes, not explaining her erratic behavior. She didn't need to. She had her reasons neatly folded in the closet of her basement, she didn't feel the need to unfold them just yet, or ever. 
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Things I shouldn't tell my readers:

I had decided to make Dominic and Tara have that night...like I had originally planned that dom and tara have their hot sexy time and she doesn't even realise that it's not Donavan...yeah...but then I didn't let that happen because I thought you guys will get mad at me...yess..so that was that
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Happy reading!!