His Mafia Prince
Chapter 222: I’m Sorry I Scared You

Chapter 222: I’m Sorry I Scared You

(TYLER)

I have slept for about an hour when I jolt awake again. I barely get enough sleep lately. Not with the anxiety jolting through me. I live in constant fear of what might happen when I keep my eyes away like I did back at the warehouse. If something happened to Sasha again, I would never be able to forgive myself.

I move closer to him and glance at him. At the wiring of tubes running all over him. I swallow a lump, squeezing his fingers because no matter how much I try to fight back my tears, I’m afraid that I’m going to cry. I thought I was done with that, a dried-up husk who was so likely to bleed from my eyeball than tear up again, but no.

I still have more tears.

I lean over Sasha and pretend that I’m just observing, but I’m crying. I can’t help it. Tears are flowing down my cheeks, off my chin and splitting on Sasha’s pale skin.

I figure that since we are alone, I might as well just let go and cry it out. My grip on Sasha’s hand tightens, and I suck in a deep preparation to let go of the storm that has been whirling up inside of me, and hold it. For a moment, my heart stops too.

Because Sasha is squeezing my hand back.

His fingers are curling around mine. Weak, but unmissable.

I lean over and hit the call button, bashing it a few times with my fist when I turn my attention back to Sasha. His lashes are stirring, the unmistakable flash of his golden honey as his eyes crack open.

All this while Sasha has been in hospital, my least favorite place in the whole of this city, and that includes the warehouse where the Irish man dragged through to the dock―I’ve been expecting to lose my argument with death. And in truth, I have been expecting and preparing for it in the most sensible way I knew how, by planning how I was going to die inside as well.

There was no way in hell I was letting Sasha leave this world without me. Even if not physically.

I think Wesley had an idea, because he stuck by me all this while that at some point, I began to feel like it was irritating. And getting him to stop clinging on me tended to ask Jericho to take him home. I had spent a long time playing out what life would be like without Sasha in my head, and the thoughts that came to my mind were all depressing. Gutting even. But if he left me, I was willing to let part of me go with him. At least then, I’d be here to watch our babies. At the time, the idea was brilliant.

Just in case it became necessary.

I had to ignore Sasha’s voice in my head telling me to knock it off with those thoughts and just get some sleep. It wore me down, arguing with an imaginary Sasha, death and myself. But now, it feels like my whole world came back to focus. My desire to wake my almost dead soul is coming back to me.

His eyes opened.

Almost an hour has gone since he first opened his eyes. I’m standing in a corner of the room. The lightest and the brightest corner that I could find, while at the time, the doctor and nurses were leaning over him, testing his heart rate and asking simple yes or no questions that I know he’d love to give long complex answers to, and generally keeping me away from my alpha.

I’m grateful. Beyond grateful. Don’t get me wrong, but I still see death waiting in the other corner. In the dark corner. It hasn’t quit yet.

So I wait at my corner and glare at death in its corner. Two boxers getting ready to battle into round ten. I might be bruised and bloodied. But I’d be damned if I let death win.

"Ty...Tyler―"

It is a croak, a dry, husky rasp. The rusty razorblade lacking the treacle that usually coats his words when he speaks to me. Even so, it still makes my heart lift to hear it. "I’m here, Sasha. I’m right here, baby. I promise."

I hear his sigh of relief, even though it is quiet and subdued but the chatter of the medical staff. I wrap my arms around myself and pretend they’re his.

I will be able to feel his warmth soon. Soon enough. His fire. He might look tired and his eyes might be ice chips, but his heart is the fire that will keep me going.

And for now, I will keep going.

***

It is forever before I’m allowed to be alone with Sasha again, before the doctors and nurses have finished running their tests and asking all the questions. I know that Ai should have gone out and told the waiting family that their boss is awake, but I don’t want to leave my alpha. Not even for one second. Even to share the good news. Darla took one look at me huddled up in the corner and said that she will go tell everyone on my behalf.

I am certain that they will be relieved to hear the news. Ecstatic even. And Marco might finally stop looking to pin blames. But right now, I’m not thinking of anybody.

All I care about is Sasha.

The nurses propped him up ever so slightly. When the door closes on the last nurse, he turns and faces me, squinting across the room. "Baby..." he reaches out for me, hand too weak to stay in the air and flopping back onto the bed, his fingers crawling against the bed spread.

