HOLY FUCK.
I felt my eyes slowly blink open.
"Good morning, baby." Dominic?
I looked up.
Oh.
I gulped.
I was. I was hoping to hear his voice, even after everything.
God, I am so dumb, but I was really hoping to hear his voice.
In actuality, it was Matteo and Leo asking how I was…and the two of them looked closer than ever. Very strange, very fucking strange.
I think I was too delirious even to understand what was being said in all of those monologues, but their being together is very strange.
I felt my stomach convulse.
Oh god. I feel fucking terrible beyond words.
I looked around, and my eyes stopped on Dom. He was sleeping in a chair, wearing my shirt and pajama pants.
But…he doesn't look good, like he looks very pale; I mean, he is normally pale but more pale, and his lips look dry and crackly.
He just looks. He looks sick, very sick.
I want to say something, anything, but I can't. The words don't come out, and all I can do is look around.
Leo was sitting on the opposite side of the room from Dom, and Matteo was sitting next to him on his phone as Leo rubbed my shoulder.
"I think Dom has been out for about 5 hours now? I don't know," Leo says, looking overwhelmed. "That's the longest he's been asleep for the past 6 days."
Hey, at least this coma didn't last as long as the other one!
God, I am saying that like it's normal.
I looked down at my hand as Leo continued to talk. "Do you have any idea what he has been putting himself through?" I tried to move my fingers, but they wouldn't move; they just felt cold and numb.
"He hasn't kept anything down since it happened. He just keeps pacing around looking at you, and when he does sit down, he refuses to let go of your hand. He even snapped at Matteo and me earlier because we told him to actually go eat something and leave you."
I sighed.
Do I really want to hear all of this?
Haven't we been here before? He's making me feel bad, guilt-tripping me. That's what he is doing right now.
Leo is trying to make me feel bad, so I forget everything that has happened.
"He has been making himself physically sick, Ryder. He's throwing up from stress, from lack of sleep, from all of it. I don't think he's slept more than an hour at a time this entire week," Leo said.
I just.
You do know that I am sick right now, right?
Sick because I got kidnapped by one of his fucking men.
I looked over at Matteo.
Why is he even here?
Why do we suddenly trust him now?
Why do I trust any of you guys?
The words still don't come out as Leo continues to talk, his voice cracking as he looks over at Dom. "I swear he has been going crazy. He's been sitting in that chair and sitting by your bed, talking to you. Waiting for you to wake up. Every single minute just sitting here, holding your hands, blaming himself over and over again." As he should.
"You think he's a monster?" Yes.
"Fine, maybe he is, but you need to know, he's a monster who loves you so much it's killing him."
He should have thought about that…before. Before he fucking lied to me. Before causing all of this fucking shit.
Before causing my arm and leg to be fucking broken.
Before causing…causing so much pain.
I can't even feel my fucking body; it's all numb.
I just.
I don't know.
I loved him so much it was killing me, too.
Except I have had 16 days of comas, and he has had zero.
I have had broken and shattered bones, and he has zero.
I have had one drug overdose, and HE HAS ZERO.
So, 'killing him' is overexaggerating.
"Do you know how many times I have seen him cry this week? Dominic crying! The man who doesn't care about anyone and has built one of the biggest mafia empires in the country is falling apart because of you."
Mafia.
I shook my head slowly.
He should have told me, you fucking mafia boss.
Leo leaned closer to me. "You. Someone he hasn't even known for a month."
I gulped.
Me.
He. He wants me to feel bad. He wants me to cave and jump back into Dominic's arms like nothing ever happened.
"He's been pushing everyone away because he doesn't want anyone to see how broken he is and how vulnerable. He is not wearing a suit for crying out loud. He won't even let himself sleep, because he's so damn scared that if he closes his eyes, something will go wrong. Your heart will stop, or the nurse will take you. Something. Something else will take you away from him."
I feel this pit start to grow in my stomach.
He wants me to feel bad, and it's working.
It's.
God.
"And now he is finally out. His body couldn't keep up with his terrible eating habits: all of the vomiting, the sleep, everything. I understand everything from your perspective. I know what it's like to have someone you love lie to you like it's nothing, even though you trust them so fucking much," Leo says, and I watched as he turned around to Matteo and then back at me.
Oh.
Lie to you.
Like it's nothing.
