Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ALYSSA

W hen I got back to the apartment, Lorenzo was there to greet me at the door. He let me in and told me he’d stay if I wanted him to. I told him to go home, as he looked like death warmed over and didn’t need to be haunting the hallway all night. It looked as if he’d had way too much to drink at the wedding and needed to sleep for three days.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” he tells me as the elevator dings and opens on our floor. “I didn’t know he hadn’t told you. I wasn’t trying to stir up anything.”

“I know, Renzo.” I turn away from him at the door, thinking better of it. “I still want to hear the rest of that song one of these days,” I tell him, watching as he turns and flashes me his beautiful smile.

“It’s a date.” The elevator closes, and I’m left with a sad ache in my chest after everything that happened.

Brynne said she’d be by before she and Slate headed off for the cabin for their honeymoon in the morning to give me the keys to my new apartment.

Living alone will be a relief and something I’ll need to get used to. I’ve only spent a week with Dante, but I’ve come to like some of the things living with someone offers, like waking up to a pot of coffee already made or the sounds of him moving around. Just knowing I’m not alone in general was lovely.

The apartment is dark and silent when I walk in, and my eyes burn again.

He hasn’t come home. He knows I’m here, he knows he’s hurt me, and he’s giving me space.

The knowledge of that looming over me is overwhelming. I toss my empty clutch inside my suitcase first, realizing Dante still has my gun and sighing.

I’m sure he’ll return it, but it means interacting with him to get it back.

Working with Brynne is going to be this way now: awkward. He’s Slate’s enforcer. He’s always going to be a part of the equation, not that I don’t think that Slate wouldn’t get rid of him for me.

He would.

That’s not fair, though. This is his life.

My stomach cramps, and I grab it tightly, a wave of nausea springing over me like a breeze through a field of wildflowers.

“Fuck,” I groan, running for the toilet.

I hadn’t read the side effects on the back of that pill before I downed it earlier, and I hadn’t eaten with it, either.

The second I get to the toilet, I vomit up coffee, and the little bits of breakfast are left undigested. Tears leave my eyes from the ferocity.

It’s been hours since I took the pill, so I’m not worried it hasn’t metabolized yet, but this still sucks if this is how it’s going to make me feel as it does its thing.

I sit back against the wall and curse Dante and his feelings and how I feel.

He’d been spot on with everything he’d said to me, even if it was so fucking hard to admit.

I feel so much for him, and fear is at the top of that fucking list of things.

I don’t want to become my mother, even if I love her dearly. The way I watched her suffer during her divorce left lasting scars on my psyche that I thought no man could ever erase. Then, here came Dante with his pack of pencils and fresh erasers, ready to blur the lines of what I always believed about men.

My stomach tightens again, and the world grows hot as my skin clams and pimples with goosebumps.

“Ugh.” I get on my knees and dry heave into the toilet, sounds of misery leaving my throat as I do so.

I’m on my fourth round of dry heaves when I hear Dante enter the room.

“Alyssa?”

He sees me hunched over the toilet, blood dripping down my chin from all the times my stomach has tried to empty even though it’s already empty.

“What the hell? Are you alright?”

I shake my head, crying as I gag again.

“Okay,” he scrubs his hand through his hair as he reaches for the trash can, empties it onto the floor, and hands it to me. “Hold onto this, use it.”

He lifts me off the ground unceremoniously, grabbing his keys on our way out the door.

“Where are we going?” I manage through the rippling misery of my stomach cramps.

“The hospital.”

The drive over is excruciating, and the waiting room is full. I’m only marginally embarrassed when he uses his last name to get us to the front of the line and into a private room.

The nurse gave me nausea meds through my IV promptly, also hanging a bag of fluids to get me hydrated as we waited for the doctor.

It’s so awkward to be here with Dante only hours after everything that happened between us.

I use my phone to text Brynne what happened and where I am, and I have to practically ban her from coming here so I don’t ruin her wedding night.

When the doctor came in, looked me over, and agreed that it was the Plan B I took, he told me that the pill could come with some nasty side effects that could take days to clear out.

He says he’s keeping me for observation when Dante growls at him at the mention of letting me go back home, and I’m thankful because the reprieve from the nausea medicine is the only thing keeping me sane right now.

Before the doctor leaves, Dante asks him the one thing I never thought I’d hear him say, and I can’t help how it warms my heart.

“Even though she’s had this reaction, do you think the pill worked?”

“It should’ve still had its effect, yes. Though the pill isn’t one hundred percent effective, just like any other form of contraceptive, it has had hours to metabolize and function properly. The side effects are pretty common. I wish more people read the box.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I tell him, barely having a voice to speak with.

He nods and exits the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.

“Dante, I…” I start as he pulls his chair closer to the side of the bed.

He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about anything. Get some rest.”

I bite my lip and nod in agreement, shutting my eyes to get the image of him watching over me with worried eyes out of my line of sight. But it’s there when I close them.

And even though I try my damnedest not to, I dream of him all night.

Dante stayed at my bedside all night. When I awoke with more nausea at four in the morning and hit my nurse button, his head was on the bed; body slumped over in exhaustion.

The nurse came in and administered more medicine, and I was thankful that Dante bullied the doctor into keeping me here as soon as it hit my veins and calmed the cramping.

“He’s one of the good ones,” she’d said before she left my room. “I can always tell.”

Her words still bounce around as I watch him pace the room on a phone call with someone.

Brynne bounds in the door with flowers and a worried look.

I try to sit up, and she shakes her head. “No, lay down. You need rest.”

Dante sees the two of us whispering and moves out of the room.

“Plan B, Lyss? Really? Are you alright?” she asks me.

