Chapter 48 Chapter 0048

Chapter 48 Chapter 0048
•ANEIRA•

His name left my mouth before I could think. "Rafael," I breathed. "Please wake up. You can't die on me."

But he didn't answer me.

His eyes were closed and his weight was heavy against my hands as I pressed them flat against his side, trying to stop the blood that kept spreading through his shirt no matter how hard I pushed.

"Rafael, open your eyes. Please." I panicked and felt as if my heart would stop beating. My chest tightened as I lifted my head to the door and screamed as loud as I could.

"Help! Somebody help me!" I sobbed, feeling my stomach sinking at the thought of anything happening to Rafael.

The door burst open so fast it slammed against the wall.

Polly stopped in the doorway for only a second before she was on her knees beside me, her hands replacing mine against the wound without a single word.

"Get Ben on the phone now!" she shouted over her shoulder at the man who had followed her in. "Tell him we need the private facility on the west side open and ready in twenty minutes."

"Is he going to—" I couldn't finish the sentence.

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

She looked at me, and something in her expression softened just slightly before it hardened again. "Go wait by the car. You can't do anything here and you're in pain."

"I'm not leaving him."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, and turned back to Rafael.

"I heard a gunshot! What happened?!"

Amari appeared in the doorway and when her eyes landed on her brother on the floor, she made a sound that I had never heard from her before.

"This is all Aneira's fault," she muttered as she leaned closer. "My sweet Rafael wouldn't be dying if she stayed away from him. She is the cause of this."

"We shouldn't be pointing fingers right now, Amari," Polly scoffed as she looked up at her. "Narra shot him, just as she stabbed her mother and killed her."

Amari looked down at me and rolled her eyes. "I don't care what you believe, Polly, but Aneira should be punished for this!"

But before I could answer her, Ben returned and informed us that the transport was outside.

When we got inside the car, Amari avoided sitting beside us, and I didn't mind that. I didn't really care about her.

I sat in the back of the car with Rafael's head in my lap, my hands still pressing against his side even though Polly had done a better job of bandaging it before they moved him.

His breathing was shallow but it was there, and I focused on that. I counted each breath.

The facility was different from a normal hospital. There were no white walls or fluorescent lights.

I sat down on the chair near the waiting room and stared at the door they had taken him through.

Amari sat across from me. She hadn't said a word since we left the house but she hadn't looked away from me either, as if she was keeping watch.

But after a few minutes, she broke the silence. "I believed for the longest time that Rafael loved me and would keep wanting to be with me no matter what, but when I heard about your marriage to him, I somehow knew I had lost him."

She chuckled as she leaned her head back on the chair. "When I saw how he defended you against his sister and me, I knew he loved you, Aneira. And I know when he wakes up he will be looking for you."

I looked at her and sighed. "I understand why you acted the way you acted toward me, Amari, and you shouldn't worry yourself. I would never hate you."

"That's sweet of you," she said as she got up from the couch. "But I don't need your forgiveness. I think you would've done the same thing if you watched your mam struggle to resist another woman right in front of your eyes."

I swallowed and couldn't answer her.

"I am leaving today for Washington," she breathed. "I will finally have a fresh start. I hope Rafael won't fall in love with another woman who lives under your roof," she smirked. "I heard karma is a cruel bitch."

She turned and walked away before I could answer her.

I swallowed and looked back at the door.

I had told myself so many times that I hated Rafael. I had stacked every cruel thing he had ever done and built a wall out of it and hidden behind it because it was easier than admitting what I already knew.

That something had happened to me along the way.
That somewhere between the fear and the grief and the nights I cried alone in his house, I had stopped being afraid of Rafael Sterling and started aching for the version of him that defended me that night.

So maybe Amari was right. I was fucked.

Polly came out two hours later. She barely looked at me as she sat on the chair that Amari had been sitting on.

"We will find your sister," she murmured. "And when we do, she will pay with her life for almost killing my brother."