“The mother of all shitstorms.” I ran a hand through my hair and punched the nearest wall. Fuck, I was going to tell him. Because I had to. Because of Rosie. “In bullets: I’m adopted. Up until now I thought that my parents adopted me from my slutty aunt who got knocked up by a no-show piece of shit. Turns out the no-show piece of shit is actually hot-shot lawyer Eli Cole. He slept with his wife’s sister while they were already married and decided to keep it from me for thirty years. Just, you know, in a fucking nutshell.”

“Fuck,” Vicious hissed, stopping to look me in the eye, making sure it wasn’t all a big, fat, sad joke. After that, we took our coffees and sat down by the window overlooking the hospital. The thought that she was so physically close yet mentally far messed with my mind. It felt like the end of everything. The world. Us. Her. “That’s some heavy mess. I had no idea Eli was capable of out-dicking us,” Vicious said, probably referring to the fact he dipped his dick in his wife’s sister.

“It’s in the genes, I guess.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully, taking a sip of my cup of Joe. “Who fucking cares, Vic? Seriously. She needed me, and I stood her up. She needed me, and she stood in the rain waiting on me. I should burn in hell. In fact, I bet you’d be happy to light the fucking match.”

Vicious offered me an uncommitted shrug, moving his teeth across his lower lip.

“What?” I elbowed him.

“I mean, honestly? Who hasn’t fucked up? I fucked up with Emilia so many times. I did things that were far worse. But she wasn’t sick. That’s the only difference. She was there to accept me when I finally pulled my head out of my ass and started groveling.”

“And you think Rosie is not going to make it?” I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t choke, and there was not enough air in the fucking room as I waited for his answer.

He looked down. “I’m not a doctor, but I’d be lying if I said her prognosis is good.”

“I have to speak to her.” I angled my body to face him, clasping both his shoulders and forcing him to look at me—look at my grief. “You need to help me, Vic. I can’t not see her right now. You realize that, right?”

He measured me, silent and cunning. His lips were pressed together. He was thinking.

“What do you want?” I scrubbed my face. “Name your price.”

Holy fuck, we were doing this again. This. Negotiating each other’s happiness. Fine. Whatever. Everything had a price tag. Especially in Vicious’s world.

“What would it take for me to get to her?”

Nothing was a hard limit. I think he knew it.

“I want fifteen percent of your shares in Fiscal Heights Holdings.” He served me my own medicine and shoved a good amount of it down my fucking throat. I didn’t even think about his request before the words left my mouth.

“Take them. They’re yours. Now get me up there. I need to see her.”

“Twenty,” he said. Fucker.

Straight-faced, I said, “Yours.”

“Twenty-five. All of your shares. Mine. Sign it tomorrow morning.”

“Take all my shares. Take my clothes and my apartment and my inner organs. Let me see her. Reason with the LeBlancs.”

He got up, finished his coffee in one gulp, and set his cup down.

“The thing is, Mr. Cocksmacked, I don’t need any of your shit. But I’ll help you. This is the hard part, by the way. Even if her parents would let you see her, the LeBlanc sisters don’t go down easy.”

I stood up, finally allowing a smirk to grace my face.

“Well, then it’s a good thing I’m a very good tackler.”

What makes you feel alive?

The struggle. To breathe. To live. To not let go.

THE MUTTERS BEHIND THE CLOSED door awakened me. Whoever stood there lost their patience quickly. The stomping on the floor tipped me off. Then the voices started bleeding into my ears and the puzzle pieces fell into place.

Mama raised her voice. “I don’t actually care. My daughter is very sick, and you were well aware of that. You know her, after all. Now go away, boy, and don’t you come back here. Rosie is fighting for her life, and make no mistake, I blame you for it. What makes you think she’ll want to see you?”

“Mrs. LeBlanc.” His voice had an edge I couldn’t decode. Dean Cole wasn’t the groveling type. “I apologized. Let your daughter decide for herself. I assure you, she wants to hear me out. Ask her.”

“She’s asleep.”

I opened my mouth with the intention to call out to them, but nothing came out. The unwelcome transformation my body had gone through in recent hours left me speechless. Literally. No longer able to move my head, I found myself fighting for my next blink. Everything was sore. I had to take shallow breaths purposely, to make sure that my ribs wouldn’t crack. I needed to tell the nurse to up my painkiller dose. But I didn’t complain. Morphine would only make me sleep more, and there was so much going on around me, I didn’t want to miss a thing. The other reason I didn’t want to be given more narcotics was naked, raw fear. What if I died in my sleep? My eyes were heavy, but I fought to stay awake.