My eyes water. “I panicked. Then I thought it wouldn’t be so bad to be pregnant if Dante were the father, and it fucking sent me spiraling. It was the only thing I could think of.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I laugh. “You were busy having the best day of your life, B.”

“But you’re my best friend. There’s never a fucking time of day when I don’t want to be involved if something is going on with you, Lyss. Do you understand me?”

“What would you have done?” I counter.

“Well, first off, I’d have brought you back to reality before you rushed off to the pharmacy and took matters into your own hands. And if that’s the route you still chose, we would’ve researched it, and then you’d have had some idea what these side effects were.”

“In your wedding dress?” I ask, a mocking tone to my laugh.

“In her wedding dress,” Slate adds, coming to the other side of the bed. “She loves you, and therefore I love you, Alyssa. Even if things with Dante don’t work out, you’re family now, understand? In this family, we’re never too busy to handle a crisis, even at a time of happiness.”

My tears come unbound, falling down my face as joy hits me like an elephant on my chest.

“I’m not used to… I might not always react properly.” I had to raise myself when my mom checked out after her divorce. She wandered through life like a ghost, then found religion and clung to it like it was her new husband. I always had to handle my problems alone because I was always alone.

It feels odd to have people rallying around me. This family I stumbled into is going to take some getting used to.

“That’s alright, Lyss. There will be growing pains, but we’ll love you through them.” Brynne’s words have me choking on sobs as I tug her to me, wrapping my arms around her. My hand reaches for Slate behind her back, and he takes it, squeezing tightly.

“You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon,” I tell them, sniffling and trying to control myself.

“The cabin isn’t going to uproot because we made an extra stop, nor is the private jet going to take off without us,” Slate says, sounding every bit the mafia Don he is.

I snort a laugh. “Spoken like a man who thinks he’s God.”

Brynne pulls back from my hug and wipes my tears. “Don’t tell him he’s not; he’ll be grumpy all day.”

“Are you alright here with Dante? Because we can stay,” she adds.

I roll my eyes. “I’m fine. Did you bring the keys to my new place? Thank you, by the way. Once I’m up and running, let me know how much everything is and who to pay each month.”

Brynne grins as she tugs the keys from her purse. “Technically, the family owns it, so I’m not charging you rent. Pay the utilities. We’ll have them transferred into your name.”

I nod, thanking Slate with a look that he only curtly nods at.

Dante walks back into the room, crooking his finger for Slate to enter the hall.

“What do you think that’s about?” I ask Brynne as she smoothes my hair down.

“Who knows? There’s always something going on. I choose not to let the little piddly family things affect me too much, or they’ll drive me insane.”

I nod. “Good thinking.”

She looks at me like she does when she’s about to say something I won’t like, and I sigh.

“Brynne, don’t…”

“I’m not going to give you any more shit, Lyss. I’ll only say one thing: I wish you’d give him a chance. I know what he did was fucked, but he’s a good man, and he loves you.”

“My dad said he loved my mom.”

She scoffs. “Your dad was a fucking twat, and we both know it. I also know you’re not a fucking idiot, and you can feel it in your gut when someone’s a shit person. What do you feel when Dante is around? Even when he fucked up, even when he lied, did you feel it here?” She points to my stomach, and I swallow against the growing lump in my throat.

“Promise me you’ll think about it. Promise me you’ll pay attention to your gut around him.”

Tears prick my eyes as I nod. “I promise, B.”

“I love you, girl.” She tugs me in for another hug. “I’m so sorry I pulled you into this world with me, but I was too selfish not to. I can’t do this life without you beside me.”

My chest tightens again as I hug her back. “I’m where I want to be, Brynne. Don’t feel guilty for any of this. It’s not your fault.”

She pulls back, grinning. “I know this isn’t my fault. This is your greedy pussy’s fault. Though, I didn’t think you’d fuck Dante first, he’s a bit intimidating.”

I laugh, wiping my eyes. “Who did you think I’d fuck first?”

She thinks for a minute. “Mm, Lorenzo, probably.”

While Lorenzo is as tall and broodingly handsome as Dante, he holds no candle to him.

“Ew, no. I love Lorenzo, don’t get me wrong, but no.”

Brynne looks a bit sad. “See how easy you just said you loved Lorenzo? I need you to get there with Dante. Because I know you have feelings for him, Lyss. Let them happen.”

“I promised I’d try. Just give me time to work all this out, alright?”

She nods.

I shoo her with my hands. “Good. Now go on your honeymoon, for fuck’s sake.”

She smiles sadly at me, getting off the edge of the bed and walking over to the door.

“I’ll be thinking of you, girl. I love you,” she tells me.

I smirk. “Please don’t think of me while Daddy fucks you. It’s weird.”

She laughs as Slate comes in the door. “Ready, bunny?”

When Dante returns to the room, there’s a new tension that the conversation with Brynne has bred, and I can’t seem to break through it.

“Need anything before I go home and shower?” he asks me, and I shake my head, hiding the keys to my new place beneath the hospital covers, thumbing them with a new growing worry in my heart at the decisions to come.

“No. Thank you,” I answer.

“Text if you need anything from the house or picked up on my way back to you,” he says, and I nod as he moves out of the room.

I take the keys from beneath the blankets and move them back and forth, heart hammering in my chest as I push the nurse button.

“Yes?”

“I need to speak with the doctor about getting released,” I tell the voice on the speaker.

“I’ll see if I can find him for you,” the nurse says.

“Thank you,” I whisper, knowing she can’t hear me as a tear falls down my cheek.

Everything feels so raw and heavy, and I need to hide away for a few days from all of it. Dante Ricci has turned my fucking world upside down, and I want it right again.