The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(106)
Let’s start it off right, and in a true and proper fashion.
Once upon a time…
…there was a murderer named Zeth Mayfair.
******
All organized crime syndicates possess a figurehead. All gangs, mobs, and families are led by one power hungry, vicious tyrant who calls the shots and makes the decisions. And at that man’s side stands another. A right hand. A tool, both blunt implement and finely-honed weapon, carrying out their boss’ every violent wish and savage desire. I was that man, that tool and that weapon. I killed, I stole, I kidnapped, I broke bones, and I did not give a fuck about the consequences.
Many people would be ashamed of a past like mine, but sometimes I like to look back on those days with an abstract kind of fondness. Yes, it was a life of chaos. Did my lifestyle see me injured and hurt? Sure, every now and then. Was I in danger of losing my liberty and my freedom? Of course. Fuck, I did end up in jail once, though ironically not for a crime of my own doing (prison royally sucked. I wouldn’t recommend it). But that kind of a life has its benefits. You keep your fucking mouth shut. You do what you’re told, and you don’t ask questions.
Simple.
Easy.
No worrying. No making the hard decisions for yourself. Everything is black and white. Yes and no. A list of tasks that must be completed in order, and at the end of it all a hefty payday lands in your lap.
But then…I met her: a woman with hair the color of molten chocolate, honey, cinnamon and gold, and eyes as dark and incomprehensible as a bottomless pit. Some people might say Sloane Romera, resident at St. Peter’s of Mercy Hospital, saved my life. Others might say she ruined it. I suppose it all depends on your perspective. Either way, I fell for her, against my better judgement, knowing everything would change and nothing would ever be the same again. The man who had pulled my strings for so long no longer controlled me. The murdering ended.
And then, all of a sudden, out of fucking nowhere, I was a father.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
My breath catches in my throat.
He’s not breathing. He’s not fucking breathing. Leaping to my feet, I close the space between the chair I was sitting in by the window and the small crib on the other side of the room, my heart a pulsing, thumping lump of meat trying to climb its way up my throat.
The child lies on his back, hands balled into tiny fists, thrown up on either side of his head. His lips are parted, his cheeks stained a rosy red, his dark eyelashes fanned out against the pale white plumpness of his cheeks. There are tiny little lions with shaggy manes on his onesie. I stare at his narrow, still chest with the intensity of fifty thousand burning suns, adrenalin making a racetrack of my circulatory system—feels like the goddamn Indie 500’s taking place beneath my ribcage—and I will his chest to move. My palms are slick with sweat; I’m gonna have a fucking heart attack. Where the hell is my cell pho— In…
Out…
In…
Out…
I nearly fucking keel over and weep when his fingers spasm and he takes another deep, steady, even draw of breath.
Jesus fucking Christ.
God…
I swallow down the panic that just rose up and closed its fingers around my throat, shaking myself out, but my body won’t seem to comply. I’ve never known relief like this before. I thought I’d be crushed and I would die under the weight of the relief whenever I held Sloane in my arms and I knew that she was safe, but this is something else altogether. Fatherhood has wrought a dangerous change in me. The earth’s still spinning around the sun. As far as I know, the universe is still expanding at a terrifying speed, rushing outward in every direction, larger, vaster with each and every second, too immense for my mind to even comprehend.
But these scientific facts might as well be fairytales to me these days. The earth will do as it will, but I am locked within the gravitational pull of the small child sleeping peacefully in this crib. The universe can continue charging away from itself, speeding into the unknown, but my universe is shrinking by the day. Now, it seems as though my universe is comprised of the space occupied by just two human beings.
And it’s right where I belong.
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