Lissa's message had been short and clear. I need you here, she had written and Rose hadn't needed anything else to get out of bed. She got dressed as quickly as she could and, knowing that if her mother was home, what she doubted, she would not allow her to get out of the house, she decided to jump out of the window and into a tree, from where she let herself fall to the floor.
She knew she had been caught when she was running to the front part of the house, in order to get to her car, and the guards called her name.
"Too slow" she smiled at Alberta, her mother's most trusted friend and the one in charge of the house's security, from inside of the vehicle and started the car.
She tried calling Christian, but Ozera was out of the country, spending the week with his aunt somewhere in France. Rose cursed and decided to leave him a voice message.
"I don't know where you are but Lissa needs you, so you either move your ass back here or you call her, Christian, because if you don't I'll find you and I'll kill you"
She threw the phone on the passenger's seat.
Even if Christian and she had not always been friends and even if Rose hated his guts most of the time, they had both agreed in one thing: Lissa's health and well-being came first.
She reached Lissa's house a moment later. It was modest, and it had always reminded Rose of the house of the Halliwell sisters in Charmed, definitely not the house that one expected the last of the Dragomirs to have, but Lissa had been unable to live in her family's manor after the accident and had preferred to live there on her own. Many of her family's rich friends had fought against it, but in the end none of them had been able to do anything because Lissa was already 18. That had been two years before.
Rose run up the stairs and into the porch and knocked on the door.
"Lissa! Lissa, it's me, open the door!"
There was no answer and she panicked. She hit the glass of one of the windows and broke it to get into the house, covering her hand with her jacket to prevent the broken glass pieces to harm her.
Please, Lissa, please.
"I broke your window" she informed her friend, trying to get her attention, and run upstairs "but I'll fix it, I swear"
She found Lissa sitting on her bed, her blonde hair was a mess and when she looked up at Rose her beautiful emerald eyes were full of tears, and yet Rose let out a breath when she saw that her friend didn't seem to be injured.
"You are fast" she whispered with a sob.
Rose climbed into the bed and cursed when Oscar, Lissa's cat, drew his fangs at her right before cuddling next to her friend.
"For you I always am" she smiled at her and took Lissa's hands between hers.
"I would have opened the door, but I felt that if I moved from the bed I would fall to the floor" she was still crying and Rose moved closer to her friend, and embraced her.
"It's fine, Liss" they fell silent for a moment, with Lissa in Rose's arms and Rose caressing her blonde locks "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't really know what happened" she whispered "I woke up suddenly because I heard a noise, and I thought that it was Andre sneaking back home...and then I remembered that Andre is gone, that he is not going to sneak into his room after a party anymore and that my parents are not going to be there to lecture him about it, and I..." she took a moment to steady her breath "I didn't want to wake you up, Rose, I..."
Rose didn't allow her to continue speaking.
"You can wake me up whenever you want, Lissa. I told you once that I'd always be by your side and I meant it" she kissed her forehead "Now you should sleep"
Lissa's grip on her arm tightened and for a moment she panicked.
"Are you leaving?"
"What? No!" Rose moved the blankets to get under them "So you better push that hairball out of here because there's not enough space for the three of us in the bed"
Lissa laughed at that, a laugh that filled Rose's heart with warmth, and then gently pushed Oscar out of the bed, before resting against her friend.
"Thank you" she whispered and minutes later she was asleep.
Rose was suddenly awakened by her phone's ringtone barely an hour later. She cursed and answered quickly, not wanting it to wake Lissa up.
"Yes?" she said harshly.
"Where is Lissa?" Christian answered her, sounding worried "What happened?"
"She is with me" Rose moved carefully from the bed and out of the room, not wanting to disturb her friend "She thought that she had heard Andre coming back home and turned sad"
"Did she hurt herself?" Christian's voice sounded a little broken, as though he was afraid to know the answer to that question.
"No, but I thought... I thought that she had, that's why I called you"
"I understand" he assured her and there was a moment of silence between them.
Inside the room, Lissa moved in her sleep, but didn't wake up.
"You there, Pyro?"
"Yes, Rose, I'm still here" he said, annoyed by the nickname she had given him "I was thinking..."
"I never thought that was possible"
"and I'm going to go back home on the next flight that leaves from Paris"
"What about Tasha?"
Rose had never met Christian's aunt but she knew that she had been the one to take care of him after his parents had been arrested for trying to kidnap him when he was only ten years old. Natasha had gone to France years later but Christian, who was already an adult at the eyes of the law, had decided to stay on the USA, and there were not many chances for them to be together.
"My aunt will understand" Christian sounded confident and Rose decided not to worry for Tasha Ozera for longer "Don't tell, Liss, okay? It'll be a surprise"
"Sure, Sparky" she smiled, and wondered once more when creepy Ozera and she had become friends "Now let me go back to sleep"
"Love you too, psycho" he said before hanging up and Rose went back to the bed, wanting nothing more than to sleep for the next few days.
Sadly for her, she must have angered God in another life, because karma kicked in that morning, when Janine Hathaway herself knocked on Lissa's door.
Rose moved on the bed and it took her a moment to realize that Lissa was no longer on it. She must have let her sleep. Crap.
"Don't punish her for coming, please. I called her. I wasn't feeling okay, I needed Rose here"
There was a moment of silence and, as she walked out of the room and down the stairs, Rose knew that not even her righteous mother was able to say no to Lissa's charm.
"Rose" Lissa greeted her when she saw her "Your mum had the window fixed just moments ago" she smiled "I explained to her that someone broke it in the middle of the night and it scared me, so I called you because I was afraid of being alone"
Lissa's smile was as bright as the sun and even if she didn't show that she was lying, her friend saw that her eyes were full of mischief. Rose smiled back and was about to answer when her mother interrupted.
