Fractured Freedom(86)

“You will.”

“You’re so sure of it?” She tilted her head and pulled roughly on her hair, a gesture so much like her sister’s but completely different at the same time. “I’m not, but I am sure I want what you have with her. I want a man who can face anything for me, and you’ll do that for her. It kills me that you can’t do that for me.”

She curled her arms around herself then, tears overflowing. Izzy was as much a little sister to me as a real one could be, and I pulled her in for a hug to comfort her.

Nurses and doctors filed in. Vitals were taken. We straightened up to answer the questions about witnessing Lilah wake up.

Things looked better. They knew she was on her way to getting there. The brain trauma caused these bouts, and she’d be good as new soon.

I still stayed the night.

Izzy went home, and the next morning I left to fetch breakfast.

Lilah woke up while I was gone, and her brothers got to her side.

It happened fast. Dimitri stood outside her room. He, along with his other brothers, was a spitting guy image of his sisters with dark hair and hazel eyes too. Except his held a death glare filled with rage I didn’t want to meet. I lifted the breakfast bag and tried for the easy route. “Brought us all some fuel.”

He reared back and swung fast but not fast enough. I dodged his first punch before he came at me again, right hook, then left. He missed both times.

The fact that I had him in a headlock while still holding our food was a pretty good indicator that he wasn’t going to win this fight. He wriggled in my choke hold and mumbled, “You’re a fucking asshole.”

“Agreed, but let’s not do this here.”

“Oh, fuck off,” he wheezed because he couldn’t breathe. He was the youngest of the brothers. His fighting showed it.

I let him go, and he fell to his knees, gasping for air.

“I’m here just as concerned as any of you.”

“As any of us? You put both our sisters in danger. And it’s Delilah!” he shouted, disbelief in his voice. “She could have died.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I walked up to him and kneeled down, setting the breakfast food right next to him. “You think I don’t know we could have lost her?”

We started at one another a long time after that. The look in his eyes was foreign and filled with a fury I never wanted to witness again. The Hardy family had taken me in as one of their own, but now that one of their own was hurt, I was the outsider.

I’d known it was coming, but the impact still felt like a bomb blowing up in my face, the shrapnel cutting deep into the insecurities I already had.

I was the only child of an Armanelli, and I was trying to prove to a nice, upstanding family that I was good enough for their daughter. My best friend’s little sister.

I heard Dom’s voice in her room, heard her whispering back to him. I stared past Dimitri as he said, “She doesn’t want to see you.”

“What?” I growled, my whole body rebelling at the news.

“She actually winced when Dom brought you up. She said if you come here, she doesn’t want to see you. And she wants to rest. She doesn’t want anyone here.”

“She’s not thinking straight,” I told him, although I knew that wasn’t true. The woman was shutting everyone out fast and quick, ready to barricade the room so she could hurt on her own. She’d done it before, but I wouldn’t let her do it again. “Give me her physical update.”

“What for?” he sneered and sat back on the floor as he rubbed his neck. “You’re not going to come around, Dante. Go back to your job and leave our sisters out of it.”

“Look, I know you’re coming to terms with what happened but—”

Dom walked out of the room and stood over both of us. He narrowed his eyes at me and said, “I’ve come to terms with it in the last five minutes listening to my little sister recount the bullshit you put her through. You need to leave.”

“Dom—”

“Did you come to apologize to her or to us? Because we can tell her sorry for you, but you know we’re not going to accept shit from you right now. My kid sister’s in a hospital bed for God’s sake. And you and Izzy knew what the hell you were doing. You should have got her out of there that day.”

“It was complicated,” I said calmly and folded my arms across my chest as I stood to meet him eye to eye. Dom was as big as me and he glared at me with a rage that might have matched my training. He’d put up a good fight. “It’s not always black-and-white.”

He stared at me, assessing everything I was saying. “What wasn’t black-and-white about getting her out of danger?”

I think he knew right then that there was something more between us. I don’t think Delilah had admitted it outright, but Dom knew because we’d been best friends a long time. We knew one another well enough to recognize when one of us was chasing a girl. His gaze flicked to the breakfast bag and then back to me as I stood there quietly, not answering his question.

“You want to give me a few days before you admit the real shit? Or her a few days? Because she really doesn’t want to see you … or anyone for that matter.”

Dimitri shook his head at the ground, looking like he might cry, and Dom shook with fury. I stood there, making it worse rather than better.