Page 83 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)
It’s over almost as soon as it started. Phoenix rolls off of me, but he stays at my side, one hand grazing my hip, eyes fixed on the ceiling above us.
After a long while, I turn my head to the side and stare at his profile. It’s perfection itself—but the torture of his past is etched across every feature.
For a second, I’m able to put my anger aside. I’m able to suspend all the blame I want to throw at him.
Instead, I remember the night we met. The way he had put himself in front of me. The way he had given me a chance at freedom.
He is more than just the harsh mafia don that he appeared to be back then.
He is a man, still trying to figure out a way to live with never-ending sorrow.
I can relate.
There are so many things I want to tell him. Things I’m not sure if I even believe myself, but things that he needs to hear if we’re to survive this chaos.
It’s going to be alright.
Your family’s deaths are not your fault.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
But for now, I let the moment draw out in silence. Because I’m afraid it’s all we may be given.
“I need him to be okay, Phoenix,” I say, breaking the quiet. “I need to know he’s going to be alright.”
He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “I will do everything humanly possible to ensure that.”
My hand is lying right next to his on the bed. I resist the urge to reach for him. To cling to him in the same desperate way I’ve done since the moment I ran into that awful nightclub a year ago.
“How have you managed all this time?” I ask, cursing myself for not having asked sooner. “How have you survived?”
I know he’ll know what I’m asking.What will I do if I lose my son?Buthe leaves my question floating in the void for a few moments.
“Sometimes,” he rasps, “even I don’t know.”
I nod, a tear slipping free from my left eye. “When Charity died, it felt like a piece of me went with her.”
He still doesn’t look at me. “I only remember certain feelings in the days that followed. The hopelessness. The loss. I don’t remember much of anything else. It was my mind’s way of protecting me. Still is.”
It was my mind’s way of protecting me.The words echo in my head and they seem to get louder with each repetition.
What is my mind protecting me from?
“Phoenix?” I ask as my thoughts grow heavy. “I feel so weak.”
“You’re drained,” he replies. “It’s the shock. You need to sleep. You need to rest.”
I want to jerk upright just to prove him wrong, but my body betrays me. I’m so tired that even outrage is difficult to muster.
“I’ll rest after my son is safe,” I mutter through clumsy lips.
He sighs. And at last, he turns to me. His dark eyes are hooded. And so beautiful. So beautiful I want to cry. I think I am crying.
“You’re dead on your feet,” he whispers in a husky rasp. “You’ll be useless to everyone if you come with me like this.”