I’ve been stuck in the same position for so long, and my fingers feel sore and stiff from where I’ve been clutching at my own arms, and I only feel the discomfort as I move closer to him. I can’t speak. My tongue is stumbling in my mouth like my teeth are trip hazards. "Sasha," I croak out, falling on my knees on the camp bed that Darla had moved back into position. I grab Sasha’s arm, kissing and crying over it.

"Please," he finally says. "Baby, please. Let me see you."

I’m spotting all over his hand, so I wipe it down with a wipe from the nightstand, mop my face, blow my nose then look at him.

His lips move, just tipping at both corners, then I begin blubbering right away. He somehow finds the strength to close a hand on my wrist, tugging on it weakly until I stand, then I lean over and press my lips to his. His lips are dry and I try to be as gentle as possible. He tries to deepen the kiss, tipping his face up to mine, but I pull away.

"Don’t you dare try slipping me the tongue." I say, my voice breaking.

"My mouth... does have a bad... taste." He murmurs and sinks back against the pillow with a grunt.

"It shouldn’t. Darla and I took turns helping you to brush your teeth." I say, still weepy, but at least I’m trying to pull myself together now.

"Who’s Darla?"

"She’s the nurse who’s been helping me take care of you."

Sasha frowns at that, like he is thinking for a second. He coughs, then coughs again. I pick a water bottle that Darla left with a bent straw inside and let him take a very small sip of it.

"No." I scold and pull the straw away when he tries to take a big gulp. "Small sips. No big gulps. Darla said so."

"I...I don’t think I like this...Darla."

"She’s awesome. You’ll love her. Plus, she is the one who took care of your catheter. You should be thanking her for that."

The color of his lip begins to return. He keeps licking them, so I take some of the balm that Darla approved and apply on his lips and pat on his mouth. "Marco came to see you because we all thought you were going to die."

I’m proud of myself for keeping my voice steady until I utter the last word when it trembles. But maybe Sasha wouldn’t have noticed.

"Baby," he murmurs, then reaches to take my hand again. "I’m so sorry I scared you."

My throat closes in a sob. I swallow thickly. "You will never, and I mean never, ever. Scare me like that again. Running to take out a crazy Irish mob without backup. You hear me?"

His fingers tighten around mine. "I...I can’t promise that."

All the terror, anguish and relief that I felt suddenly become a flaming ball of anger. "What?" I begin to speak but he coughs again, shaking it out of me fir long enough that I let him speak again when he is able to.

"I...I was protecting you, baby." He coughs again. "I won’t ever stop looking out for you. Don’t... ah, shit." He grimaces in pain and shifts in the bed. "Don’t ask me to stop protecting you, because I won’t. I can’t." he slumps back into the pillow, exhausted again. "I love you Ty." He mumbles again, eyes closing. And just like that, he is asleep again.

For a moment, fear seizes me. What if he slipped back into a coma? But no. Darla had told me before she left that he would fall asleep again. Very soon. And that I should let him rest. That I would know the difference between sleep and a coma.

And what do I know? Darla was right. This sleep is so natural. Less deep. He is floating on the surface of the water. Not swallowed deep in the ocean.

I look at him aging, emotional jumbling inside me. Part of me wants to whip out the pillow from behind his head and smother him, just to remind him who between the two of us needs protection now.

But instead of killing him, Iet out a snort of disbelief, shake my head and press a kiss on his forehead.

Stubborn ass. I think about it but I don’t chance saying it out loud. I don’t want to wake him up. I thought I would be able to get some sleep when he did, but I’m wired, and my brain is buzzing and alert. The blinking lights of the machines surrounding him are distracting, almost painful to the edge of my vision.

His color is coming back. His cheeks are flushed, unlike the white he was earlier.

This man is everything to me. Yet he speaks of protecting me even when he has tubes running all over his body. The fact that his first thought was of me instead of himself told me a lot. I love Sasha with everything I have, and I must protect him from himself.

Then I think of Marco. I should find him and let him know that Sasha is okay. That his nephew had a near miss, and that between the two of us, we have to make him see sense and get him to safety.

I know what to do. But I will need Marco’s help to do it.

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