I was desperate to see Dean again. Did he screw up? Yes. Badly. Was I mad at him? Sure. Furious. But when you were on your deathbed, there was no time to be mad. Vindictiveness was thrown out the window, along with any other soul-eating, negative trait that was ingrained in us. When you were on your deathbed, time reminded you just how precious it really was. Feelings were bare and open for the world to see, poke, and dig into.

“Charlene.” Vicious interfered from the hospital hallway outside my door. “Rosie loves Dean. He has a reason for not meeting her in the Hamptons yesterday, and I can tell you that his reason doesn’t suck. At least ask her if she wants to see him.”

“Fine, but not right now,” Mama huffed, and I heard her smacking her thigh. “As I said, she really is asleep right now, and I’ll be damned if something like this nonsense wakes her up while she should be resting. Go. I will call you when she wakes up.”

“New York is three hours away, ma’am.” Dean tried to reason with her.

“And that’s a long journey, huh, Mr. Cole? My daughter made it to see you here. You didn’t even bother to show up.”

That shut both of them up. A few minutes later, the door opened and Mama walked in. I didn’t know where Millie or Daddy was, but I guess they were all taking turns to watch over me. Every single waking moment was spent with someone else. It made reaching out to Dean by a text message or a call impossible. Asking for personal space wasn’t fair to the people who stopped their lives to cater to me.

The mattress dipped as my mother came to sit by my side.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

I opened my mouth and tried to talk, but my words came out as a desperate hiss. “Been better.”

She laughed and sniffed, wiping away a couple of tears. I wondered if all families were messes of epic proportions when a youngster was dying, or was it just mine? I wasn’t a kid anymore, but I was used to being everyone’s baby. Vicious called me Little LeBlanc. Dean called me Baby LeBlanc. Everyone else, Rosie-bug. And so a part of me came to foolishly believe that I had more time.

“Everyone’s keeping you in their prayers. I go to the church down the road every day. Baron is talking to a fancy pulmonologist from England. He is going to fly him here if things don’t get better soon. But they will, my dear girl.” She stroked my forehead, tears running down her face. She was no longer trying to hide or wipe them. “Sweetheart, you will get out of here walking. I know you will.”

Her forehead met mine, and I closed my eyes, feeling warm tears leaking under my lashes. I didn’t want to cry, especially not in front of Mama, but I didn’t feel like being strong anymore. Being strong sucked. Wanting to be independent and strong was what got me here in the first place.

Being strong made me weak.

“Mama,” I sniffed, “I’m going to be okay, right? I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Todos Santos. I know you meant well. I just wanted to stop being babied.”

“I know, honey. I know, I know,” she repeated, kissing my forehead and my tears again and again. It didn’t escape me that she didn’t answer my question.

It did not escape me at all.

I was perched on the porch outside the Hamptons’s mansion I had rented, letting the rain crack at my fucking face, because I deserved it.

Just to make sure that I was a full-blown loser and not a half-assed, miserable idiot, I drank vodka straight from the bottle, trying to feel how she felt when she was locked outside for fuck-knows how much time.

I earned it. Each and every piece of shit life was handing me. Fair and fucking square.

I shouldn’t have drunk three bottles of vodka in twenty-four hours. But I did. Because that bullshit they feed you about hitting rock bottom and seeing the light? It’s just that. A load of crap. In reality, when you hit rock bottom, you lie there for a long, extended nap, because rock bottom is still solid ground. Especially when the rest of your world is hanging on by a feather for balance. Being an addict whose life crumbles in front of him is tiring. More so than being the darling son, the sharp businessman, the manwhore who would give you four orgasms before he even touched you.

I found that out the hard way.

Truth was, weakness invited more weakness. And knowing that Rosie was dying didn’t throw me into knight in shining armor mode and help my drinking problem disappear. It served as the heavy brick that drowned me into the depth of misery.

Sprawled on the steps of the mansion’s entrance with a bottle to my lips, I stared at leafy trees trying to fight the wind away and laughed at how pathetic I had become.

It was a Monday. Noontime. The rest of the world was buzzing with life. I was buzzing with anger. I needed to think of a way to get her back. Vicious’s word with her parents didn’t help one bit.

I didn’t bother to answer my parents when they called. The one thing I did do was show up at the hospital at random hours, demanding to see Rosie. At first they kicked me out because she was asleep. Later on, it was because I was too drunk to function.