I DIED.
I watched the woman I love take her final breath and die in the back of an ambulance, my child tucked sweetly inside of her. Losing Rosslyn was a pain that I could never put into words, but losing Rosslyn and our child was unbearable.
Rosslyn would never get to hold our baby. She would never get to watch him or her grow and learn. I had taken that from her—I’d taken it from myself—my past and all the mistakes I’d made had taken life. Light. Love. It had taken everything. I had single-handedly taken everything Rosslyn had in this world including her life.
When we pulled up to the hospital and they rushed her out of the back of the ambulance and through the hospital doors, I stood there on the sidewalk, my body completely shutting down. I wanted to follow her, but I couldn’t force my legs to move. I couldn’t stand facing the end of everything I loved—the end of Rosslyn—the end of me. Going inside the hospital doors would be just that.
The end.
The fucking end.
Looking to the sky, I silently begged God to take me with them—my love and our child.
I pleaded.
Bargained.
How could I survive in this world without them?
How could I continue to live—breathe—when I didn’t deserve the right?
And then, when I felt the asphalt against my knees, I let it all melt away and went into a complete and total state of shock. I knew this hell all too well. I’d been here before when Rosslyn’s parents had been killed because of my stupidity. I’d never taken a life before them, and now, I had taken four. My heart began to slow in what I hoped was the sweet release of death, and everything went numb.
I clutched my chest, natural panic overwhelming me when I realized I wasn’t able to breathe. I sucked in and it was as if the atmosphere around Earth had lost all its oxygen.
Seconds melted into minutes—minutes into hours.
The world around me slowly lit up, and I closed my eyes against its brightness and sighed, hoping the light signified the ethereal glow of heaven and not the sun slowly coming up and forcing me to greet yet another day.
Somehow I’d moved from the ground and I was sitting on the bench just outside the emergency doors. I must have been moved, but I couldn’t remember it. My brain wasn’t function properly.
In the distance, I heard someone talking to me, but the world had turned into a blur of black and white nothing—colorless and dead.
And then as if I’d been zapped by life itself, I took a deep breath and the world focused.
“Black!” Mac’s large hands grabbed at my shoulders, shaking me back to life. “Snap out of it. Rosslyn needs you and the nurse said she’s asking for you.”
“What?” My voice cracked from disuse.
I’d heard him wrong. Perhaps I hadn’t died and gone to heaven, but instead, I was in hell where I belonged. I’d spend eternity burning and reliving her death on repeat.
“She’s asking for you,” Mac repeated.
My eyes moved over his bulky form, taking in his ripped suit and the blood that marred his collar. I didn’t ask whose it was. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care.
“Rosslyn?” I questioned, still unable to fully believe what he was saying. “Rosslyn’s alive??”
“Yes,” he confirmed slowly, letting the simple word sink in. “It was touch and go in surgery, but she’s awake now, and she’s asking for you.”
I don’t know how long I sat outside the hospital, but at some point during my prayers and slow death, the doctors had brought my love back to life—back to me.
She’d died.
I’d watched her die, but after hours of surgery, she was somewhere in the building behind me and she was breathing.
Awake.
Alive.
I’d forever be grateful.
Forever.
My knees were stiff and my legs tingled when Mac pulled me to my feet. My hands were covered in dry, cracked blood when I looked down at them and I quickly tried to wipe her blood from my skin.
The sterile smells of the hospital stung my nose when I went through the automatic doors. Nurses looked at me like I was crazed, but I stared ahead—on a mission to get to her. The elevator ride started out quiet with only Mac’s heavy breathing at my side.
“I can’t stay long,” Mac said at my side. “It won’t be long until they’re here for me.”
I couldn’t speak, but I looked over at him and waited for him to explain.
“The police.” He cleared his throat and his steely eyes connected with mine. “I blew his fucking brains out for you, Black. Just like you asked.” And then the side of his mouth lifted in a self-deprecating grin. “Sorry about your office, by the way. It’s a fucking mess.”
Anthony was gone.
Dead.
Blown to bits on every square inch of my office.
And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“You’ll be out before the judge lifts the gavel. Don’t worry about a thing. I got you.”
And I did.
Mac wouldn’t serve time in prison. If it took every dime I had to grease the palms of every dirty politician or judge, he’d be a free man.
He nodded, his trusting eyes moving over my face and accepting my words.
When the elevator doors opened, I stepped onto the intensive care floor unsure of what I’d find.
I walked the long hallway to her room—the green mile—a man walking to his death. Because if something happened to her, I’d resigned myself to that.
Death.
Without her, there was no me.
When I stepped through the door, everything else faded away. There she was—lying in bed with her eyes closed. Her skin looked thin and pale—the only color was the vibrant strands of red hair against her colorless cheeks.
I swallowed, the air suddenly feeling too thick again.
Moving into the room, I couldn’t look away from her. I recorded every part of her to memory. The lift of her chest as she took a breath. The curve of her cheeks. The dip of her neck. I memorized her and took her essence into me.
I’d almost lost her.
I could still lose her.
And then she opened her lids and her mossy eyes connected with mine.
Tears choked me, trapping her name in the back of my throat as I moved over her and held her slender shoulders close to me.
Leaning back, I cupped her cheeks in my palms and let myself believe what I was seeing.
She was alive.
Her eyes open.
Her heart still beating.
I closed my eyes and listened to the monitor—each beep another beat of her heart—and I finally let the tears that had been shocked out of me hours before slide down my cheeks.
“You’re alive.” The words struggled over my tongue, cracked and broken.
“I’m alive.”
My eyes moved over her face, down her neck, over her chest, until my focus was on her stomach. Nausea swept over me.
Our baby.
Gone.
No way had our baby survived.
“The baby?” I asked, letting my palm rest on top of her stomach.
Closing my eyes, another tear slipped down my cheek.
I’d never thought about having children, but now, it was what I wanted. I wanted to be a father. A good one. I wanted to see Rosslyn grow large with the only good thing I could ever produce.
I wanted our child.
A sob broke through my lips and I leaned over her, pressing my cheek to her stomach where our child had once been. Growing. Growing. Gone in the blink of an eye.
“Shhh.” Her fingers sifted through my hair. “Just listen, Sebastian.”
So I did.
And what I heard was the most miraculous thing. The beeping of Rosslyn’s heart was hard and strong, and the other beeping, the one that didn’t match hers, was beeping just as strong.
“Is that?” I asked, not sure I was willing to believe we could be so lucky.
“It’s the baby’s heartbeat. It’s okay.”
Our baby.
Alive.
Okay.
My knees weakened and I collapsed as more emotion than I’d felt in my life slammed into me.
Joy.
Relief.
There were so many feelings it was overwhelming. Tears rushed down my cheeks and a broken sob broke from my lips.
I didn’t care who saw it. I didn’t care about anything but the fact that my love was alive and that our baby had also somehow managed to survive. Our baby was a fighter. Just like its mother.
As careful as possible, I leaned down and kissed my Rosslyn.
My life.
My world.
And after spending so much time thinking I’d never breathe again, I closed my eyes, and I breathed deep.