Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

SIN

I n the span of three and a half weeks, she had seven seizures, and woke up a grand total of three times. I'm a fucking wreck. Every day is more terrifying than the one before. I'm not a negative person, but staring at the person you love in this state will drag any man to a dark place. It doesn't get much darker than this. It feels like I'm trapped inside a hell of my own making. One I deserve after I all but trapped her in my apartment with fucking gang members. I kept her locked up in my apartment to keep her safe when? she was better off on her own. The guilt festers in my gut like an oozing fucking wound. I lay with my head on her mattress. I'm so tired, but there's no way I'll get more than an hour's sleep at a time until they tell me she's going to live, which they haven't.

I must be dreaming because I feel fingers brushing the stubble on my face.

"Daddy."

I'm afraid to open my eyes and find her asleep. Ghostly. Pale skin that tells me how sick she is, a foreshadowing of what's coming. Her death. My life sentence in hell.

"Daddy."

Lifting my head, I open my eyes and find the most beautiful blue ones staring back at me. The emotion overwhelms me, the heartbreak of finding her the way I did, the pure joy of her now staring back at me, the regret of not being the man she needed me to be, all the feelings crash into each other and the one woman who deserves my strength gets none. I am supposed to be the strongest man she knows, always in control, and a rock. All that is gone as I breakdown.