Oh.
"I know what it's like to be betrayed by your loved ones. The ones you thought you could trust. They flip your life upside down and leave you stranded, and I know it fucking hurts like hell, but losing them is going to hurt more, hurt more than ever," Leo said.
"I have known Dom for my whole life. He is my built-in best friend, and I know he is this terrible, awful guy, but he loves you, and he has never loved anyone as much as he loves you. I understand how you feel; mafia bosses are awful. They are selfish fuckers who only care about themselves, and they will leave you alone and abandon you without a second thought, but…" Leo stopped.
"But if they are willing to break the cycle and change everything just to be with you, then, then, that's love. It's some twisted, sick way, but they love you and will do everything to keep you safe. And Matteo's, my mafia boss, I guess, and Dom could be yours; it's just up to you. But I know, I know that he loves you," Leo said, and he stopped rubbing my shoulder and just stood up next to me.
I looked over at Dominic, who was still out cold.
I wonder.
I often wonder what he is thinking.
He is just so confusing.
God and the whole mafia thing, I was in denial about it up until he told me himself, and it hurt so much more.
And now.
It's love.
Not once have I heard him say, 'I love you.' Just those simple fucking words.
But all of the stuff he has done for me, and what Leo is saying, and what his daughter and all the people around him have been saying, do I really need to hear it from him?
I looked straight ahead at the wall.
I guess I don't.
I continued to look straight at the wall.
And this is the part where I have to forgive him, right?
Because of all of the stuff he has done for me, and the fact that we are now full circle from where we first met. I just have to forgive him now, right?
This is where I wake him up, tell him everything is okay, and forgive him, right?
This is where we kiss, the words fade out, and the story ends, right?
I forgive him for LYING TO ME because he "made amends" by taking care of me when I was sick.
I can't leave you just because your ex-wife did the same when she found out, right?
I can't leave you because you didn't want to tell me because I'm 'special.' You wanted to lie to me this whole time just because I am 'special.'
But…she was also 'special,' right?
She had your fucking daughter for crying out loud.
"Okay," I said; it was the only word that came out of my mouth.
Leo nodded.
The door opened, and a nurse came in.
She smiled. "Glad to see you are awake."
"I guess," I said. My voice was raspy, and it hurt.
"How do you feel?"
"I don't feel."
The nurse laughed as she did a few things and checked to make sure everything was stable.
"We have only had a few cases with Nexarix, but you are the best one!"
"What's Nexarix?" I asked.
She walked over and grabbed 3 pamphlets from a table in my room.
"We gave them to your fiancé to read," she said, handing them to me.
Fiancé.
I snickered silently to myself.
Oh, to be his fiancé.
I looked down at the pamphlets she gave me.
Nexarix, physical therapy, and mourning.
What?
"In short, it is a drug that you overdosed on, and the recovery process is very uncertain because of the little we know about it, but the other cases didn't wake up from their comas, and you are so far the only one who has," she said with a smile.
I blinked.
I blinked again.
"For some reason that doesn't make me feel good," I said, and she laughed.
"Understandably," she said, and she went to wake Dominic up with a "Sir."
I watched as he shot up and looked around frantically.
"Mr. Caruso, Ryder's medication is ready for you to pay for, if you would come with me," she said, and Dominic nodded.
He looked tired, but he tried to cover it.
Then she started walking towards the door, and Leo followed her. "I can pay for it; I deal with all of the money stuff."
She nodded, and both Leo and Matteo followed her outside, leaving Dominic and me alone.
I looked over at him as he handed me my glasses.
He gave me a weak smile. "Here are these."
I nodded and put them on.
"I take it, Leo already told you my whole spiel?"
I nodded.
"And I take it you don't care?" He asked, standing up.
"It's not that I don't care; it's just that I don't know if you are lying again or not because you did lie to me about being a mafia boss, and like we talked about it time and time again, and you didn't tell me anything and just lied. How do I know you aren't lying to me about loving me? I have heard it from others, but not from you. How do I fucking know you aren't…" My voice goes raw, and Dominic and I make eye contact.
"I don't know," Dominic said.
You don't know?
Wrong fucking answer.
"I really don't know. If I simply say I love you, I take it you won't believe me, right? So I don't know. I am this crazy 38-year-old who got his life flipped upside down by a 21-year-old I have barely known for a couple of weeks, like, what do you want me to do?"
