AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I couldn’t help but laugh. She already met Johnny. Of course, she did. She wouldn’t have missed the opportunity. Too bad for her he was no longer single, or she could have had her fun.
Those days were gone, for both me and Johnny, and I was fucking glad.
“I don’t,” I mumbled, needing to save my energy to make it up the stairs without stumbling and falling back down.
“How long until I feel normal?” I asked, and the playful grin on her face vanished. She stopped as we reached the top, and I tried not to show how out of breath I was. But she knew, and she waited until I caught my breath enough to focus on her words.
“You want the sugarcoated version, or the cold hard truth?”
“Just fucking say it.”
“The cold hard truth it is then.” She stepped away from me, lifting her dark eyes to mine, and the sudden sadness on her face made something in me clench.
“You’ll never be normal,” she said, and even though I somehow sensed it, the words stung. I clenched my jaw, refusing to show any of the feelings that ripped me apart from the inside.
“Your shoulder will heal. You’ll be able to function normally, but I doubt you’ll ever recover full mobility, and the pain, given the nerve damage, it’s not going to just go away. It will be better, though. But with the wrong movement…” she trailed off, laying a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s fine,” I gritted out. “I didn’t expect anything else.”
“You’re not the only man my brother destroyed,” Izzy muttered under her breath, and I couldn’t help but ask, trying to piece together how they were all connected.
“Dominic?”
She nodded, eyes flickering to the empty hall. I followed her gaze, catching the worry in those dark irises.
“What he did to him…” She sighed, and it wasn’t until then I understood. I got it backwards. Dominic wasn’t the bad guy here. He was the victim. I wanted to ask, but something told me it was far from my business. But it cleared one thing. What Alex told Kaylie. How Dominic hated Mr. X. Well, we had that in common.
“You okay?” Izzy asked, snapping me back to the hall. I gave her a curt nod, and she gave me a sad smile in return. “You’re a strong man, Mr. Maddox.”
She winked at my scowl, placing a hand on my back. “Let’s get you to your girl.”
We gathered in what looked like a medieval conference room at Dominic’s command. The round slab of polished stone surrounded by black leather chairs fit perfectly into the whole stone-caste theme he had going. The walls were stone, here as in the rest if the mansion. A fireplace lit up the left wall, casting an orange glow on the shiny, dark surface of the table.
Trying to focus on Dominic while keeping my eyes on Marc was hard. I found myself drifting back. Eyes and mind. Dom talked, his deep monotone voice that surely had any other girl in a deadly grasp, faded to a background hum as my eyes drifted back to Marc. His face was locked into a mask of unreadable coolness. He was hiding behind something, and I needed to know what.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, not caring if I cut anyone off or if I appeared rude. Marc was the only thing that mattered. The rest could wait, and from the way he clenched his jaw, he wasnotokay. “Talk to me.”
Dom cleared his throat, and I shot him a look. I lay a hand Marc’s thigh, gently squeezing.
“I’m fine, Kaylie.”
“You’re not,” I whispered. For some reason, my eyes drifted to the doctor. She was with Marc. She was bound to know. “Is he?” I asked. “No lies.”
Marc looked at her for a beat, then closed his eyes, and something in me clenched.
“Hey!” My voice was too sharp, but I didn’t care. Unless someone told me what was going on, I refused to sit silent like a good little girl.
Izzy gave me a small, knowing smile, taking a sip from her coffee. She studied me above the steamy hot liquid, and I breathed in the aroma while waiting for her to speak.
“Medically, he’s as fine as he can be, given the circumstances.”
I frowned, not finding the comfort I expected from those words. “Medically?”
“Kaylie,” Marc growled. “Just fucking leave it.”
I didn’t. But instead of demanding answers from the doctor, I turned to him.
“It’s okay to not be okay,” I whispered as the reality dawned on me. I was a wreck, and I didn’t go through anything close to what he did. “It’s okay to have feelings after—”
