Chapter 49
Xander
Am I alive?
It doesn’t feel like it. Every bone and muscle in my body aches, and I can’t feel my face.
Groaning, I turn in bed, but the light from the window stings my face. Careful not to cause myself any major pain, I slowly turn back around.
Two days I was searching for Luke. And not a single fucking sign of him anywhere.
The tracker remained at Penelope’s place.
He was smart enough not to come back for it.
And Penelope won’t break. She will not peep a word about Luke.
Nova has offered to torture information out of her, but I know Penelope won’t break.
She’ll sooner die than reveal anything she’s been instructed to keep quiet.
Fuck, where even am I?
Nova’s been keeping me in her mafia dungeon.
Apparently she doesn’t trust me enough yet to enter her quarters.
Axel’s been hovering above my head the entire time.
Annoying prick. Her men have been following my every footstep.
Last night I told them to leave me there.
I failed Camila. I didn’t deserve to be taken care of or patched up by their doctors. I just needed to be left there.
A shuffling in the corner of the room forces me to ping my eyes open.
Axel's annoying, but he’s never watched me sleep.
“What the fuck?” I mumble, pressing my fingers into the corners of my eyes. It’s blurry, and I can’t see a thing. “Sid?”
“I wouldn’t do that. Your eyes are pretty bruised up; you’ll just make it worse,” a familiar Cockney accent says.
Jac?
My stomach bottoms out. He’s not supposed to be here. Is my Angel here too?
She can’t see me like this. She’s not supposed to know where I’ve been. None of them are supposed to know. Nova promised to keep my location quiet.
“Please tell me you’re not here right now,” I say. My lips feel like the size of England as I talk. I move my hand down to them, hissing at the sting of the contact.
“What were you thinking, Xander?” he sighs.
I still can’t fully open my eyes, so I’m blindly scowling at the corner of the room where I think he is.
“I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“I told you to leave, I didn’t tell you to go on a massive murder spree. Do you know how much shit that’s gonna get us in?”
“Nova will sort it.” I slowly pull myself up against the headboard of the bed.
He huffs in annoyance. “Of course she fucking will. How was the taste of our new life?”
I huff out a sarcastic laugh, my rib burning.
“I wasn’t planning on coming back alive, you know,” I confess quietly.
After a few heartbeats of silence, I mumble, "I'm sorry for hitting you."
I feel him coming to the side of the bed. I can’t see him, but I can feel the tension in the air. The processing of the confession. Silence stretches between us before I finally break.
“I fucked up, Jac. So, so badly,” I almost choke out.
“I know,” he whispers.
“I don’t want to be like this. I never wanted to be like this.”
Wetness gathers inside my eyes, the events of the last few days crashing into me.
“I’m sorry I never listened when you said the pills didn’t help.” His voice is so quiet, I can barely hear it. “Just so you know, I don’t know if I could carry on without you in this world. I was terrified.”
My throat tightens painfully. I reach out towards him despite the pain in my shoulder and squeeze his forearm.
“I’m glad you’re still alive, you nutcase.” His voice is tight.
“How do I fix it, Jac?” Tear after tear slides down my cheek, leaving a trail of tiny pinpricks of pain on my face as they fall. “Is she still here?”
I wouldn’t blame her if she wasn’t. She should’ve run far, far away the second my eyes met hers.
“Yeah.” A soft voice floats into the room with a small crack. My eyes ping open, my gaze immediately searching for hers.
It’s fucking blurry, but there she is, standing timidly in the doorway, wearing a hoodie that’s way too big for her and a pair of leggings—as she usually does.
My hoodie.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Jacques announces before exiting the room. Camila moves to the side of the door, letting him pass.
She stands there for a few minutes, looking around the room like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. And neither do I. I’m swallowing past the lumps in my throat. I can’t find the words. I don’t have any.
I tried to find Luke for her. Free her of him and me. And here I fucking am. She’s looking right at me, and she’s probably thinking about everything I’ve done to her over the last few months.
I wish she’d shot me when she had the chance.
Suddenly, she moves and sits on the chair next to me.
I’m not sure anymore if the hazy vision is from the bruising or the tears that won’t stop coming. Our gazes are locked on each other’s.
“I’m so sorry, Xander.”
I blink, her face suddenly becoming clear.
“I’m so sorry about everything that happened to you.”
I blink away. “Jacques told you, didn’t he?”
I can see her nodding in the corner of my vision. “I had to ask him, Xander. I needed to understand.”
“I didn’t understand it myself.”
“You didn’t?” she asks, surprise lacing her voice.
“I never have. It’s a part of me that I’ve been chained to my entire life. It seems like it has no explanation. It just…”
More silence.
“I’m sorry I failed you, Angel. I tried to find him. For days.”
She inhales sharply, as if she’s holding back tears. “I’m sorry for what I said.”
A warm hand laces with mine. I glance over at her; there are tears sliding down her face, and she has an awkward smile on her lips.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I deserved it. I should’ve told you everything sooner. I was just scared of losing you.”
Her head shakes. “No. You never deserved my words.”
My chest squeezes painfully.
“I can’t say I forgive you,” she starts, closing her eyes and blowing out a breath. “But I want to give you another chance.”
I swear my fucking heart stops dead in my chest.
“What?”
“You’ve hurt me. But I can’t just let you go, Xander. I found something in you that I never found in anyone else… and I can’t just let that go.”
“I don’t fucking deserve you.”
She stands up, climbing over me. Any pain that I had is long forgotten as she straddles me, her green eyes searching my face with worry, her tears soaking into my clean t-shirt.
“No, I don’t deserve you,” she says as she brings her lips to mine in a ghost of a kiss. “I missed you so fucking much.” Her breath fans over my lips.
I think being knocked out by a dozen men was my wake-up call out of my rage-fuelled rampage.
Or maybe it truly is this Angel in front of me that somehow controls my very being when she’s near.
“I love you, Angel.”