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I don’t know what to say or do, so I watch him as he continues staring at the tiles on the ceiling.
He’s beautiful even though his large body is hanging halfway off the hospital furniture. One leg is stretched over the end, his other bent with his foot planted on the floor.
In any other circumstance, I might find amusement in how he doesn’t fit. I’m not even sure why he came back after he stormed out. I doubt I would have if someone I had been sleeping with and carrying on a relationship with had kept me in the dark like I did him.
Does it really matter that I wasn’t allowed to divulge the information?
In hindsight, now that I’ll probably lose my job anyway, I still can’t answer that. My conscience keeps flipping sides, torn between what was the right thing to do both personally and professionally.
“What happened?” After several minutes, the silence is broken.
“What do you mean?” I croak, my mouth dry as a bone.
“At your condo.” He doesn’t turn to look at me, and it makes my stomach plummet. I want to see his eyes. Good or bad, I need to see them to know how he feels about me. I know I don’t deserve his mercy. I wouldn’t give it if the roles were reversed. I know that wholeheartedly. “I want to know every detail.” His voice is strained, his jaw a block of steel as he forces them out.
I look over my shoulder, needing water if I’m going to relive it all again. It’s not like I wasn’t expecting this part. I’m surprised Tom didn’t take my statement earlier, or have Mike do it. Now that I think back on it and my head is clearer it’s very odd, actually.
Why didn’t he? That’s routine and the first thing you do if the victim is able to speak.
Spotting a plastic jug of water on the rolling table next to my bed, I turn back over, biting my bottom lip to stifle the pain that wants to be verbalized.
Before I’m able to reach for the cup and jug, Drago has rounded the bed, picking them both up and pouring the water for me.
“Thanks,” I say, taking it and trying to lift myself up with my free hand.
“They have adjustable beds in hospitals for a reason,” he says, retracting his hand and then proceeds to reach down to the side of the bed, pressing a button that begins to move the bed into a seated position.
“Thanks,” I tell him again, taking a sip, the ice water shocking my system as I swallow the liquid down.
“You ready to spill yet?”
He’s not being a jerk, but he is so standoffish that I’d rather welcome his anger right now.
Taking in a slow breath, I exhale even slower, focusing on his face and not the pain. I haven’t hit the morphine button once, and I don’t plan on it. The pain will pass. I’m healing, and this is just part of it.
Taking one last sip, I pass the cup back to him and launch into what happened and what Diaz told me, leaving out the part where he groped me and made sexual innuendos. They aren’t important where D is concerned. He needs to worry about his son—not me.
“He said Gabriel is insurance to get you to start moving his drugs again.”
Drago walks over to stand in front of the window, not saying anything more for several minutes. Light is just starting to break through the sky, telling me it’s morning, probably around six o’clock or maybe a little before.
“Ifyouknow he’s mine, where did you get my DNA from to test?”
“The morning after we first slept together,” I confess. He turns, putting the back of his head against the wall, eyeing me. “When I used the bathroom, I saw your toothbrush sitting on the counter and got the idea to take it.” His brows scrunch together in confusion. “I found an extra, unopened brush head in one of the bathroom drawers, so I put the new one on and took the one you’d been using.”
“Had that always been part of the plan that night you showed up at the club? Try to seduce me and take my spit?”
I have to grit my teeth in order not to tell him to go fuck himself at that very thought.
“No,” I finally force out when I know I have more control over my tongue. “I would never do something like that.”
“No.” He half-laughs. “But you’ll let me fuck you, let me date you, all while knowing I somehow magically have a kid I knew nothing about. I must say, I’m not sure I believe he’s mine.”
“D, he is. I assure you.” I ignore the hurt in my chest the way his tone feels like lashes against my skin.
“Seems convenient. Too convenient. LAPD would do anything, your boss would do anything, to find a shred of evidence that my family business isn’t legit.” He blows out a rush of air. “I don’t put this past any of you to use an innocent child as some form of leverage.”
“Wedidn’t take Gabriel. Diaz did.” I have to swallow, taking a calming breath before I finish. “I thought Gabriel being with me was the safest place for him, not with some stranger he didn’t know and they didn’t know him.”
