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“What if you hadother, closerfamily.”
She frowns. “I don’t get what you’re?—”
“What if you married me.”
The room is quiet but for the beeping of the machines keeping her alive.
“Ha-ha,” she says dryly. “Deathbed jokes. You never cease to surprise me?—”
“I’m not joking.” I lean closer. “If we were married, I could legally seal off your medical records, even from your siblings.”
She smiles wryly. “Heroin use is a felony, Dante,” she says quietly, her voice shaking. “I’m already in the system. The hospital was required to report it when I came in?—”
“Pregnancy isn’t.” I grit my teeth. “If you want, I can hide that part.”
She stares at me, her throat bobbing as her chest with the tubes coming out of it rises and falls.
“Why would you do that?” she croaks.
I hold her hand tighter. “Because you fucking saved me. And I can’t save you.” I choke out the last words, fury, rage, and sadness burning hot in my chest.
“If they ever do find out, they’ll all think it was you that knocked me up.”
“Yeah. But they won’t find out.”
“Butifthey do…”
She’s fading out again. Her eyes are losing focus and her pulse is getting weaker.
We’re doing this right now.
“They’ll hate you,” she whispers.
“Then they’ll hate me. Just say yes, Layla, and I’ll call the hospital chaplain and in-house lawyer right now.”
A tear trickles down her cheek as she grips my hand as tightly as she can, which isn’t very tightly at all.
“Yes,” she chokes out quietly. Then she nods, her eyes closing a little. “Better get that preacher, Dante,” she murmurs. “I don’t know how much longer you’ll have a bride with a pulse.”
I’m at the door when she calls my name again. “Oh, and Dante?” She opens her eyes and grins a sleepy smile at me. “Remember: don’t go over the edge, okay?”
Twenty minutes later, the documents are signed, and Layla is my wife.
Five minutes after that, I’m a widower.
An hour afterthat, I’m kicking in Jason’s front door and committing my first murder—with my bare hands, as promised.
And then I mourn the loss of my best friend, who saved me.
Whom I couldn’t save back.
Present:
Tempest is sobbingby the time I finish telling her everything. She collapses into my arms, clinging to me as she raises her tear-streaked face to mine and kisses me hard.
“You never said anything…” she sobs.
“I promised her,” I choke through clenched teeth. “I couldn’t break that.”