"You need to go home now and apologize to Alberta for behaving so rudely yesterday night"
"Are you coming?"
"No" Janine replied and adjusted her jacket "I must go to meet Mr. Szelzky now"
She gave her farewells and left without another word. Rose and Lissa walked to the kitchen and the blonde served coffee for both of them.
"Your mother looked angry" Lissa said, and Rose knew that she felt guilty for it because she had been the reason why she had left her house in the middle of the night.
"Angry? Nope. That's only the Janine Hathaway face" Rose smiled at her, kindly, and drank her coffee.
Alberta hadn't been angry with her at all, even if she had made it clear that the next time Rose wanted to leave because of Lissa, she should talk to her instead of jumping out of her window.
Rose had to admit that the woman was amazing. Alberta was their housekeeper, their protector, even if Rose had never known why a guardian like her mother, who took care of the safety of a rich businessman such as Szelzky, needed a guardian to keep her house secure. She had helped her with her homework when she was little and had been the one who had thought her how to defend herself once she was old enough to kick some ass. She was probably one of the few people in her life who deserved her respect.
Hours later, Rose was lying on her bed reading and old book about Romanian legends right after texting Christian to ask him if he had already found a flight, when her mother called.
"Rosemarie. I forgot a folder on my desk this morning; I need you to bring it to Szelzky Enterprises as soon as you can"
A part of her wanted to tell her mother to go to hell but another part knew that picking up a fight was not the wisest idea. Moreover, she didn't have the strength to fight her mother at the moment.
"Sure" she said and stood up from the bed to go to her mother's studio.
While she walked down the stairs, out of the house, and to her car, she wondered when she had become so accustomed to her mother's apparent indifference that she didn't even care about it anymore.
The headquarters of Szelzky Enterprises where in the center of town, and were the tallest building in it, crowning the north side of the Ekaterina Zeklos Plaza. She didn't have a hard time getting in, even if the door was full of more security than usual, because most of them were her mother's friends and knew who she was. As she headed to the elevator, she saw Eddie.
"Hey, there" she smiled at him and they embraced each other.
"Hey, stranger" Eddie replied "it's been almost a month since I last saw you!"
"And whose fault is that?" Rose replied "I'm not the one who signed up to be a badass guardian"
"That's because you are pretty badass already" he winked at her.
Eddie Castile had been her friend for almost as long as her best friend, Mason Ashford, and Rose hated and loved both of them with all her heart.
"Where is Mase?" she asked him.
"Drowning on paperwork" Eddie held her arm and moved her closer to him, lowering his voice "Galina died a couple of days ago and someone else is on top now. Alto has Mase archiving some papers on the matter"
Rose looked at him, shocked. Galina was, had been, not only her mother's boss but also the headmistress of St. Anna Security, and leader of all the guardians under her command, including those who had just started working for her, such as Eddie and Mason.
"Do we know who the boss is now?"
"Not your mother" Eddie laughed "That's the question of the day, though, I hope that Mason can discover it"
"Well, tell me when you know" she kissed his cheek, walked away, hearing his laugh behind her, and got into the crowded elevator.
Mr. Szelzky's office was on the last floor of the building and she had to endure endless minutes of loud talking, snoring, empty gazes and bad smells before she got there.
There was a woman behind a desk smiling at her when she approached the office's door.
"Mr. Szelzky is on a meeting right now, how may I help you?"
"I'm here to give this to Janine Hathaway" she answered showing her the folder and faking a smile. Let to her mother to think that she could not be a good, dutiful, daughter "I believe that she must be with Mr. Szelzky"
"Wait here, please" the woman told her and stood up, adjusting her skirt and walking into the office.
Rose felt out of place there, with her black boots and pants and her dark red shirt, while the rest of the people there wore a grey uniform. She decided to check her phone, and found a message from Christian.
I'll be there for dinner. Don't tell Lissa.
She was so focused writing an answer that she almost missed her mother coming out of the room. The woman who had attended her came with her an sat behind the desk without another word. A third person came out with them but her mother was talking to her and she didn't have time to see who he was.
Rose handed her the folder.
"Thank you" Janine said "I should go back inside"
"You're welcome" and she turned around, to find that the elevators doors were closing.
For a moment she was sure that they were going to close on her face but a hand made sure they remained open. Rose jumped inside. She mentally thanked the guy who had walked out of Mr. Szelzky's office, who was the one that had stopped the doors.
He turned slightly to look at her for a moment while he kept on talking on his phone in Russian.
Sweet sassy molassy.
She took a moment to check him out, knowing that he was not aware of her gaze. He had chin-length dark brown color hair, was probably around six-foot-seven, with a well-muscled physique. Her eyes lingered on his broad shoulders and muscular biceps. He wore a black button up shirt, rolled up to the elbows, dark jeans and black dress shoes. When he hanged up his phone, she forced herself to speak.
"Thank you for keeping the doors open, Comrade"
His beautiful chocolate brown eyes looked straight into hers.
"You're welcome" he said, a strong Russian accent decorating his words. It made her shiver.
They felt silent and Rose tried her best not to look at him. And failed miserably. Only when the doors opened and she walked out she dared to turn to him, who hadn't moved.
"You didn't tell me your name" she smiled, feeling awkward.
Much to her surprise, the Russian God smiled back.
"Dimitri" he said and his eyes met hers again "and you are?"
The doors closed before he could stop them and she had no time to answer him. She smiled to herself, though, and walked through the hall and out of the building. She had to go to Lissa's, but first, she needed to buy some coffee. You should be used to it by now, Rose, she told herself. No sleep means endless cups of coffee.