Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Apollo
Ihave Yordan and Rayna settled into a private wing on the top floor of the hospital within an hour. My mentee is fast asleep, on enough pain medicine to keep him comfortable but also fatigued. Rayna, on the other hand, is wide awake.
Elio brought her a bag of things from their apartment, making sure she has plenty of personal items to remain entertained and settled here.
She’s got her own hospital bed, made up with blankets that Armani insisted she take.
She’s changed into sweatpants and has her hair pulled up and out of her face.
Her tears have been washed away, but the responsibility I feel for putting them there in the first place hasn’t.
“I have to go home for a bit,” I tell her, voice low. “I need to give my work to my father for the week so I can stay here without hindering him.”
Rayna looks up at me, surprised. “You don’t need to go through all the trouble. Yordan will understand if you can’t be here all the time.”
I blink at her, frowning. “I’m going to be here.”
Watching me for a moment, she eventually nods. “Okay. Should we get a third bed put in here for you?”
I pause, not expecting the question. “The room next door is set up for me. I didn’t intend to invade your privacy.”
She shrugs. “Yordan might want you close. You make him feel safe.” Looking down, she fiddles with her fingers. “You do that for both of us.”
I almost hold my breath, thinking I must have misheard her. “Even after today?”
Rayna sighs, face dropping. “Don’t tell me you’re blaming yourself for this? You weren’t even there, Apollo.”
“Exactly,” I agree gruffly. “I wasn’t there, Rayna. I was expecting fury from you, and I don’t understand why I’m not getting it.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she scoffs. “I know we don’t get along. But you’re not fucking superman. You don’t have magical powers. You can’t be everywhere at once and save everyone.”
“You should be yelling at me,” I disagree, shaking my head. “I didn’t protect him. I promised I would keep him safe, and I didn’t.”
“You want me to yell at you?” she whisper-hisses, getting up from her bed to get into my space.
“How about I yell at you for that little moment you had with your brother’s wife?
Whispering, inches away from each other?
If you’re having an affair with Ana, I would have appreciated knowing about it when my brother wasn’t lying in a hospital bed. And before I made her my friend!”
“What?” I ask, head flinching back in surprise. “Affair with Ana? What are you talking about?’
“I saw you two,” she snaps. “You could have kissed her with how close you were. You had your hands on her.”
I try to recall what she’s talking about, and when I realize the moment she’s referring to, an uncontrollable smile lifts my lips.
“Why are you smiling?” Rayna demands. “What is wrong with you?”
“Ana and I are not having an affair,” I tell her, so amused while shaking my head. “My hands were on her arms, and our eyes were close together because I was grounding her.”
Her lips purse, a scoff leaving her throat. “Grounding her? What are you, her fucking yoga instructor?”
“Ana has memory issues,” I begin to explain, utterly enjoying the sight of jealousy in her eyes.
“She has trauma from her past, and I’ve been helping her sort through her more difficult memories.
Today was very hard for her, and seeing Yordan bleeding gave her some unsavory flashbacks.
Her story isn’t mine to tell, but I assure you, we’re not romantically involved in any way shape or form. ”
“Oh.” She swallows, slowly accepting my explanation as the truth.
“Oh,” I echo, huffing. “I’m interested to know why the idea of Ana and I having an affair got you so worked up, though, micina selvatica. Anger on behalf of my dear brother Cassio, or perhaps envy of your new friend?”
“Envy?” she sputters. “I knew your cocky little prick personality would return, but I didn’t think it would be this fast. Go handle your shit before I get actually angry and wake Yordan up.”
“No apology for assuming the worst in me, yet again?”
“No apology because you added another word after your obnoxious nickname for me and for all I know it’s vulgar.”
I chuckle, tilting my head down at her. “Selvatica means feral, and I think it fits you perfectly.”
Rayna huffs, crossing her arms. “If I apologize for assuming, will you leave?”
“It’s all right,” I say slyly. “What kind of fiancé would I be if I didn’t forgive you?”
She gasps, smacking my stomach with the back of her hand. “What if he heard you?”
My eyes roll as I turn to leave. “He didn’t. I’ll be back soon.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” she mutters.
“I need to talk to you.”
I look up from my desk, finding Leon staring down at me seriously.
I hide my surprise with ease, not reacting to his unexpected visit.
But I won’t deny my curiosity. When he left the hospital, I was under the impression that he would be going home to his territory.
