Chapter 57: The painting

Ivy’s pov

The hallway to Malachi’s wing felt unnervingly long. Each step I took was muffled by the thick carpet, the tray of broth in my hands wobbling slightly. I reached his door, pushed it open with my hip, and stepped inside.

"Kai?" I called out, brows pulling in a frown when I couldn’t see or hear him at all. "You better not be pulling a prank on me. It’s not going to be funny."

Yeah I got nothing in response. Like Kai would ever miss an opportunity to clap back at me. Was he that sick? Oh my gosh, how sick was he? Like too weak to talk, kind of sick? He should be at a hospital then, not rotting in bed!

I stalked towards the huge canopy bed, gripping the tray tighter. The silence in the room was too heavy, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning.

The bed was empty. "Ooookay that explains the silence, but where the hell is he?" I frowned, setting the tray on the bedside table. Didn’t Donna say he was confined to his room?

My eyes landed on the pristine black and deep purple duvet over his bed. A few small, brownish-red drops stained the fabric especially on the places where they were purple. I leaned closer, my heartbeat slowing down.

"Is that blood?" My fingers reached out to trace it but I snapped it back shuddering in disgust. What if it was blood? Touching it would be disgusting.

Was he wounded? I thought he was just sick? It had to be ketchup, right? Maybe a smear from a late-night snack, yeah it was probably ketchup.

His phone was lying on the pillow, the screen dark. That was strange. Why would he go out then leave his phone?

That meant he was still inside. I checked the bathroom, pushing the door open. The shower was dry, but some of the towels were missing.

I went back to the bed and picked up his phone. The screen was cool beneath my fingertips as I turned it on.

It was locked, of course. I didn’t know his passcode. Who did? I was about to drop it back on the pillow when it buzzed to life, vibrating with an incoming call. The name on the screen made me snort.

"Trouble."

Seriously? The king of troublemakers, the most infuriating man I had ever met, had someone saved his phone as ’Trouble’? The hypocrisy was hilarious. Who could possibly drive Kai insane enough to name them trouble?

I dropped the ringing phone back on the bed and my eyes found the stain on the bed again. That worry I had tried to crush pushed its way back up.

Was he okay? Roman’s eyes had darkened when he talked about their trip. He had been hiding something.

I sighed, ready to leave this weird, silent room, when I saw more of the brownish-red spots. Not on the bed this time, but on the brown carpet. They led away from the bed, across the room, and disappeared into the walk-in closet.

My feet moved following the stains. I pushed open the closet door and Kai’s enticing scent hit me immediately, that warm hint of dark amber and vanilla bourbon.

I strolled deeper, past rows of his clothes and the smell of paint and cigarette smoke grew stronger, mingling with his scent. At the very back of the closet, a section of the wall was slightly open like a door.

"You have got to be kidding," I whispered. "He has a secret passage?"

I slipped through the opening and found myself in a narrow hallway. There were a couple of doors down the hallway. The first one was slightly ajar, warm light spilling out into the hall. I crept forward and peered inside.

It was an art studio. The air was thick with the smell of oil paint and smoke. Rap music blared softly from a speaker while Canvases of all sizes were stacked against the walls, some with finished dark paintings, some barely started.

There was an eerie painting of a knight on a horse in the middle of a river that looked so familiar.

I had definitely seen that before and I would try to figure out where if I wasn’t so distracted by the Greek god sitting close to the window with his naked lean, sculpted back to me, before a large easel.

A cigarette dangled from his lips while his right arm was bandaged up with the white bandage hanging from his neck.

What on earth happened to him?!

His left hand held a paint brush, moving slowly across the canvas he was painting. He paused to lower the brush, reaching up to grab his cigarette with his good hand to take a long drag and blow a plume of smoke towards the ceiling, then resume painting.

My belly stirred at the sight with way too many feelings that I didn’t want to untangle. He looked forlorn with his curls almost falling over his eyes. I swallowed, tearing my eyes off him to look at what he was painting.

My breath hitched as my eyes fell on sleek chestnut hair, framing a masked woman’s face. Her amber eyes glinted from under the mask and her heart-shaped full red lips were parted in a silent cry of pleasure.

Me.

He was drawing me on the night of that New Year’s Eve part in the elevator. He painted me.

No way. No freaking way. How did he even remember what I looked like that night?! Hanging from the wooden handle of the easel, catching the light from the window, was the delicate, sparkling pink diamond bracelet I thought I had lost that night.

A gasp escaped my lips before I could stop it.

Malachi’s hand stilled. He glanced back over his shoulder, his hazel eyes narrowing at the door.

Panic seized me. I threw myself back from the doorway, stumbling blindly towards the door of the second room. It swung inward and I scrambled inside, pulling it silently shut behind me.

I held my breath, listening as his footsteps approached the doorway. He paused, then I heard the faint creak of the studio door as he looked out. After a moment that stretched into what seemed like forever, I heard his footsteps recede back into the studio.

A shaky sigh of relief left my lips, my body sagging against the door. I turned around to see what this room was, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light and loud piercing scream of terror tore from my throat.