Chapter 21 - Alice

“Massimo!” Thea gasped, like a mother who had just seen her son get into an accident, but she didn't even have time to take more than a few steps into the room before a shout from Massimo stopped her.

“Don’t come near me!” he growled, but even though he was trying to hide his face as he was struggling to stand up using only his arms, Alice could see the pain and humiliation in his expression “Neither of you! If you don’t want to be thrown out of this mansion right now, then you better stay where you are!” His voice sounded harsher and more menacing than usual, his limp legs making harrowing sounds over the broken glass, dragging the shards across the carpet and certainly forming some cuts in the fabric of his sweatshirt and on his skin.

“Massimo, please...” Josiah held his crying wife by the shoulders,