Page 15 of Sweet Union
She tilts her head. “Why?” I don’t like her inquisitive eyes. “What’s so wrong about hospitals?”
“Nothing. It just wasn’t the best option for us.”
Dr. Ryder stares at me for a while, and I begin to feel uncomfortable. Then, finally, she speaks. “Are you two on the run?”
I don’t reply.
A light enters her eyes. “Of course, you are. That explains it. Why you don’t want to go to a hospital. Why you’d hold me at gunpoint. You’re on the run for something. Let me guess. Robbery? Please don’t stay murder.”
“We’re not on the run for murder,” I snap. “Or robbery. It’s the opposite actually. Someone is hunting my us. We needed to get away, somewhere safe. He got shot in the process.”
“Hunted down? Like the police?”
“It’s not the police. It’s someone else. It’s better that you don’t know. The person is dangerous. We almost died because of them. Now, we’re on the run, hiding until we can stop them. We can’t risk them looking at hospitals for us.”
“Most people don’t get hunted. There must be a reason. And judging by how cavalier you and your husband are about pointing a gun at someone, I’d guess you hurt this person, and now, they’re coming after you.”
“My husband and I are not the bad guys here, so stop trying to paint us as such.” Though, Luca and I have done some arguably terrible things, that doesn’t make us the villains in this case.
“You’ve tied me to a chair and are holding me at gunpoint,” she points out.
“I know. But that’s just so you don’t go to the police. We’re not going to kill you. We’re just going to keep you here until we’re able to move on. We don’t hurt innocent people.”
“But you hurt bad people, I take it?”
I shrug.
“That’s not any better. Hurting people, no matter who it is, is wrong.”
“You don’t know my life. You don’t know how bad some people can be. I’ve been kidnapped myself, you know. I’ve been hurt, too. And trust me, when someone does something bad to you, you want to hurt them.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Not even me?”
Dr. Ryder pauses before shaking her head. “Not even you. I can tell you’re not a bad person.”
“Then why call 911?”
“Because you held me at gunpoint,” she repeats slowly like I’m a one-year-old learning to talk.
“But if you trusted that I wouldn’t hurt you, then you’d have no reason to go to the police.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“How does it work?”
She laughs more to herself than to me. “You can’t just go around pointing a gun at a person, no matter who they are. There are consequences. That’s why I called the police.”
“Well, that’s not the world I live in.”
“Then you live in a sad, dark world.”
Her words hit me like a slap. I’ve lived in a Mafia world my whole life, even if I wasn’t fully aware of it growing up. My dad shielded me. Luca freed me. But I’ve always been tainted by darkness—from the moment I was born. Mom told me about how a man kidnapped me as soon as she gave birth to me, and Dad had to kill him to get me back. I was literally born into darkness. I guess that leaves a stain. That’s probably why I’m drawn to Luca. His darkness speaks to my own.
But my life hasn’t been sad. Dark, yes. Sad? Not at all. I’ve always had love in my life, from my parents to Luca. It’s not a sad life at all.
“I like my life,” I finally tell Ryder. “You don’t know anything about it. Now, stop trying to reason with me. I’ll let you go when Luca and I leave. You have my word on that.”
