"𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐧 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮."
Lonzo Mattia doesn't like strangers.
When his underboss, Gabriel, invites his sister, Alexia, to stay at their house when her parents can n...
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A L E X I A D A L T O N
It takes three days to stop having nightmares of the intruder. But it's not always him, sometimes it's someone else, not being able to reach the gun in time. Other times I do reach the gun in time and I experience what I did over again.
Then I wake up flustered and sick to my stomach. I try to take what Lonzo said with a pinch of salt, that I shouldn't let it eat me alive. But I can't help it if it's haunting my dreams and forcing me to experience it again and again and again.
Gabriel pokes his head into my room early this morning. He smiles when he sees that I'm already up and places a hot cup of coffee on my nightstand. "Thank you," I say gratefully.
Last night was the first night I dreamt of something normal–almost normal–and it was about Lonzo. I haven't known him to be so soft as he was the other day when he opened up about his past, when he first killed somebody.
Considering what we did in the training room downstairs, I didn't think our weird friendship-relationship-whatever it is, would now turn to consolidation.
It's probably a one time thing. Lonzo is trying to make sure that I have my head screwed on so that if something like that happened again, I'm prepared. But a part of me is screaming that it's not true whatsoever.
"How are you feeling this morning?" Gabriel asks, leaning against my wardrobe and crossing his arms.
I nod. "Okay. Slept well so I'm ready to get my day going."
Gabriel purses his lips and studies me. "You sure?"
"Positive," I flash him a forced smile.
"Alright."
"Hey," I lean forward before he leaves my room. "I was thinking I want to go back to training, today. Will you train with me?"
I watch as my brother's eyes narrow into slits. "Lex, you've barely given yourself time to recover. Your ribs are still bruised and the doctor told you to rest."
"But I don't want to forget any of my training, for it to go to waste."
"Nope," he says loudly and pushes off my wardrobe. "It's not happening. Your face is still bruised, your ribs could take weeks if not months to recover. You need to rest your body, Lex. This isn't a game. This is real life."
I sink into the bed and nod. There is no point arguing with him when he has that tone. He's taken what happened to me and used it to beat himself up with. He thinks that it's his fault it happened, that he should have been here. But the damage is already done.
"Alright," I mumble.
Gabriel breathes out a harsh sigh. It's obvious that he hates upsetting me but he walks towards my bed anyway and presses a kiss to the top of my head. "Rest, study, watch a movie. We can get back to training when the doctor says that it's wise to. I'm only looking out for you, Lex. You shouldn't be in this mess in the first place and I don't want your recovery to last longer than it needs to be."
