Chapter 3 Vega
Vega
Outside, it was starting to snow again. Stuffing my hands into my coat pockets, I set my sights on the bus stop that was at the end of the block.
Around me, more ambulances were coming and going, and a cop car was parked, the officers investigating a patient who had come in with a gunshot wound to the right shoulder.
I saw them almost every shift since their station was only a few streets over.
They knew me about as well as my coworkers did since they were in the ER for one reason or another several times a day.
City cacophony echoed all around. It was never quiet outside, and I preferred it that way. Quiet made the noise in my head too loud to concentrate. I’d miss that when I got to my new life, but this was better for everyone. Maybe I’d eventually be able to move on.
Ryder and Kane sure as hell already had.
A small group of people were already waiting when I reached the end of the block. It wasn’t late, barely after nine. For some, their workday was only getting started, no matter the day of the week. One guy in a puffy coat sniffed in my general direction a few times before taking a large step back.
I kept my eyes averted, staying vigilant for the two men Carl had said were looking for me and anyone else. Praying Kane and Ryder wouldn’t pop up.
Hoping with everything inside me that they would.
Nearly an hour later, I walked into my apartment, already stripping as soon as the door was shut and locked behind me.
My place was minimalistic. Every piece of furniture existed to fulfill a need and nothing else.
A thrifted couch with a simple brown covering that could be thrown in the washer, a coffee table that I used as my dinner table more often than not, and a small television that was rarely used.
In the tiny kitchenette, I had a gas stove, a mini fridge, and my beloved coffeemaker. Other than my clothes and a few other necessities, that coffeemaker was the only thing I would be carrying into my new life.
Balling up my scrub pants and top, I threw them in the trash can before walking into the bedroom in only my underwear and socks.
The socks were the first to go. My feet were half frozen, the skin on the bottom wrinkled from all the hours I’d been on them in a pair of shoes that were soaked in sweat and other people’s bodily fluids.
Most shifts, I left the hospital a literal walking biohazard.
Once I was showered, I set my phone on the charger before throwing on a pair of sleep pants and my favorite comfort hoodie from college. Since I was already in the closet, I opened my single suitcase and started packing. All I needed were a few hours of sleep before I headed out in the morning.
From the bedroom, I heard my phone, which had finally juiced up enough to be bombarded by all the missed calls and texts that had accumulated while it was dead.
With each rapid ping, I lost a little more control of my emotions.
Funny how they were concerned, probably even pissed, that I hadn’t answered any of their messages, yet they hadn’t come to check on me.
That only reinforced how blind I’d been over both Kane and Ryder.
I loved them. Fuck, with everything inside me, I loved them.
And they only loved that I loved them.
Plain and simple.
It just took me a while to see the full picture.
By the time the alerts stopped, I was silently crying as I carefully folded the last pair of jeans and placed them in the case. Tops were next, and then my work scrubs. Bras and panties were dropped on top, and then I had to sit on the damn thing to zip it closed.
Well, that was going to be a bitch to drag downstairs.
Going into the bathroom, I grabbed the plastic storage cart that I’d used to transport my things when I’d moved in to the apartment and started packing up my bathroom supplies.
Ever the preparer, I’d figured the container would be useful somewhere down the road.
Thankfully, it had wheels on the bottom, and I would be able to push the thing to the elevator rather than having to carry it.
Which only left the coffeepot, which I put in the box it had come in.
As someone who was frugal with every penny I spent, I’d splurged with that heavenly little lifesaver for the first time ever.
A person should invest in the things that could make their life better, easier.
For me, it was comfortable shoes and scrubs, good skin care, and amazing coffee.
Simple things that many people took for granted, but I treated them like the precious necessities they were.
I was dragging when I put the last case by the door, but I had one final thing to do.
Walking back into the bathroom, I opened the box that had been beneath my sink for the past week. It was time to stop hiding my head in the sand once and for all.
Sitting on the toilet, I peed on the little stick and left it on the counter once I washed my hands.
There was no need to see the results. I already knew it was going to be positive.
My period wasn’t just a little late. One missed period could be brushed off as stress or any number of reasons. Two, not so much.
Factor in my swollen, ultrasensitive boobs and random nausea, and I didn’t need to be an RN to predict I was freaking pregnant.
That realization, more than anything, was why I was leaving this life behind. I wanted the little person growing inside me. They would have the best I could provide, all the things I’d longed for as a kid. Someone to love and protect them.
A safe home.
Ryder and Kane wouldn’t want this baby. My pregnancy would complicate their new relationships. New?
A pained laugh bubbled out of me.
There was nothing new about Kane’s and Ryder’s relationships with Raffaella and Amadea Bianchi. They’d been engaged to them for years, before there was ever a Ryder-Vega-Kane situationship.
It was simply news to me.
News that had been shoved in my face only days before. If I’d known they were with someone else, I never would have…
I let the lie trail off.
If I’d known, would it have changed anything?
That was a hard truth to swallow, because I didn’t know. But it no longer mattered. I knew now, and I was done being their dirty secret.
Dropping down face first on my bed, I turned my head away from where my phone was still lighting up with more incoming texts and calls. I didn’t want to see Ryder’s or Kane’s pictures flash across the screen. A few more tears spilled over my lashes, pooling on my pillow.
They were my everything, and they treated me like I was their world when we were together.
At no point in our years together had I ever thought we wouldn’t be together.
Not even when I felt guilty for falling in love with Kane so quickly, as easily as breathing.
Ryder didn’t let me wallow in uncertainty.
He accepted that my heart was invested in both of them.
They said they loved me, even if that meant sharing me.
Our future was melded together, as if fate had created each of us for one another.
What a fucking laughable fairy-tale world I had walked around in where those two assholes were concerned.
Knowing what I did now, I couldn’t help wondering…
agonizing over the possibility that on those nights they were with Amadea and Raffaella, they were making love to them.
Fucking them. Maybe when they were with me, they were imagining the women they had already pledged their futures to.
No! I refused to let those thoughts take root and fester in my mind more than they already had.
I wasn’t going to think about them any longer. They didn’t get to have some storybook dream double wedding with the Bianchi sisters, uniting three powerful families, and still take up space in my head.
Or the heart they had crushed.
A little sleep, that was all I needed, and then I could walk away from this life.
I’d disappear, and the men who had destroyed me could live their happy-ever-afters with their wives.