Chapter 92: Tristan

Massimo and I just stepped outside for a coffee break leaving Dominic at Candace’s bedside.

She’s in a room now attached to tubes and all sorts of machines. All I hear in my head, though, is the heart monitor.

As long as I hear that sound, it gives me some hope that she’ll pull through.

Maybe it’s because of anyone I know, Candace has a strong heart physically and emotionally.

The doctors encouraged us to give her breaks, so we don’t overwhelm her mind, but at the same time talk to her so she knows we’re there.

I have, and Massimo has. Dominic hasn’t, and that’s probably for the best. Strong as her heart is, I’m not sure how she’s going to feel about Dominic after this. I don’t know if hearing his voice will help, even if it’s to express his sorrow.

Massimo and I get coffee from a little shop and sit on the bench outside the main hospital entrance. We don’t plan to be away for too long.

Massimo looks like he needs the break and some sleep, so I’m going to offer to stay here while he goes home. I had a break when I was with Isabella, leaving a few minutes after she fell asleep. That was several hours ago.

“Hey, how about you go home in a little while. Go, and I’ll take over,” I suggest.

“No, I need to stay even if I get an hour of sleep in my car. I don’t feel like I can leave her. I don’t think she’d want me to, especially now.”

He’s probably right. “Massimo, you need some sleep. We don’t know what’s going to happen or what she’ll be like.” That brings me to the other thing on my mind. “I don’t know if I can go through heading to Rhode Island with her in this condition.”

He stares back at me and nods. “I know, but I’m going to tell you to do it, brother. You need to. It needs to happen. Not taking the chance is like leaving a wound open to fester. I just contemplate on whether or not I should go. That’s not a mission for me to cast on you, though, because we’re going to be strongest together.”

“Together? What about Dominic? I don’t think we should take him. Massimo, I know last night was an accident, but it showed the seriousness of his problem. He needs help.”

“I agree, and that’s why I’m going to suggest that we don’t take him. I barely recognized him last night. I always want to be the guy to take care of everything and everybody, but that spreads me too thin. When you do that, it means you’re just touching base and not quite prioritizing. We might feel like we were there for him, but he doesn’t feel that way, and he’s right that we didn’t talk about Pa. We didn’t. I can’t. Pa died in my arms, Tristan. That’s not something I want to remember or talk about.”

I nod, understanding. “I can’t believe we’re here, though. At this point with Candace in the hospital because Dominic shot her.”

It doesn’t sound real. It sounds like some crazy shit I made up because when I think of them, I remember them looking like a couple as they walked along the beach. I think of her eyes brightening every time he spoke to her.

“If she pulls through this, it is going to change them. It’s going to change her.”

I release a sigh of frustration.

He downs his coffee, and I take a sip of mine. I can’t drink anymore, so I set the cup back down on the bench table.

Massimo stands after a few minutes. “Come on, let’s go back in.”

I nod and throw the rest of my coffee away.

We walk back to the room. Dominic is still in the same position.

Obviously, questions were raised as to what happened and how it happened. Everyone was so distraught last night that explaining Candace was shot by accident sufficed for last night so the doctors could do their work. I expect the cops soon, though. In our world, things get covered up, and we get away with all kinds of shit as the criminals we are. But things like this are answerable, especially when it comes to people we know.

Dominic looks across at us when we go inside, and discomfort fills his eyes.

He looks like he wants to say something to us but holds back because of Candace.

I think it’s best that we don’t talk too much around her just in case it turns into an argument, but we’ve been silent for hours. It’s not going to be easy to stay silent forever.

“I’m sorry,” Dominic says. “I’m sorry for everything and for this. I can’t begin to apologize enough. I know saying sorry isn’t enough, and she’s the last person that should be here. Candace is the one person in my life that I just… she means so much to me. Last night I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I can’t believe I’m here with her like this. I’m going to talk to the cops when they start questioning.”

I glance at Massimo, who is looking straight at him. “We’ll talk about that later.”

“I’m going to Massimo. Yes, of course, it was an accident, but that’s bull shit. Everything else that happened wasn’t. I was high. I took more…” his voice trails off, and I see he’s struggling to talk to us.

“Tell us,” I say. “Tell us what’s going on with you, Dominic.”

“At first, it was just to take the edge off. I got some prescription pills to help me sleep. Losing Pa and Andreas cut me deep. I thought as brothers we trusted each other, but Andreas worked with the other side to destroy us. It did something to us to second guess each other. First, I overdid everything to make sure I looked like you guys could trust me, then it got too much, and I sought the hard stuff, and it screwed with me. It screwed with me in a way that I couldn’t stop or think beyond a sniff to make me feel like I could cope.”

“You should have come to us, Dominic,” Massimo says.

“I know. I know I should have. My problems made me feel fucking weak, and weakness is not a thing associated with us. There we were on this path to revenge, and I felt like I was losing my shit. It wasn’t important. I don’t have to be told I was wrong. I know I was. I know taking drugs wasn’t the way. I’m stopping. I assure you that. I’m so ashamed of myself, and now my angel lies here suffering.” He looks back to Candace and takes her hand into his.

Her hand is attached to tubes, but he plants a kiss on the tip of her fingers.

“My angel, you don’t know how much you mean to me,” he rasps, rubbing over the tips of her finger. “I love you.”

I can’t say anything. There’s not a damn thing I can think of saying because he’s shocked me. He’s shocked and restored something inside me because he’s the same guy I know him to be. Not the person who switched out on me over the last few weeks.

He bows his head, resting it near Candace’s hand.

It’s the change of the beeping on the heart monitor that turns my attention away from him. It’s faster. Panic makes me look back to Candace, and my heart soars when I watch her hand run over Dominic’s head.

Her eyes open and close, and she looks around.

We rush to her side. Her lips part, and she looks at each of us but focuses on Dominic.

“Don’t. Don’t go.” Her voice sounds weak, but I’m so glad to hear it. She squeezes his hand, and he holds her gaze.

“I’m sorry for everything, Candace.”

“Just don’t go.”

“I’m here,” he assures her. “I’m right here.”

“I’m going to get the doctors,” Massimo says.

He rushes through the door and gets the doctors.

Moments later, my phone rings. I answer it because I know it could only be Nick.

It is. I asked him to check in with me if he hadn’t heard from me in a while. That way, we’d keep a good flow of communication.

I answer, and he sounds like he just woke up. He groans like he’s injured, and that’s when I know something’s going on.

“Nick, what happened?”

“I’ve been shot. They took Isabella. Mortimer and Dmitri took Isabella. Alfonse was working with them,” he explains in one blurt.

I nearly drop the phone as the blood drains from me. I experience that daze of shock a person goes through when they hear something that can’t be real, and their brain can’t process it.

“What are you saying to me? Alfonse?”

“Alfonse… Kruv’ omertà. That’s what I heard him say. Kruv’ omertà.”

It suddenly all makes sense. He was the Italian.

He was the real traitor all along. As my brain processes everything, I realize that anything that ever lacked sense makes every bit of sense now.

Everything.

My mind goes back to the night Alyssa was taken. That night makes sense now too. It was him.

Alfonse was the man playing sides well before we were born, the perfect candidate to exact betrayal.

We would never have suspected him.