"Do you want me to beg on my knees and tell you that you are my first and only love? That would be another fucking lie," he said.
The venom. The terrible tone in his voice.
It gave me comfort. This weird comfort.
"I had lovers before you; I had a wife before you, for crying out loud. She was my college sweetheart, and I thought she was my soulmate, my special someone, but I guess not."
Hearing him talk about her gave me the same pit in my stomach that it did when Isabela was talking to me about her.
This guilt.
"But you. I have never tried this hard for anyone. Not even Lova, because no matter what I did, it always pissed her off. I don't know why, but with you. When I try for you, it is actually fulfilling and gives me this joy, this weird fucking joy.
"You aren't my type. You are nothing like that. You are a man, a fucking man. But. I feel this weird way about you, this weird way that goes way beyond the physically possible. This weird way that, when you come around, makes me crazy. That weird way is love."
He sat on the edge of my bed. "Actually, I don't even know if it is love. I mean, I want to cater to your every request, and everything like that, but I also…" His voice trails off as the look on his face goes into something I can't explain. "I feel this weird attraction to you that I didn't feel for my ex-wife or any of my past partners. This weird thing that goes beyond physical attraction."
His voice got quieter. "I want you in ways that I can't because you are a man."
Because I am a man?
What is that supposed to mean?
God, this is so bad.
Somehow.
Some weird, twisted way.
I feel more moved by this mean, raw, honest Dom than all of the emotional stuff Leo said to me. For some crazy ass reason, I feel more emotionally moved by the unfilteredness of the words coming out of his mouth.
"Because I am a man?" I asked in a raspy voice, and he nodded slowly, and it started to freak me out.
"Never in my whole, in my whole fucking life."
I sighed.
Here comes the sappy; 'oh, never in my whole life have I loved someone so much or whatever bullshit they have in those shity romance novels.'
"Never have I gotten the urge to breed someone like I do with you."
I'm sorry, what?
YOU GET THE URGE TO WHAT WITH ME?
I think I have lost the plot.
"Like we fucked, that was good, very good, but then this disgusting urge started to burn inside of me and it's been in the back of my mind since I got to know you, but…I never really knew the feeling until now."
A sinister smile grew on his face. "You know?"
No, I don't know. I slowly shook my head.
He got closer to me, and my heart started to beat faster.
Closer and closer. And closer, until the heart monitor started to go off.
He snickered, moved my arm, and sat down.
I can feel his breath on my face.
"I take it, you don't know," He said, and I shook my head again. "I finally know what the feeling is. That crazy urge that I keep so far down."
He is so fucking sleep deprived, oh my god.
"And I think I am finally saying it and coming to terms with it because I feel sick out of my mind, but I'd knock you up if I could, you know?"
STOP SAYING YOU KNOW? BECAUSE I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. I REALLY DON'T.
I shook my head again, this time slowly and horrifiedly turned on.
"I would do it over and over again because you are so fucking special. So fucking special to me, and I guess that makes me this crazy fucking pervert, but I don't care because I love you and I want you; I want you so bad. And it's not just because I am sick and delirious; it's because I want you for real," he said as he rubbed my leg.
"And I know there is so much you have to learn about me and me the same, but I do know that you would rather the raw, unfiltered version rather than the stupid sappy shit you know?"
I do know. I nodded.
"Because you don't care about all of the sappy things; you think they sound superficial, am I right?"
"You are actually very correct," I said in my raspy voice.
"Exactly, you think the sappy shit is all a lie, and I don't know why you see the world like that, but I do know that you know I am not lying when I give you the raw, unfiltered shit; you know I am not lying and that's what really matters, no matter how weird, you know I am not lying," he said.
I sighed.
I know.
I know he is telling the truth.
And he's got everything all right.
But fuck, I don't know.
If I cave now, all of the stuff I said would lose its weight and meaning. And I would just be someone who swoons without a second thought.
God, I don't fucking know.
"So, Ryder, I don't know what you think of me, but I know what I think of you. I love you, and I don't want to lose you. I know it will be best for both of us if I give up on you and never see you again, but I don't want that. I really don't. And that makes me an asshole because I barely know you, but." He looked into my eyes. "Can we start over?"
"Just this once, can we start over?"