Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72822 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72822 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
And hopefully, he wouldn’t even need to be advised of his new role in my life. Hopefully I came out of this surgery without any problems. I’d just wake up from the procedure with two less breasts, but a new will to live.
Hopefully… hopefully, Dante never needed to know who he was to me until I was no longer of this Earth.
“Excellent,” the woman who was partially responsible for my numb hand exclaimed. “That negates these three forms then.”
My hand thanked her.
“Okay, the last one is this. Consenting to the surgical procedure itself.”
I rolled my eyes as I sloppily scribbled my name, and then pursed my lips and offered her the last page.
“All right, have a seat in the waiting room, and you’ll be called back soon.”
I did as she asked, took my seat, and waited for the next step with my heart in my throat.
I continued to rethink my decisions, but each time I did, Dante’s words would replay in my mind.
The world would be a lesser place without you.
The world would be a lesser place without you.
The world would be a lesser place without you.
And, as the nurse placed the oxygen mask over my face and told me to breathe, the cocktail of drugs pouring through my veins, the last thought I had before the blackness took me was that maybe Dante didn’t know me well enough to make that statement. Maybe the world wouldn’t even notice if I was gone.
Chapter 10
You got in trouble for saying crap? That’s not a fucking swear word!
-Dante to his eight-year-old niece.
Dante
I walked into the office, and the first person I saw was my brother.
He looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, looking as dumbfounded as he sounded.
“I own this shit hole,” I muttered, passing him by without slowing.
“Can I hold her?”
I paused, turned, and then hesitated.
Travis narrowed his eyes.
I handed Mary over, and then turned and walked away.
If I stopped, then I’d have to go back and take her away from him.
It was hard for me to give her up. In fact, the only person I’d willingly given her to at this point was Krisney, my brother Reed’s soon-to-be wife, and that was it.
Krisney and I had kept up some over the years since she and Reed had broken up, and when they’d gotten back together, I’d found that she was one of the only people who I didn’t feel threatened by.
Why that was, I didn’t know, but it was what it was.
I couldn’t help my irrational fears.
In reality, I knew that my brothers wouldn’t do my daughter any harm. Then again, when I’d sent my children and wife with my sister, Amy, that day, I hadn’t thought that she was going to kill them, either.
Jaw clenched, I pushed the door to my office open and winced when I saw it exactly as I’d left it.
Had Travis been in here at all since I’d left?
“I haven’t been in here at all since you left. I didn’t want to touch anything.”
I looked around the office. At the stacks of papers on my desk. The picture frames that Lily had put there our last Christmas together, replacing the older, outdated pictures with the newer ones. Hell, even a coffee cup, one that proclaimed me a ‘Papa Bear’ still sat on the edge of the desk. That, and there was dust fuckin’ everywhere.
“I can have the cleaning lady clean if you want.”
I swallowed.
“Yeah,” I croaked. “I think that would be good.”
I took a step into the room, and the first thing I saw was the wall of fuckin’ pictures.
Lily loved pictures.
She loved them so much, in fact, that she put a cork board wall up in my office. Then, when she found the time, she had hundreds of pictures developed. Each picture would somehow find their way to the wall.
The entire wall was covered in mine and Lily’s life.
Our children.
Travis and his daughter.
All of my brothers.
My parents.
Lily’s best friend, Ruthie.
I rubbed my chest absently when one picture, in particular, hurt a little too much to see. A photo of my girls and Amy, laughing as they painted their nails.
“I…” Travis stopped when I wiped my eye. “Dante…”
I cleared my throat. “I’m not going to hide anymore.”
Travis didn’t reply.
“I’m sorry for putting you into the position that I did,” I told him, still studying the wall. “I don’t know that I figured out what to do yet, but I’m going to try.”
Travis’ hand came down on my shoulder.
“Dante, we all understood,” he growled. “We all understood, and we all are here for you, no matter what you decide. Hannah picked up a lot of the slack, and honestly, at this point, you’re just icing on the cake.”
Pretty much, I was no longer needed. Travis had taken over with his new wife, Hannah, taking over for what Lily and I used to do. Where Travis had been the extra hand in the background, now that was me. The place that Lily and I built together was no longer ours, and instead, it was theirs.