A Kingpin Love Affair: The Complete series(48)

“You’re going to make it through this. You’re going to hold on because if you don’t… if you don’t… I don’t know what I will f*cking do without you, man.” Pain showed in his features, his voice full of emotion. I tried harder to focus on him, his words, his hand against my flesh, but I slipped out of it again.

“Always know it was you who caused me to open up. It was you who took the hurt and pain away. You made everything worth living for.” Tears were falling from her eyes. The warmth surrounding her was diminishing. What was happening?

“NOOO!!!” I cried out, my hands reaching for her. I could feel her slipping away, and I, too, wanted to go wherever it was she was going. I couldn’t let her leave me. Not again.

“Stay with me,” I begged. Her image was going in and out, her face full of sadness.

“You have to let go… You have to let ME go.” She seemed hurt, angry, pained even. I shook my head no, holding onto her with everything inside of me.

“It’s not your time, Jared.” My mother flashed before my eyes, Isabella’s body drifting away from my own.

“Bring her back,” I screamed, my body floating further away from her. A hand so soft I almost didn’t feel it landed on my own.

“She will be fine, Jared. It is you I’m worried about. It’s not your time yet. You haven’t fulfilled your duties in life.” I stared at her confused. What did she mean? The very reason for my breathing was lying on the floor, unmoving.

“JARED!” I could feel someone beating against my chest. I wanted to reach out to them. To entangle my hand with theirs and let them pull me back, but I refused. I felt content where I was. There was no pain and no agony.

“You’re going back. You don’t belong here.” My mother whispered. I stared at her—my eyes had to be deceiving me. She looked just as she had the last time I saw her. Her dark hair long and wavy, she smiled and my whole world grew bright. I couldn’t help myself. I had to wrap my arms around her, had to feel her, to see if she was truly real.

“We are losing him!!” someone screamed right next to my ear. Losing him? I didn’t understand what they were saying. What it all meant?

“Jared, come on! Come the f*ck on! Fight it, man. You got to fight it. Please, man, just come on.” Alzerro was right next to me, trying to get me to come back to him. I wanted to ask him what it was that I needed to come back for but faded out again.

“The moment I knew I was dying, I thought of nothing but you.” My mother ran her fingers through my hair and down my cheek. She smiled at me as if she were proud to see her son all grown up.

“I needed you. Why did you have to die?” Now I was the one crying, the one gripping her like a lifeline. She was fading, but I held on long enough to hear her next words.

“You’re exactly as I wanted you to be. You’re strong, handsome, and I’m so very proud to have been your mother.” Her lips fell against my forehead, and in that touch, I felt love as I had never felt before. I felt connected to the earth and the sky all at the same time. I was grounded but floating.

My life flashed before my eyes, brief moments throughout my life. I was riding my bike, smiling back at both my parents at six. The next flash was the first time I met Alzerro, and then I was opening birthday presents with my family the year before my mother died and witnessing my father full of love when we found out about Bree. And then, finally, it was the moment my heart started beating—when Isabella entered my house, and when I felt her body pressed against mine, or the first time I kissed her lips...

The air swirled around me as I felt pain like I had never felt before. It severed every nerve in my body, agony ripping my veins, as I had never felt before.

It was all coming back to me.

I was being brought back to life.

I was living.

I was breathing.

I was here.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


Isabella

The beeping of machines, the smell of medicine, blood, and bleach filled the air. I hadn’t moved from the hospital chair since I came into the room seventy-two hours ago. In fact, I hadn’t done anything but stare at the man I loved in hopes he would awake.

We had been in the hospital for a week now. After the rescue, my life repeated the same things it had after my first rescue. They rushed me to emergency care as they checked me over, doctors running test and conducting evaluations on me within the first twenty-four hours. They tried to ask me what happened in the room before all hell broke loose. I didn’t want to tell them. I didn’t want anyone to know. To know he had taken something from me I would never get back, but I knew they knew. They just wanted me to tell them, to give the police my statement, but I couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t tell them I had stabbed him. That I had watched the life bleed right out of his disgusting eyes. I didn’t want them to know that either. Worst of all, I didn’t even feel sorry for doing it. I didn’t care that I was killing someone. No remorse at all as I inserted the knife into him.

“Just because he isn’t awake doesn’t mean he’s dead. He suffered a major head injury. His body needs time to heal. He’ll wake up when he has rested enough,” Alzerro said out loud, ripping me from my own tormenting thoughts. Jared’s chest moved up and down, but he was unconscious to the world.