Chapter 30
… AND ENDING
…another one is broken
Dorian
Seven hours ago
My patience is running out, evaporating. I am vibrating with a violence so potent I could crack a brick with just one finger right now. This scumbag, low life, piece of filth is about to arrive.
David set the meeting with Andy at 2 a.m. but I’ve been here for an hour. I needed to be here. As if standing closer to the trap could force time to move faster.
I am pacing the dark floor of the abandoned distillery. The air smells of rust, dust, and the sour ghost of old alcohol. It’s a dead place. Fitting.
The thought of Della and her message—Soon—makes me stop and breathe. That single word is the only leash holding me back. It gives me the focus and strength I need. Soon, my love. It’ll be over.
A static crackle breaks the silence.
“A car is approaching,” David announces. He’s stationed in the loft, connected to the surveillance feed. “It’s Andy.”
“Good.” I reply, the word tasting like iron. “Time to end this. For good.”
The heavy steel door groans and scrapes against the concrete, sliding open.
He steps into the cavernous space, nervous, his eyes darting around the empty gloom.
I’m standing in the shadows.
He cannot see me yet. But I see him.
And the recall of Della’s nightmare—her trembling, her screams—makes my fists harden and my vision tint red. This is the man who shattered the woman I love and murdered our dream of a family before it even began.
Now it’s my turn. I take a step forward, moving closer to the single, bare bulb hanging overhead.
He whips his head around, squinting into the dark.
"Who are you? Where's my meet?"
“Oh, come on, Andy,” I say, my voice dripping with acid. “You don’t remember me?”
I can see a small twitch in his cheek as he hesitates.
“Should I…?”
I take another step, moving fully into the harsh pool of yellow light so he can see my face.
“You better,” I growl, “because I’m the one who is going to put an end to your despicable life, you bastard.”
I close the distance in two long strides, grabbing him by his jacket and lifting him from the ground.
“You hurt the woman I love, and you killed my unborn child. Tonight, you pay.”
For a second, he looks terrified. Then, he starts laughing—a high, derailed sound that echoes off the metal tanks.
“Dorian Marshall. Boss.” He pushes against my chest with all his strength, managing to stumble back a step. “What took you so long?”
I cannot hold the rage boiling inside anymore. So, I hit him with all the pain I could not let out.
Andy wipes his nose with the back of his hand, his voice burning with hate.
“You ruined my life when you sent me back home,” he rasps, scorn dripping from his words. “So, I returned the favor.”
“You were a thief!” I roar, the sound tearing from my throat as I drive a boot into his ribs again. “You’re lucky I sent you home and not to a cage, you, pathetic piece of garbage.”
He collapses into a jagged laugh and looks up at me, savoring the devastation on my face.
“Maybe,” he whispers, his voice thin and cruel. “But she was the best piece I’ve ever had, Boss—”
He pauses, licking the blood from his lip before spitting the final words directly at my feet.
“… Your piece.”
At that point the dark side takes over, and the red haze swallows me whole.
I launch at him. I don’t recall the specifics of the next minutes.
I only know the sensation of impact—knuckles on bone, the wet crunch of cartilage, the grunt of air leaving a body.
I pour every ounce of agony I lived since Della shared her nightmare, every moment of heartache over the baby we lost, into my fists.
When the haze clears, Andy is on the ground. His face is a ruin of blood and swelling.
I just look at my hands covered in blood and I clench my fists again. The thirst is still there and I barely hold myself back from finishing it right here, right now.
I took some hits—my ribs ache—but Andy is on the ground, and I am standing.
David comes out from his hiding spot, checking his watch.
“It’s time! The Morozov’s are here.”
Andy stirs, coughing pink froth. He looks up, and I see a flicker of real fear in his eyes for the first time.
“You called the Russians? You didn’t have the balls to do it yourself?”
As I stand and straighten my ruined, blood-spotted suit I realize the rage will always be there but I need to be next to Della.
