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My declaration was made. At least for now, we’d leave it at that.
At some point in the middle of the night, I woke and hobbled over to the bathroom. I was still a little drunk and thought I might be sick again. I crouched down and leaned against the tub as I stared into the toilet water.
I’d fucked up, big time. I had no idea what Raine was going to do in the morning, but I knew it wasn’t going to be a barrel of laughs for me. She said she wasn’t leaving, but did she just mean tonight or at all? Was there any room in her for forgiveness when she had already told me she wouldn’t put up with me drinking again?
I had to convince her it was a one-time deal.
It was, wasn’t it?
As fucked up as it was, I already wanted another drink. It was the only coping mechanism I knew when shit got too deep for me to handle. Knowing my son was out there alone in the world definitely fell into that category.
Raine and I both knew I had a kid out there somewhere, but somehow hearing that it was a son, a son who was now orphaned like I had been, made it all hit home a lot harder. When I told Raine about him last night, she had agreed to wait until morning before we talked about the subject anymore. She knew I was in no shape for any kind of rational discussion, and I had passed out soon afterward.
I dragged myself from the bathroom floor and went out on the balcony. It was dark and cool outside, and the only sound in the air was from the surf far below. I lit my cigarette and smoked half of it before tossing it into the metal bucket. I also picked up the ones I had missed before and tried to sweep the ash over the side with my hand.
If I was going to start serious training again, I was going to have to cut back on the smoking. At least Raine would appreciate that. It was one topic she and Landon would agree upon wholeheartedly.
Probably the only one.
I still didn’t know who had been in our condo, and I was probably going to have to tell her about that as well. Now that I had talked to Landon, the possible suspects had increased by five—representatives from the five crime families I’d be battling against in the tournament. Any one of them could be scoping me out. Their bosses probably wouldn’t let them kill me before the tournament started because there were rules against that, but they wouldn’t have any problem with removing Raine from the situation in hopes of throwing me off my game.
It would probably work, too.
There was the added problem of what to do after the tournament was over. What would keep Landon or Franks from calling on me again? They would always be able to hold threats of Raine and my son over my head, and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to stop them. I couldn’t even manage to get Franks to end up in jail when he’d ordered the deaths of sixteen people, including Raine’s father. There was no way I could go to the cops with information about tournament games without landing myself in prison for life, so that wasn’t an option either. I’d learned the hard way that informing on organized crime wasn’t a wise option.
I couldn’t cope with this shit. Even if everything went down exactly how it needed to, and I came out a winner, it wouldn’t be over. Franks and his organization would always be able to make me play again. That fact didn’t change the situation. I was going to have to do this. I was going to have to fight for my family.
My family.
For all I knew, Raine wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Assuming she did forgive my recent transgression, that didn’t mean she was going to want to help me raise a kid that wasn’t hers, and I couldn’t give her one of her own. Maybe she didn’t even want a kid.
No, that wasn’t true. I’d seen it in her eyes before whenever my vasectomy had come up. It was a great way to have sex without pregnancy risk, but now that I was with Raine, other options with less permanent effects would have been preferable.
Assuming Raine doesn’t think better of it and ditch me as soon as she wakes up.
One hurdle at a time. I had to make sure she wasn’t going to tell me to get lost as soon as she got out of bed. Despite my inclination to cut back, I chain smoked for the rest of the night and came up with ways I could try to apologize.
In the morning, I started by making her breakfast.
My head was pounding, and despite four large glasses of water to wash down pain relievers, the usual hangover remedy wasn’t doing anything for me. The smell of the food made me want to get sick again. I was woozy, and nothing sounded better than just passing out on the couch with the TV playing some movie I’d seen a hundred times before. I felt like total shit.
Totally deserved shit.
“You’re up early.”
I startled a little before glancing over my shoulder to find Raine in her bathrobe, watching me. I smiled half a smile and motioned toward the cooking bacon.
“I figured I at least owed you breakfast.”
She raised her eyebrows and sat down at the kitchen table as I poured her coffee and brought the flavored creamer she liked out of the fridge. She blew across the top of the cup before taking a sip.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
I just shrugged.
“That bad, huh?”
“Been worse.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were wrong.
