Dom coughs again, more blood lining his lips, a grimace twisting his beautiful features. “Go,” he coughs out. “Please,” he wheezes.
“No,” I shake my head furiously as his eyes drift to mine. “Sorry, you can’t go, Dominic, because I dreamed your future up for you. Hang on, and I’ll tell you all about it,” I press into his wound and look him right in the eyes. “Don’t you dare leave me here. I want that date with you.”
Skin slick with a glaze of sweat he gazes at us both, and the next time he coughs, I hear the gurgle behind it, his struggle. I continue to press against him as he releases my hands, finally relenting to let me help him.
Tobias presses his forehead to his brother’s, and I hear Dominic’s faint whisper to him. “Frères pour toujours.” Always brothers.
“Mother greet you,” Tobias replies. “Father keep you. I love you, brother.”
It’s when Tobias mewls and drops his head that I look up.
And I realize Dominic is gone, his eyes clouding over before they fixate in a place I can no longer reach him.
A gasp leaves me, and my heart stops.
“D-D-Dom,” I choke out before looking to Tobias. “W-w-we didn’t get enough t-t-time to help him! We didn’t get enough time. Oh my God, Dom.”
Tobias coughs out incredulously, tears spilling down his face as I clutch Dom to me. “I just got you back.” I pull him to me as he sinks further down the wall, his arms limp at his sides, all signs of life leaving his body. I lower my head to his chest, and I don’t know how much time passes, but it can’t be much because the doorbell is ringing again, and I know our time is up.
I glance over to see Tobias and see his eyes trained on the two of us. Physically, I feel him start to withdraw as his gaze drifts from me to his brother.
Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong.
Collectively, Tobias and I snap our heads in the direction of the worthless barrier that separates us. Half of the defected Miami crew is probably behind that door. In minutes it will all be over, and my only thought is—good—because I don’t want to be anywhere in a world where Dominic doesn’t exist.
Tobias gathers both guns before grabbing his brother beneath his arms and dragging his lifeless body up the stairs and into my bedroom. I follow, sobbing hysterically as he sets Dominic down on the carpet next to my bed, and I move to sit beneath him, cradling his upper body in my lap while stroking his beautiful face. I run my fingers through his thick hair and over his jaw, but his gaze remains somewhere far past the both of us, and I can’t look away.
The front door bursts open just as Tobias kicks the bedroom door closed, and our eyes meet when the sound of gunfire sounds out in all directions below.
Which makes it a fight.
They’re here. The rest of the brothers are here.
We needed a few minutes at the most. A collection of seconds. That’s all Dominic needed to have a chance.
Darkness cloaks me as hell unleashes around us, and I sink into a state of disbelief as I cradle Dom in my arms and succumb to the undertow, fully submerged, drifting deeper in when a bang sounds outside the bedroom door. But it’s Sean’s voice that pulls me back onto the bedroom floor. “Tobias?! Dom?! You in there? She with you?!”
“We’re in here,” I yell a second before Sean bursts through the door, fully armed with three vests in hand and strapped with guns at his back. His eyes dart between us, evident relief in his face before he sees Dominic laying lifeless in my lap. A cough escapes him, and his eyes immediately glass over as he crosses the space in two strides before falling to his knees in front of us, dropping the vests on the floor next to me. A hoarse curse leaves him as he lifts his eyes from his best friend to me as I sob over his body. “It’s my fault,” I admit as I look up to see Tobias at the foot of my bed watching us. “When he showed up, I was afraid he was here t-to hurt me, so he ditched his gun on the stairs,” I look between Tobias and Sean. “It’s my fault he didn’t have his gun.”
“Cecelia, don’t,” Sean says, his voice breaking as I look up at Tobias.
“I didn’t know they were here, Tobias. I didn’t know they were here because he didn’t tell me. I didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t tell me, Tobias. I didn’t know!”
“He didn’t think he needed it,” Tobias whispers hoarsely. “Because I already searched the house once and told him it was clear. I don’t know how they got in.”
“Don’t,” Sean says, looking between us, “you don’t do this now. Neither one of you pulled the fucking trigger.” Sean slowly stands and stares down at us both, and in a blink, his expression goes granite, his eyes shining with vengeance. He looks over to where Tobias now stands, and I look up and into his amber eyes to see him utterly destroyed.
“What’s your call?” Sean asks him as Tobias eyes me, then his brother, and then me again.
“Tobias, what’s your call?” Sean repeats.
“No one leaves breathing,” Tobias says without another thought, his eyes locked on me before he turns to Sean. “Give me everything on you,” his voice is void of humanity as he holds out his hands.
Sean hands over one of the guns on his back along with a few clips as Tobias looks down at where I sit with Dom, all traces of mortality leaving his face. I gaze down at Dominic and stroke his hair before pressing my lips against his forehead, his temple, before closing his eyes with my hand.
“Sleep, prince,” I say softly, biting my lips as my hot tears pelt his face. I lace my fingers with Dominic’s and close my eyes. “I’ll find you again. I’ll find you in my dreams. We’ll have so many rainy days. I’ll find you—”
“Cecelia,” Tobias snaps out my name in a way that has me jerking back to lift my focus to him.
In seconds, he draws me in, eyes blazing before he speaks. “You leave, and you don’t come back. You never come back.” His order is definitive, leaving me no room for any argument or response. He turns to Sean, lowering a vest around his neck before securing it and nodding toward me. “Get her out of here. She’s parked past the tree line.” I’m too far inside my head, inside the despair clouding me to understand his words or the full weight of their meaning. Tobias walks over to the bedroom door, takes one last look at me before he disappears out of sight. Sometime soon, in the future, I know the damage from his words is going to be caustic, but all I can do is gaze back down at Dominic before I carefully clean the blood away from his lips.
More gunfire sounds around us in all directions, just as Tyler’s voice booms from beneath my balcony. “Sean! All clear!”
Sean’s eyes dart to mine from where he stands next to the French doors firing twice into the yard. “Cecelia, we have to go.”
Shaking my head, I grip Dominic to me. “He’s still warm.”
Sean kneels before me a second later as I stroke Dom’s cheek.
“We have to go, Cecelia.” He gently lifts Dominic from my lap, and I cup his head, tenderly resting it on the carpet before pressing my lips to his. A sob erupts from me as Sean pulls me from him. And then we’re on the balcony, dawn threatening on the horizon while I study my blood-covered hands.