“Actually, Andy,” I say in a dark, cold voice. “I have the balls to give you the slow excruciating death that you deserve, and the brains not to stain my hands with it.”
I head toward the exit, leaving him curling like a worm on the cold concrete and spit the last words, half-turning my head.
“You are Nothing to me.”
He coughs and fumbles, reaching for his ankle. “You... you think you won?”
That moment, the heavy steel door slams open against the wall. The crash is deafening—a massive, metallic boom that masks the sharper, deadlier crack hidden within it.
The sounds merge into one violent echo.
I expect the noise to fade, but instead, a sharp, white-hot pain crosses my body. It feels like a sledgehammer hit my side.
I stumble, confused as I see David running towards me, his gun already drawn, his mouth moving in a shout I can't hear.
Why is he running? The Russians are here.
I lower my head. A new red spot is rapidly expanding on the white shirt at my lower right side.
Oh...
My knees give in. I catch the rusted support beam to stay upright. The pain is a supernova, but the rage is hotter.
He will not see me fall.
"I got you! I... hah... I got you!" Andy laughs, a wet, broken, bubbling sound.
David is already on him, kicking the gun away, just as the Morozov’s run in through the open bay doors.
Andy's laughter dies in his throat as the Russians lift him up. His face, already bruised, goes bone-white with a new, more profound terror. He understands now.
I press one hand hard against the gushing wound, the suit jacket covering the motion. I feel David at my side, his face pale.
I look at Andy one last time and give him a small, cold smile.
"We'll see who laughs last."
* * *
I hold that cold smile until the Russians drag Andy into a van. They don’t even look at us. Their eyes are on Andy. And when I hear his screams, cut off by the heavy thud of the van door, I know he will not see the sun rise.
The moment they’re gone, the mask of control finally slips and my knees turn to water. I list to the side, but David is there, his shoulder wedging under my armpit, taking my weight.
"I’ve got you," he grunts, his voice tight with a panic I’ve never heard before. "Move your feet, Dorian. We have to get to the hospital. Now."
Every step is an agonizing negotiation with gravity.
The pain in my side isn't a sharp stab anymore; it’s a dull, consuming fire that is eating me from the inside out.
I look down. My hand, pressed against the wound, is slick and dark.
The blood is soaking through my jacket, dripping onto the concrete floor.
Too much, my mind registers with detached, clinical calm. That is too much blood.
"Jesus Christ, Dorian!"
David helps me into the back seat of the SUV and takes off his own jacket shoving it hard against my side.
"Press on this!" he shouts, his face inches from mine. "Do not let go, do you hear me? Press!"
I nod weakly, my fingers curling into the fabric.
The air hits my face, but I don't feel the cold. I feel… floating.
David scrambles into the driver’s seat. The engine roars to life, and the tires scream against the asphalt as he peels out of the lot. He’s driving like a madman, cursing vividly in Italian and English.
"Stay awake, Dorian!" he yells, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. "Look at me! Don't you dare close your eyes!"
"I'm... tired, Dave," I murmur. My voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.
"I don't care! Talk to me! Tell me about the house!" David shouts, his voice cracking. "Tell me about the goddamn house you found!"
The house. The image swims up through the gray fog clouding my vision. The brick colonial. The oak tree. The swing.
"It has... a swing," I whisper, a faint smile touching my lips.
"Yeah? That’s good. That’s great," David says, sounding terrified. He’s fumbling with his phone, dialing with one hand while steering with the other. "Flor! Dorian’s hit. It’s bad. I need you at the ER. And Flor… don’t call Della, yet."
Della.
The name sends a jolt through me, stronger than the pain.
"Call... call... to check on Della."
"She's fine, Dorian! You're the one who's not! Stay with me! Stay with me, man!"
I promised Della I’ll spend my life making her smile, loving her… I can’t break another promise to her. But looking down at my hand, I see the blood soaking through David’s jacket, pooling on the seat. The cold is creeping up my legs now, numbing the fire.
