Chapter 24 24

Chapter 24 24


Caelum's POV

The bullet hit like a truck.

I felt it go through my back, felt something tear and snap in there. It sent me sprawling forward, my hands falling from Nikolai's throat and flying back to grab at the hole.
Then I was falling.

Hit the concrete face first. Tasted blood and dust.
Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Nothing but pain, all the way through my back and every nerve.

This is how I fucking die, I thought dimly. ‘At the same location Isabelle did. Maybe I deserve this.’

Footsteps running toward me. Celine shouting my name, shrill and scared.

"Caelum! No, no, no—"

Her touch on me, turning me over. The motion tore new pain through my chest. I gasped, couldn't get air.

Her head, one blood-and tear-ornamented face floated above mine. So beautiful even now. Especially now.

"Don't you dare die on me!" She was angry, both hands pressing against my chest. "Don't you dare leave me! You promised!"

I tried to speak. Couldn't. Blood in my throat, choking me.

She continued to speak, kept her hands on the wound, stared into my eyes as if she could will me here with her.

I'm sorry, I wanted to say. ‘Sorry I failed you. Sorry I wasn't strong enough.’

But her voice anchored me. Dragged me away from the darkness encroaching on the edges of my sight.

If she could fight for me, then hell, I could fight too.

\---
A gunshot rang out.

Through my dimming vision I saw Amaya stagger, red blossoming on her shoulder. The gun fell from her, and she cried out.

Kent was behind her, brandishing his weapon. "Stay down."

Nikolai was getting to his feet, hacking and gasping after being choked. He glanced around wildly, and saw his men dropping, my own streaming in from every door.

He ran.

Instinctually, Celine took Amaya’s fallen gun. I tried to say no, I tried to make her stop but I couldn’t move.

She aimed and fired.

It's a shot inches away from hitting Nikolai, but Insanity misses by feet. But it was enough to stop him, to make him stumble.

From the smoke emerged Ryker, who tackled him. They both went down hard, Ryker's fist meeting Nikolai’s face in rapid succession.

"Enough," Kent ordered. "We need him alive."

They hauled Nikolai up, his face bloody and puffed. Ryker’s nose was broken, possibly his jaw. He could barely stand.

Kent glanced down at me on the floor, then back at Celine, who continued to hold her hands to my chest.

"Boss, your call."

I had to say words past the blood. "Prison. Let him... rot. Death is... too easy."

Kent nodded. "We have enough to put him away for life. Financial crimes, murder, racketeering. He'll die in a cell."

Sirens wailed in the distance. Getting closer.

"Ambulance," Celine gasped. "He needs an ambulance."

"Already called," Kent said. "Two minutes out."

Hourlong it felt like, those two minutes.
I gazed at Celine’s face, committing it to memory. Her eyes. Her lips. The way her hair nosedived around her face.

If I died, this was the last thing that I would see.

Not a bad way to go.

“Stay with me,” she kept telling him. "Please stay with me. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you."

“Love you too,” I whispered somehow.

And then there were the paramedics, pulling her away, hoisting me onto a stretcher. Then it all dissolved into a tornado of motion and voices and pain.

The last thing I noticed before the door closed behind me was Celine on my heels, hanging on to my hand.

Then darkness swallowed me whole.

\---
Two Days Later

I woke up to steady beeping.

Hospital. I was in a hospital.

Everything hurt, but at a remove, out of reach through drugs. I tried to move and couldn't. There was something on my chest, but also around my armtracking things.
Turned my head slowly.

Celine was dozing off in a chair by my bed, her hand gripping mine. She appeared tired, her face pale with dark circles under her eyes.

I squeezed her hand weakly.

She snapped instantly awake, her eyes flying open. When she realized I was awake, she cried.
"You died," she sobbed. "In the ambulance. Your heart stopped. They must… God, they had to shock you three or four times before..."

She couldn't finish. She just cried, her body heaving.

I took her hand to my mouth and kissed her knuckles. "I'm here. I'm okay."
"You're not okay! You were shot in the back! You got shot, the bullet missed your heart by two inches!” She was angry now, furious through the tears. "Don't ever do that again. Girl, don't ever do me like that.”

"I promise."

She eased herself onto the hospital bed, wary of the wires and tubes. Pressed her face into my neck and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.

I embraced her with my left good arm, no care for the pain, just breathing her in.

Alive. We were both alive.

A nurse entered and eventually took my vital signs, changed out medication. Said the surgery went well. The bullet had been taken out, the damage fixed. I would require physical therapy but make a full recovery.

Kent came into the doorway after the nurse had gone.

"Boss. Good to see you breathing."

"Nikolai?"

"In custody. Federal charges. Given what we gave them and what they had, he’s looking at life without parole. Maybe death penalty." Kent smiled grimly. "It's over. Your identity is still safe. As far as we know, you were just a civilian caught in the cross fire."

"And Amaya?"

"Hospital, under guard. She's cooperating. Spilled it all to them about the operation Nikolai was running. And in exchange, they’re moving her parents and she gets immunity.”

I nodded, relieved. She'd been a victim too. Forced to do terrible things.

Kent left us alone again.

Celine stopped crying, lay next to me with a gentle breath. Her hand drew invisible shapes on my chest, that careful approach the bandages.

"What happens now?" she asked quietly.

“Normal now is what we make.”

"Is that even possible? For us?"

"I don't know. But I want to try."

She was quiet for a moment. "I thought I lost you. When your heart, I hoped—”

"I'm not going anywhere." I tilted her face upwards, making her look me in the eyes. "I'm here. I'm staying. For as long as you’ll have me.”

She kissed me then, soft and sweet and so full of promise.

We lay like that for a while, entwined in a hospital bed, the two of us healing.
\---

Two Weeks Later

The hospital finally allowed me to leave.

I was walking slowly, still recovering, but with a purpose. The surprisingly slender hand of Celine supported me during the walk and it held my bag, as well; she hovered near by in a manner that made me want to collapse on principle.

Outside the car stood Kent and Ryker.

We stepped through the sliding doors out into sunshine and Celine said, “So what now? "You, like... go back to being a crime lord and a professor?"

I stopped, taking her hand. Fourteen days to think. Two weeks to consider what sort of life I wished for.

“I was considering retiring, actually. From the mafia, at least. Kent can run the operations. I'm done with that life."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really. I have been in darkness for 10 years. I think it’s time to live out in the light.” I cupped her face. “You make me want to be better. If you'll have me."

Her eyes welled up and she raised her voice again, choking back tears. Happy ones this time. "You idiot. Of course I'll have you."

She was just about to kiss me when a black car approached the curb.
Expensive. Luxury model. Tinted windows.

The back door opened.
She stepped out, and my heart stopped.

She was refined, perhaps in her 60s with dark hair streaked with silver. Expensive clothes. Cold, appraising eyes that I knew what to do with.

Since I looked at them in the mirror every day.

She stared at me expressionless. "Hello, son. We need to talk."
My mother.

The woman who had left me at twelve. Who went to Europe and never came back.
The woman I had believed to be dead.

Celine gripped my hand tighter. "Caelum? Who is that?"

I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Gawked at the ghost from my past who was now standing in front of the hospital.

I saw my mother’s smile, cutting and icy. "You sure have showed us a mess, Caelum. Time to clean it up."

Then she got back into the car, the door still open behind her.

An invitation.
Or a threat.

I glanced at Celine and read the questions in her eyes.

“I thought she was dead,” I murmured.

"Who is she?"

"My mother. And as long as she’s here, nothing is over.”

The darkness I had imagined escaping was coming for me again.

And this time it was in my mother’s face.