REBORN My Second Life I Became The Villianess (Nyxara) novel Chapter 17

When I walked through the front doors of the Vexari estate that afternoon, the house was a total war zone.

The place that was usually obsessively clean and quiet looked like it had been torn apart by a tornado. Expensive vases were smashed to pieces across the once pristine floor, sofa cushions were ripped open, and papers were scattered everywhere.

Nysa was in the middle of the living room, completely losing her mind and destroying whatever was left in her path. Our Father was sitting in a nearby armchair, looking absolutely defeated and exhausted, while our mother was standing beside him, clutching her head and crying hysterically.

The second I stepped past the foyer archway, Nysa spotted me and her eyes went wild. Before I could even blink, she lunged across the room like a rabid animal. She grabbed the front of my jacket, shoved me hard backward, and grabbed a fistful of my hair, slamming the side of my head against the hallway wall with a sickening thud.

A white-hot flash of pain shot through my skull, and warm blood instantly started trickling down my temple.

I could have fought back easily. I had the training, the strength, and every opportunity to lock her arms behind her back and put her in her place. But I didn't move a muscle. I kept my body loose, letting her do it. I needed her to completely lose it. I needed her to show everyone in this house exactly what kind of monster she really was.

Dad jumped up out of his chair, shouting her name, and rushed over to pull her away from me. But Nysa was so far gone she didn't even care, she spun around and shoved him with both hands, pushing him backward with all her weight.

Before dad could catch his balance, Nysa turned right back to me, grabbing my shoulders and violently banging my head against the wall a second time. Blood smeared across the wallpaper as she shrieked at the top of her lungs, completely unhinged.

"You did this! This is all your fault! You're targeting me, you little bitch!" She screamed, foaming at the mouth. "Get rid of her! Get her out of my house!"

With one final, vicious shove, she threw me backward.

I stumbled hard, falling right into a solid, warm chest that caught me before I hit the floor. I looked up, wincing from the fresh gash on my head, and realized Dario was standing right there behind me.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dario's voice cut through the room like a razor blade, cold, deep, and dripping with pure, lethal fury.

Nysa froze mid-screaming fit. She whipped around, her face pale, and gasped when she realized Dario was standing right in the doorway. She hadn't heard him walk in. Before she could open her mouth to lie, we heard a heavy crash.

Our Father had hit the floor hard when Nysa shoved him earlier, his head catching the edge of the coffee table on the way down, and he was completely passed out cold, blood pooling near his temple.

Dario didn't even hesitate. He shouted an order toward the front door, and two of his massive security guards immediately rushed inside.

"Get Mr. Vexari up, call an ambulance, and get him to the hospital right now," Dario ordered sharply.

Before I could process what was happening, Dario scooped me up easily into his arms, bridal style, ignoring the blood dripping onto his expensive suit jacket. He started walking straight toward the front exit.

"Dario! Wait, please, it's not what it looks like!" Nysa shrieked, sprinting after us, her hands clawing the air as she panicked. "She did this! I was only defending myself, she attacked me first, I swear…"

Dario didn't even slow down. He didn't look back at her once.

"I will talk to you," Dario said in a voice so cold it made my blood run ice-cold, "when I have made sure your father and your sister aren't in any serious danger."

He ushered us into a private trauma suite, immediately grabbing medical supplies to clean and stitch the gash on my head. As the doctor applied the local anesthetic, I kept my eyes fixed on the door, my chest tightening.

"My father," I whispered, my voice shaking slightly. "Is he... is he going to be okay?"

Dario stepped closer, leaning down so only I could hear. He brushed a stray strand of hair away from my face, his thumb grazing my cheek with surprising gentleness.

"Don't worry," he whispered, his breath warm against my ear. "He's being taken care of."

The private trauma room smelled sharply of antiseptic and cold steel, a stark contrast to the heavy, suffocating warmth of Dario’s presence standing right beside the exam table. I sat on the edge of the paper-lined bed, my hands resting flat in my lap while the senior attending physician carefully peeled away the remaining gauze and dried blood from my temple.

The doctor clicked his tongue softly, shining a small penlight into my eyes to check for a concussion before gently pressing around the edges of the jagged tear in my skin.

"Well, the good news is there's no skull fracture and your pupils are reacting normally," the doctor said, turning his attention back to the gash on my forehead. "The bad news is that it's deep and clean-edged enough that it’s not going to heal on its own. You're going to need a couple of stitches to close it up properly so it doesn't scar."

The second the word stitches left the doctor's mouth, I felt the air pressure in the room shift violently. I didn't even have to look up to know what was happening. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dario’s posture snap rigidly upright.

His jaw was locked so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek, and his dark eyes hardened into chips of black ice, flashing with a murderous, terrifying intensity that made the room feel instantly ten degrees colder. Nysa had crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed, and Dario’s mind was already calculating the most agonizing way to make her pay for every drop of blood on my skin.

I kept my mouth shut, offering no complaint, no wincing, and no emotional buffer. I just stared straight ahead at the stainless-steel tray of surgical instruments.