"David..."
"We're here! We're at the ER!"
The car screeches to a halt. The world tilts violently. The door is ripped open.
Noise explodes around me. Shouting. The squeal of wheels. Harsh, blinding white lights.
"Gunshot wound to the abdomen! Heavy blood loss! Get a gurney, now!" David’s voice is a roar, terrifying and fierce.
Hands grab me, lifting me and shifting me from the car seat to something hard and cold.
"I’ve got him," a stranger’s voice says. "Sir, can you hear me? Stay with us."
I try to nod, but my head lolls back.
The sky above is pitch black. No stars. Just the empty, indifferent void.
I’m being wheeled fast towards the entrance to the hospital looming ahead—a mouth of light ready to swallow me.
Time slows down. The noise fades into a hum.
My hand slips off the side of the gurney, hanging limp. A single thought pierces the darkness closing in.
I need more time with you, Della.
I want to show her the house and watch her face as she sees the swing. I want to live a life with her.
A single drop escapes the corner of my eye, tracking a hot path through the grime and blood on my cheek.
One last salty tear splattered on the cold pavement.
Then, the doors slide shut, and the world goes black.
* * *
Della
After Flor’s call, everything moved with a dizzying velocity.
Somehow, I managed to call Silvia. Telling her I was flying to Chicago was easy but convincing her not to drop everything and come with me took every ounce of restraint I had left.
I won’t let her lose her job and derail her life just because mine is collapsing.
I shoved a few clothes into a bag, grabbed my wallet, and somehow ended up at the airport hangar in less than an hour. David had already handled everything.
Now I'm sitting in the leather seat of the jet, strapped in as the plane cuts through the sky at impossible speed—and the world finally stops moving. There is only the low hum of the engines and the deafening silence of my own thoughts.
Where was he shot? Who shot him? Why? How is he? Will I have the chance to tell him…?
I don’t know.
Involuntarily, I place my hand over my belly.
I only know that the man who walked into my life five years ago and carved himself into my soul is fighting for his life. And I will not let him fight alone. I will not leave his side. Never again.
For weeks, I've complicated our relationship—analyzing it, and trying to determine if it was damaged or fated? Lasting love or just a bright burning moment?
But here, suspended between San Diego and Chicago—between life and death—the labels fall away. They are too small for what we are.
It’s not complicated. It's simply life.
He loves me and I love him.
His shadows, insecurities, fears and past came in between us.
But so have my own. I see that now.
I’m so grateful for the trip I took with Silvia.
There, away from Dorian, away from Chicago, away from the echoes of who I used to be, I found myself again—not the innocent dreamy girl from five years ago, but the woman I’ve become.
A woman who knows her strength, who understands and accepts her wounds, her imperfect self.
What happened to me does not define me. What I choose, does.
I choose to live every day with gratitude and joy. I choose to open my heart. To love.
I choose him.
Not because I know his heart but because I know mine.
Losing him… is not an option. It will not happen.
I close my eyes and pray—a desperate, whispered plea to the Universe, to fate, to any force willing to listen.
My hand automatically drifts lower, resting flat against my stomach, covering the miracle I hadn't dared to claim until an hour ago. The warmth from my palm radiates inward.
Our baby.
A tiny, insistent flicker of life that defies the odds.
The fear inside me doesn't vanish, but it changes, sharpening into an iron core. I cannot break. I will not shatter. I will not let Dorian die when our dream is about to come to life.
I open my eyes, staring at the glass, seeing my own reflection—pale but resolute.
"You don't get to leave,” I whisper to him across the miles, my voice cracking with devotion and fury. "We're not done. I won't allow it."
My hand presses harder on my stomach, sending my silent decree down into the new life growing there.
We have to be strong. All three of us, sweet pea.
The plane dips slightly as the pilot begins the descent into Chicago airspace. The new life blooming inside me—this fragile, miraculous future—is now threatened by the possibility of losing the life that created it.
And that is a price I will simply not pay.