Instead, here he stands in my office with his hair disheveled and eyes almost cloudy.
He looks…defeated.
I set my pen down and tilt my head. “About?”
When he doesn’t answer, I sit up straighter, watching his unblinking expression closely.
“I’m leaving again for the hospital soon. Now would be the optimal time to speak, brother.”
Nostrils flaring, he takes in a measured breath, and his eyes drop to the floor.
“Rayna—” he begins.
My shoulders snap straight, all illusions of calm gone in an instant. “This is about Rayna?”
“Jumpy much?” Leon exhales, shaking his head with a frown. “Are you going to let me get a word in? I came to you instead of Dad, Apollo. I’d like to think you know how big of a deal that is for me.”
My hands flex under the desk, and my teeth grind. “The Todorovs are my responsibility. When something concerns either one of them, I tend to get touchy. Say what you need.”
Especially after today. Yordan is already hurt, I don’t think I can handle anymore bad news in regard to either of the siblings.
“Don’t flip out before I finish speaking,” he warns. “Rayna and I—”
“There’s a ‘Rayna and I’ now is there? What did the two of you get up to, exactly?” I bite out, interrupting again. The memory of Rayna hugging Leon—leaping into his arms—hours ago plays on a demented loop in my head, taunting me. I suspected they’d become friends, but…“If you touched her—”
“Jesus Christ, Apollo,” he groans out, wincing.
He leans forward, hands resting on the top of the chair across from me, his shoulders turned in.
“You’re making this harder than it already is.
I’m trying to talk to you here and you’re acting like I’m some kind of villain.
I’m your brother, remember? You always say you’re here for us. Has that changed?”
“No,” I reply, taking a beat. “It hasn’t.”
This is Leon, I remind myself. My first brother. No matter what he says, I can’t throttle him. If something happened with Rayna, I need to digest it reasonably.
“Start over,” I suggest, gesturing to the chair opposite mine. “Sit.”
Leon drops into the chair like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. “This isn’t easy to explain.”
“Try.”
He sighs and then swallows. “Rayna’s my friend, you’ve noticed that. I know you have. We’ve bonded a bit, and become closer.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Before Yordan got hurt, after his party we were cleaning up at the apartment. We were alone for a few hours. Dad had Leo.”
“The night before the orphanage event,” I surmise, annoyed that I didn’t realize Rayna spent several hours alone with Leon. Leaving with Elio and Yordan felt natural, I didn’t consider that my brother would stick around for so long after we went for a ride.
Respecting her boundaries is a fucking nuisance sometimes. I could know much more about her day to day if I checked in on her building’s security cameras daily. But no, I’ve decided to remain honest and allow her privacy.
Fucking privacy.
And yet, she still considers me an unlikeable asshole.
“Yeah.” Leon blinks. “It was…We…”
He can’t find the words. And there’s guilt, so much fucking guilt in his eyes. My stomach drops, discomfort hitting me like a ton of bricks.
“If you’re about to confess a fucking affair to me, I need more than water to drink,” I grind out, opening the drawer to my left. I pull out a bottle and two glasses, pouring two fingers of amber liquid for us each.
Leon welcomes the glass quickly, tossing back the thirty-year-old bourbon like it’s an acceptable beverage to guzzle down. At least it’s not my Gin David. My hand clenches my drink tight, and I take a hefty swallow, savoring the burn in the back of my throat.
“We didn’t have an affair,” he says slowly. “Not really.”
“Not really?” I press.
The snippy sort of jealousy Rayna demonstrated earlier is about to pale in comparison to the red hot anger boiling inside of me.
“There was a moment,” Leon continues. “We almost kissed. I mean like, millimeters away from almost kissing.”
I nearly stop breathing.
“But you didn’t?”
“Yordan walked in.” He looks down in shame. “I honestly don’t know if I would have snapped out of it if he didn’t.”
God, I love that kid.
“Okay.” I sigh, rolling my neck. “Is that what this is all about? An almost kiss?” I mean, I don’t fucking like it. But it didn’t technically happen. “There’s a church a few miles away if you feel the need to confess your almost-sins.”
“That’s the thing,” Leon hesitates. “I already confessed.”
My brows lift in surprise. “You told Cleo?”
He nods, clipped and short. “I couldn’t take it anymore, Apollo.”
“Take what? The guilt? It didn’t even happen—”
“You don’t get it.” He sighs heavily. “I’m not explaining this well.”
