Chapter 107:
Julie’s Point of View
I pushed the door slowly, and I was greeted by the heavy scent of oud that always clings to Robert’s clothes, mixed with the smell of vintage tobacco that inhabits the corners of the place.
I closed the door behind me with cautious silence.
I bypassed the wide hall with its leather sofas and huge television and headed directly toward the bedroom; the most private place.
I opened the large wardrobe, and his luxurious suits and long coats appeared to me, lined up like majestic shadows in the darkness.
I passed my trembling hand between the fine fabrics, ignoring the sting of pain in my shoulders, but I found nothing.
I moved to the small table next to the wide bed, opening its drawers with eagerness mixed with fear, but they were empty except for some simple personal items.
I bit my lower lip anxiously and whispered to myself:
"Damn... where could I find it? A man like him must have an emergency phone hidden somewhere."
I dragged my exhausted body toward a luxurious black desk in the corner of the room.
I pulled the first drawer... nothing but stationery.
I pulled the second drawer slowly, and here the edge of a black metallic object gleamed under a pile of files.
My eyes widened with a spark of hope, and I muttered with suppressed joy:
"Oh... finally found you."
I reached out my hand eagerly, but as soon as my fingers touched the coldness of the metal and I pulled it out, my breath froze.
It wasn’t a phone... it was a heavy firearm.
I took it out of its place, and instead of feeling panic or throwing it away, I found my hand settling on it with a strangely steady grip.
Its texture was cold and hard, and those fine engravings carved on its handle were teasing the palm of my hand.
I raised it slightly, contemplating its black muzzle.
I felt a mysterious shiver running down my spine; it wasn’t fear, but a strange sense of power and control, a dark feeling for which I found no words in my dictionary to describe that suspicious euphoria that possessed me as I weighed that metallic death in my hands.
I walked with almost confident steps toward the huge mirror that occupied the wall of the room and stood contemplating my reflection while gripping the black weapon.
I raised it slowly and pointed its muzzle toward my image in the mirror, imagining his cold face there.
I said in a theatrical tone shrouded in hatred:
"Yes, Robert... do you have any last words to say before I kill you?"
I let out a suppressed wicked laugh, resembling the laughs of villains in the movies I used to watch, and completed in a sharp whisper:
"You didn’t expect that a girl like me would be the one to end your life, did you?"
But my imagination vanished in a moment when the sound of the doorknob clicking echoed.
Blood froze in my veins, and I barely felt my feet as they led me toward the large wardrobe.
I rushed inside while the weapon was still clutched in my hand, and closed the door behind me very slowly.
My heart was pounding against my chest with a force that almost tore my skin; I placed my eye on the small openings in the wood of the door and watched him enter.
I deliberately stripped off my clothes slowly, enjoying the feeling of her watching me from those small openings.
And when I swung the door wide open while I was completely naked, I saw her huddling at the bottom like a bird soaked by rain, but my eyes widened when I spotted her grip; she was clutching my personal weapon.
"Is she really carrying my gun?"
I wondered to myself, but before I could utter a word, I saw her eyes rolling back, and her body went limp as she fell like a lifeless doll.
I knelt on the ground immediately and held her face between my palms. Her skin was pale and cold as the marble of palaces, so I said in a coarse tone:
"Julie... can you hear me?"
She didn’t respond; she was just a still body breathing slowly. I carried her in my arms, feeling the softness of her body against the hardness of my bare chest.
At that moment, with our skins touching, I felt a mad desire sweeping through my veins like a hurricane, a fire that ignited in my lower abdomen and made my breathing heavy.
I placed her on the bed carefully ,I looked at her, lying there on my bed, and whispered under my breath:
"How do you do this to me? How do you make me lose my self-control? Instead of me torturing you, it’s you who is torturing me."
I went into the bathroom immediately. I turned on the cold water to hit my back and chest, trying to extinguish that physical revolution that almost spiraled out of control.
I came out after a while, having regained my coldness; I put on my clothes slowly, then sat on the edge of the bed beside her, watching her features.
Her eyelids began to move with noticeable heaviness, and when her sight processed my presence and her place on my bed, she startled and sat up with a speed that made her stagger.
I fixed my gaze in her eyes and said in a calm, steady voice that carried an implicit threat:
"What were you doing in my room, Julie?"

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