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“Are you okay, Dad?” I raced to his side and pulled his blanket up tighter around him, feeling my fingers brush against his ice-cold skin at the same time. My mind rushed into a state of panic, tying itself up in knots, worrying about what I could do to help him. “What should I do? Should I call the nurse? Or the hospital?”
“Don’t fuss,” he said as he tried his best to reassure me with a smile but in a weak-sounding voice. “It’s just a cold. I’ll be okay. I just need to get to the bathroom. That’s all.”
“I’ll help you.” I smiled reassuringly, tucking myself under his armpit. I might be acting like I was okay on the outside, but I was desperately not. Helping my grown-ass father—someone who used to be the strongest man I knew—to the bathroom ripped out my guts.
As I helped him across the hallway and into the bathroom, my mind totally freaked out, wondering what I was going to do now. The cancer was obviously creeping its way back through his body, eating him up from the inside out, and he was truly too weak to fight it this time. If he was going to have treatment again, he was going to need it soon. But I really didn’t know how I was going to afford it with no insurance. And I already knew how much all the experimental treatments were. All the money I was earning up to this point was covering the unpaid bills I already had and not even all of them. I simply didn’t have enough to cover this, too.
But I was going to have to. If I didn’t, then he’d die.
My thoughts went to the business card downstairs. The one piece of paper that could unlock everything.
Like a damn crack dealer, Nero had left the drug… a chance at more money.
But, of course, it wasn’t going to be used. I could not make the same mistakes I’d made last time. I couldn’t. If I did this again, whatever my reasoning, there wouldn’t be a third chance. I was lucky to be in the position that I was in. I knew that, and I couldn’t risk it.
But what other options did I have? I already knew that I was not going to take that path, but I didn’t know what other roads were open for me. It was frustrating to be helpless, and to feel hopeless when it came to the one constant in my life. Things might not have always been straightforward in my life, but my father had never been an issue. I couldn’t lose him. I really couldn’t. I needed to do something. No matter what it took. I had to fight for his life. I had to fight.
“I need to get to the gym,” I told my dad after I helped him back to bed. “Are you going to be okay for a bit?”
“Go. Go,” he reassured. “I’m fine.”
He may be, but I sure as fuck wasn’t. And right now I needed to be around Lotto… and Ari… and fuck me… even Frankie.
Chapter 25
Ari
“You okay?” Lotto asked as he knocked on my office door at the same time he entered.
I nodded, even though I was far from all right. I had never had someone threaten my life before. To have a man look me straight in the eye and?—
“You know none of us would allow anything to happen to you,” he said, closing the door behind him.
“You may not have a choice in the matter when it comes to a Godwin.”
Lotto approached my desk and leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest. “If anyone touched you, they’d die. If it wasn’t me killing them, it would be Bones or Freakshow. Period.”
I drew a deep breath and nodded, trying to push the fear and anxiety to the back of my mind. I couldn’t let it consume me. I had a job to do, and I needed to focus.
“But you came off as tough in there,” he praised.
“I felt anything but.”
“Even so, you held your own.” A small smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You’re a natural, you know that?”
I looked at him, surprised by his words. “Thank you, Lotto. That means a lot coming from you. I often feel like a little girl playing in the big bad world of boys. And well… I often feel like I’m putting on an act, and you all see through me.”
“You’re not fooling anyone,” Lotto admitted, his smile growing wider, “but that’s not a bad thing. You bring a fresh perspective to the table, and that’s what makes you valuable to us. You don’t have to be one of the boys to hold your own. You just have to be yourself.”
“It’s just a lot of pressure. When my father died, I had several people approach me wanting to buy the gym. All men. All assholes who thought they could run it better than me. I was just a girl. A small and inexperienced girl. If it weren’t for Frankie willing to help me?—”
