His Mafia Prince

(TYLER)

I have slept for about an hour when I jolt awake again. I barely get enough sleep lately. Not with the anxiety jolting through me. I live in constant fear of what might happen when I keep my eyes away like I did back at the warehouse. If something happened to Sasha again, I would never be able to forgive myself.

I move closer to him and glance at him. At the wiring of tubes running all over him. I swallow a lump, squeezing his fingers because no matter how much I try to fight back my tears, I’m afraid that I’m going to cry. I thought I was done with that, a dried-up husk who was so likely to bleed from my eyeball than tear up again, but no.

I still have more tears.

I lean over Sasha and pretend that I’m just observing, but I’m crying. I can’t help it. Tears are flowing down my cheeks, off my chin and splitting on Sasha’s pale skin.

I figure that since we are alone, I might as well just let go and cry it out. My grip on Sasha’s hand tightens, and I suck in a deep preparation to let go of the storm that has been whirling up inside of me, and hold it. For a moment, my heart stops too.

Because Sasha is squeezing my hand back.

His fingers are curling around mine. Weak, but unmissable.

I lean over and hit the call button, bashing it a few times with my fist when I turn my attention back to Sasha. His lashes are stirring, the unmistakable flash of his golden honey as his eyes crack open.

All this while Sasha has been in hospital, my least favorite place in the whole of this city, and that includes the warehouse where the Irish man dragged through to the dock―I’ve been expecting to lose my argument with death. And in truth, I have been expecting and preparing for it in the most sensible way I knew how, by planning how I was going to die inside as well.

There was no way in hell I was letting Sasha leave this world without me. Even if not physically.