Page 24 of His Prize

And that wouldn't happen if Israel found me on the fucking floor with a bleeding hand.

“Come on, Bonnie. You can do this,” I breathed.

I shifted onto my knees and used the kitchen island to help me up. But, not without a great deal of pain forcing more tears down my cheeks. I felt helpless. I felt useless. And more than that, I felt like I was losing Israel. Why in the world wasn’t he here? It was six in the evening on a Sunday, where the hell could that man be?

The diamond heiress.

“Fuck Alice,” I murmured.

I understood why he was doing it. We’d had many talks about it. But, I still didn’t like the fact that he had to do it. If I had things my way, I’d put a hit out on his father for a plethora of reasons, and we’d all be done with this mess. This was Israel’s family, though, and I figured he wouldn't take kindly to me interjecting into his problems like that.

Though, it would be a simple fix.

“Stop it,” I hissed to myself.

I leaned against the kitchen island and looked down at the floor. I needed to clean up the specks of blood. There was an entire chicken just sitting there with a knife protruding from its chest. And there was an entire pan of root vegetables flipped over onto the floor.

Man, I didn’t even know that had fallen as well.

“Dammit,” I murmured.

My eyes slid over to the pantry, and I hobbled over to the door. I threw it open and reached for the phone, wondering if this would piss Israel off or not. I didn’t have a choice, though. I didn’t want him coming back into this kitchen with blood everywhere and a damn chicken on the floor. He’d know what I was up to, and it would piss him off even more.

And the goal was to get him to love me.

Not hate me.

“Codeword?” The voice on the other end of the line was harsh, and I sure as hell didn’t have a code word.

“I’m sorry. Come again?” I asked.

“Codeword. I won’t ask again.”

“Uh, emergency?”

The line clicked, and I hung up before picking the phone back up again.

“Codeword?” It was a different voice this time, and I furrowed my brow.

“Hi, this is Bonnie Moretti—”

“Codeword.”

I shook my head. “Israel is awesome?”

Then, the line clicked again. But I wouldn't let it stop me.

“Codeword?” yet another voice asked.

“I’m Bonnie Moretti, and I’m living with Israel. I need someone to help me clean things up because I’ve bled all over his kitchen, and I can’t clean it up myself,” I rattled off quickly.

Silence fell over the phone before I heard the line click. And just when I thought I’d have to hang up again, another voice appeared. A kinder voice. One that was soothing and sweet.

“Miss Moretti?”

I put the phone back to my ear. “Yes? Yes! Hi! Hello. I’m so sorry. I don’t have a—”

“Are there people in the house with you?”

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