“So, explain it.”
Leon runs a hand through his blonde locks, quietly groaning. “I didn’t almost kiss Rayna because I want her specifically. I like her, yes. Our friendship, it actually means a lot to me. And yeah, I’m not blind. She’s beautiful, but I’m not pining after her. It wasn’t about her, it was about me.”
“I’m sure she’d love to hear that,” I say dryly.
“It wasn’t about me for her either,” he defends, huffing. “Rayna and I already talked. We’re fine. We didn’t almost kiss because we want each other. We almost kissed because we have one very crucial thing in common. We’re fucking lonely.”
I pause, taking in his serious tone. “Lonely?”
Leon laughs incredulously. “Yeah, Apollo. Lonely. I’ve got two kids and a wife, and yet, I’m so fucking alone, I’m drowning in it.”
I don’t know what to say.
For the first time in years, I think I’m stunned speechless.
The idea of Leon being lonely isn’t entirely unbelievable.
We all know that he’s in a loveless marriage.
But the conviction in the way he speaks about it, fuck, it almost hurts me.
I can feel the pain he’s radiating and it’s hard to swallow.
As an older brother, I’d do almost anything for my younger siblings. I take care of this family in silent ways all the time, but real conversations like this aren’t always common. Especially with Leon.
He’s always been so self-sufficient. And now here he is, sitting in front of me and bearing his fucking soul. For a man, let alone a made man, to admit that something as human as loneliness is plaguing him…I know this isn’t an easy fix. Something deeper is going on here.
“Cleo and I agreed to a marriage in name,” he continues, breathing out hard.
“She wanted it that way, and I was fine with it. I was never going to force her to love me. But it’s been five years now, Apollo.
Five years of cold indifference. There’s no friendship, let alone intimacy.
We share the kids like business partners, and the house like roommates.
We don’t share a bed. We don’t kiss, or hug, or hold hands.
The only times we’ve fucked have been to try for kids. We don’t even talk, man.”
Jesus, I wince.
“She doesn’t ask about my day, and she doesn’t want me to ask about hers.
We talk about the kids, and nothing else.
I knew we didn’t sign up to fall in love, but I didn’t expect her to act so fucking cold either.
We don’t have to love each other to show each other kindness and fucking care.
She gave birth to my son and she acts like I’m odd for wanting to know if she’s had a good day. I mean, what the fuck is that?”
“Fuck, Leon.” My head shakes. “Why have you never said anything?”
“Would you?” he challenges. “It doesn’t exactly feel good to tell people how much your wife wants nothing to do with you.”
I sigh, accepting his reasoning. “But you told her about Rayna? Why, if things are so bad?”
“Because I was done,” he admits, lips turned down. “I almost kissed another woman for a scrap of affection. I’ve gone five years without feeling wanted or desired or liked by my wife and I just needed it to change. I decided to go to Cleo and tell her, to amend our relationship or fucking end it.”
“End it?” My eyes widen. “You gave her an ultimatum?”
“No, not exactly,” he groans. “I didn’t want to manipulate her into being with me or anything. I just couldn’t handle being so fucking miserable anymore.”
I nod, encouraging him to go on.
“I told her that I wasn’t handling our indifference well anymore, and that I almost kissed Rayna just for a shred of affection.
I told her that if she wasn’t interested in changing how we were doing things, that I would ask Dad to give us a divorce.
We could co-parent the kids and find someone else to make each other happy because clearly it wasn’t going to happen the way things are going. ”
“What did she say?” Divorce wasn’t unheard of in our circles, but it was certainly uncommon. It was considered a failure, and non-traditional at best, blasphemous at worst.
“That’s why I came to you,” Leon replies, voice cracking. “She…What she said. I—”
Holy shit. He looks like he’s about to break down and cry.
“Hey, whatever it is, we can fix it.”
“There’s no fixing this,” Leon denies, shaking his head. “You can’t tell anyone. Not yet. But fuck, Apollo. There’s nothing left to fix.”
Taking it one word at a time, Leon lays it all out on the table. He explains everything that’s happened and how irrevocably almost kissing Rayna has now changed his life.
I offer help and support where I can, but the worst part about this news isn’t how fucking devastating it is for my brother, it’s the fact that we can’t tell anyone. He’s been suffering in silence for years, and it won’t end any time soon.
If I could fix it for him, I would. Unfortunately, today has reminded me how horrible it feels to lose control.