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“Hurt. Disappointed.” I look down at my feet, not willing to see the look on his face as I say what I need to say. “You told me to feel, D. You told me to feel and that we would figure it out together. You promised. Then the second things went to shit, you went right to the bottle. You didn’t talk, you wouldn’t even hold my fucking hand. Then when she made it, when she pulled through after everything, you left.”
I pause and let all my feelings hang in the air. If he wanted me to feel them, then he has to deal with what he did with them.
“None of us are mad at you, we are all just hurt. Hell, she woke up in a full panic attack and the only thing she could think about was how much you hate her. Not herself or what’s going on with her body.You. That’s who she’s wanted.Youare who she’s needed every time she’s opened her eyes. And it gutted me, absolutely fucking gutted me that I had to be the one to tell her why you weren’t here, and then defend you.”
“I’m sorry, Lev, I’m so sor—” he says in a rush, trying to apologize for what he’s done, but I cut him off with my hand in the air.
“I’ll forgive you, D. I always do. But I can’t be in the same room as you right now. It’s your turn to be with her for a bit. Help convince her you’re not leaving so that maybe she doesn’t fall apart through all of this. I’ll work on putting more pieces together so we can figure out a plan with Alexi while you’re here with her.”
He tries to talk, but I just shake my head and leave. For three days I’ve had to deal with his sour attitude and brooding while also holding our girl in my arms and trying to do everything I could for her. I don’t plan to run out of here and dwell on all of this, but I can let myself feel it so I can find some fucking way to process it and where to go from here.
That mask that’s always just hovering above me, so ready to be slipped on so I can ignore it all. Ignore the pain, ignore the hurt, the confusion. All of it. It’s begging for me to pull it down and slip away.
But I won’t do it. I got mad at Damien for going straight to the bottle, I’d be a hypocrite if I went back to running away.
When I finally get outside, I feel like a week has passed since I’ve walked in the grass. Things are getting better, finally. We just have a giant ass puzzle to solve now. The cool night air helps me stay focused and awake, not even tempted to try and get some sleep.
I go to the suite and plan to collect Evie’s blades to bring them to her when I return to the hospital. I think having them by her side might help the panic a little, we just need to make sure she doesn’t stab any of us when she wakes up. She can be such a violent little thing. Thankfully she hasn’t been looking nearly as confused when she opens her eyes. It takes her a minute to see me, but I no longer have to work to bring her back to the present.
I do my best not to dwell on the fact that she was being drugged daily. I don’t know if I have the capability to not lose my shit if I find out one more damn thing about her.
When I open the door, Alexi is sitting on the couch. His legs are spread wide, and a glass of whisky is dangling from one hand. He looks how I feel. Dark circles under his eyes and a permanent frown is etched into his face. I’ve never seen him look more like his father than he does right now. His white button-up shirt is sitting open at the top, sleeves rolled and scrunched up enough to show off some of his tattoos.
“How is she?” he asks immediately. He and Evie are on better terms now, but she didn’t want him staying with her. I don’t blame her because Alexi’s empathy scale is about a zero out of ten, and he would have no idea how to help her through the panic. He would probably say something stupid like ‘Just stop feeling this way’.
A small smile tugs at my lips just thinking about it. How she would likely hit him, and he would let her because he knows it's the wrong thing to say. I marvel at how well I know them and their dynamic already even though we have only been on the same page for a few days.
“D forgave her, he’s with her in the room. She seems a lot better now that he’s there.” I tell him about the drugs and prevent him from throwing his glass across the room. I’m so tired of cleaning up messes. I survey the floors and notice all the blood is gone. The furniture is put back into place, and I realize that it must have been Damien to clean it all up. We didn’t call for anyone to fix the mess.
“I think I have an idea, but she’s not going to like it,” Alexi says after he’s calmed down.
“At this point, I don’t think she will be too picky about our plans,” I tell him, thinking about how defeated our girl looked. She’s a fighter, but you can see it in her eyes that this is all becoming too much. Her whole life has been a lie. Moving on is going to be an act of extreme will and faith.
“Oh, she is going to fight hard about this. But I want her to come home with us.” His expression is dead serious, but I still laugh. No way in hell would that ever happen.
“Yeah, okay I was wrong, she will be picky about that.”
Alexi shakes his head as he drops back into his seat, looking defeated. “I don’t know what else to do. How else do we keep her safe? The island isn’t safe, she can’t go home. Where could she go?”
He’s got a point. We take a while to sit and strategize about how to make this happen. I agree that she needs to come with us. It’s the only place we can make sure she’s safe. It makes sense why her plan to get to Boris was so in-depth, no one has ever successfully gotten a hit out on the head of the Suns Bratva.
“I just need to see her,” Alexi says around five in the morning. We think we have a few ideas to break the news but nothing is for certain, and Boris has to talk to her first if we are going to find a way for her not to go into a full panic over it because I am so over drugging her. So that’s not an option.
“Then go see her. D needs to shower anyway. I don’t know who he picked a fight with, but he had blood on his knuckles when he came in,” I say and decide to take a long hot shower myself. I’m positive I smell rancid after not leaving that bed for three days and sweating about as much as Evie every time she panicked.
Alexi leaves in a hurry and I go to shower. With the hot water running over me, I try to let the tension fall from my body as easily as the droplets fall to the floor. I take deep breaths and focus on the things I can control. I can choose what I eat before I go to bed. I can choose what I drink. I can choose what I’ll wear. I have some control, and the rest will figure itself out.
As I’m stepping out, I hear the door to the suite close. The hair on the back of my neck stands. My body always knows when Damien is close, and although this is not my usual reaction to him, for once, my mind and body are in agreement that this is all too much. I find myself clenching my jaw hard enough to crack a tooth, and I slowly try to unwind the muscles that just seemed to find a way to relax. Except the more I try, every muscle in my body feels strung tight as a piano wire by the time I’m dry, and I don’t think I can take it anymore.
Luckily, I don’t think I have to. When I look up, Damien is standing in the doorway. "What are you doing in here? Is Alexi with Evie?" I question in an icy tone.
"Yeah, he sent me to try and fix this," he says as he waves his hands between us.
“I just told you,” I say slowly, trying with everything I have to rein in the anger and hostility I’m feeling, “I don’t want to be in the same room as you.” Looking up at him, I hope he sees the pleading in my eyes. “Please. Leave.”
But he just smirks in that casual Damien way of his, and I find my fist flying through the air like I’m no longer in control of the beast beneath my skin. I never let him out, but it seems he’s done hiding.
Damien blocks my punch easily, but that’s the thing when you feel. It doesn’t just stop. It consumes you. Every neuron in my brain only has one job at the moment, and it’s to fight.
