drift open, my mind feels like it's being weighed down by a ton of bricks, like my brain is filled with thick fog.

I hear the vague beeping of machines and the thin rustle of sheets around me, and I know I'm in the hospital.

Everything hurts.

Memories of what happened to me start to float into my muddled consciousness, and I'm not ready for them. My gaze follows the slow drip of morphine through my IV and my eyes close and I fade away again.

•§•

, two black eyes, one broken finger, scrapes and cuts on my face and body, some bruising and tenderness, a mild concussion. The doctors say that I'll make a full recovery.

Such a fucking lie.

There's a gaping wound in my chest, it feels like my heart has a hole in it. It hurts but at the same time I feel nothing, numbness has taken over, if I let myself start thinking I will crumble into ashes.

Nothing is okay, nothing makes sense anymore. I should be happy to be alive, I should be glad it's not worse. It could have been so much worse.

But then the images fill my head, haunt my waking moments and infiltrate my dreams and I just see blood, the bulbous, veined tip of Marco's aroused penis and the feeling of my bare skin beneath his cruel, filthy hands and the sound of my own screams, of Nero's screams, of the way Nero looked, half-dead when he stumbled into the room almost too little too late and then the feeling of someone else's sticky blood coating my skin and

This shouldn't have happened to me. It's not okay.

I think I'm having a mental breakdown.

•§•

is coursing through my arteries my parents and Daniel and Shauna surround me and I wish I felt the warmth of their affection and their support but I just feel so, so cold.

The police will want to talk to me, they say, when I'm better.

I guess they'll be waiting a long fucking time.

I know it's killing my family, not knowing exactly what happened to me, why it happened.

They want answers.

I have answers that I do not want.

Slowly, they tell me what happened after the attack. They found Marco's dead body, a gunshot wound to the head.

Four other men were passed out, bloodied and beat to unconsciousness, outside my apartment.

The ambulance came, brought me to the hospital. My neighbor was brought in too, they say.

Just the thought of Nero sends a thousand different, painful emotions through every piece of me.

There's worry and confusion and a horrible sense of dread.

But there's a tinge of regret, of shame and blame and then the anger. It boils in my blood and I am so fucking angry at him, at myself.

This is his fault. It is my fault, for thinking I could be a part of his world, his life, for not recognizing sooner how stupid stupid stupidly impossible it would be, to be together.

How could he let this happen to me? How was I so blinded that I didn't see Nero and Marco and Mario and Luca and Angelo and Gabriel and all the rest of it for what it truly was—a huge, colossal train-wreck just waiting to happen? I was so fucking naïve.

My heart hurts so much that I want them to carve it out my chest. It would feel better that way.

My mother holds my hand, her chair beside the bed. Daniel and my dad and Shauna make a circle around me and without thinking, I hear my rough, paper voice choke out, "Is he okay?"

They look puzzled. I feel wetness on my cheeks and my mom looks at me like her heart is breaking for me, she grabs some Kleenex and dabs at my stream of tears.

They realize I'm talking about Nero. My dad says that he was in critical condition, that there was a lot of blood loss, that there was internal bleeding and he lost a kidney, that did I know my neighbor was Natalia's cousin?

Daniel says she's by his bedside, because he's supposed to wake up soon. He had surgery, they say.

And then a sound they've never heard before leaves my mouth, the emotion is too much because I love him and I fucking hate him and I need him to be alive and I never want to see him again but he has to be okay, he has to be okay.

And then I don't know what comes over me but my heart is literally about to burst in my tired chest, so I just start from the beginning and I tell the whole story of how the fuck I got here, how I ended up in this bed, from the very moment I moved into my cursed apartment.

Every detail sounds so wrong as it comes from my mouth, but once I start I can't stop, it won't stop, it's me and Nero and Caleb and Marco and Natalia and when I hear it all out loud, it sounds even more, shockingly messed up.

I don't look at them, I stare into the grey pattern of the knitted blanket covering my thighs because I don't want them to look at me like they're ashamed of me, like I'm not their daughter or sister, like I'm a monster and a liar and someone else because I am, I am so ashamed and undeserving of their love.

When I finish there is silence and I think my mom is crying. And then I'm apologizing, over, and over, I'm sorry I'm sorry I am so so so so damn sorry for everything.

After forever, Daniel says softly, "I'm going to fucking kill him." I have never heard that same kind of violent, angry, helpless emotion in his voice before.

I rub away the snot from my nose, still sobbing. "He saved my life."

"He put you in danger in the first place, Ros," Daniel seethes, incredulous.

The tears are still leaking from my eyes when I choke, "I'm still in love with him." And I'm blubbering and wheezing and I can barely breathe, and if I were them I would just walk away, because this is such utter insanity.

But I feel my mother's arms circle me, I feel her embrace surround me like a warm blanket, like she's shielding me from this cruel world and it feels so good to finally be protected, to feel safe and now there are no more secrets, no more lies, no more, no more no more.

•§•

brings back too many awful memories, of Caleb in the hospital, of days of waiting and not knowing and praying and hoping.

After four days, the doctors say that I can be discharged because I'm technically fine. My body just needs time to heal.

They referred me to a psychologist, who I'm supposed to see twice a week to begin sifting through my trauma.

I still haven't seen Nero. He's been in and out of surgery, he's been recovering. His injuries were far, far worse than mine.

I need to see him.

I want to see him. But at the same time, I don't.

On my last evening in the hospital, Natalia comes to visit me while my family is out getting dinner. I insisted that they take a break from being at my bedside and they relented, probably knowing I needed some time to process everything by myself.

I recognize that they probably also need time to process the crazy, impossible story I dumped onto their laps.

Seeing Natalia brings back so many emotions in waves. A small, irrational part of me is angry with her too. But that's not fair, because she warned me. Time and time again, she warned me, and I never listened.

She gives me a weak smile, comes to sit beside me on the edge of my bed. "Hey Ros." She looks like she hasn't slept in days, there are bags under her eyes and her skin is pale and her hair is unkempt, she's been dealing with this hell as well as the rest of us.

She gently takes one of my hands, and I let her. We are both silent for a long time because we have no idea what to say to each other. Nothing is okay, nothing is the same.

"Ros," she says softly. "Did Marco..." The look on her face is of fear, of concern and curiosity. I know what she's trying to say.

Did he rape you?

My skin crawls because I can remember the feeling of my feverish flesh groped mercilessly beneath those calloused palms, the sour odor of his rancid breath, a flash of yellowed teeth, the feeling of his knife between my legs, almost about to carve out those parts of me that got me into this fucking mess in the first place, the feel of his pulsing erection hot against my stomach. The tips of my breasts still ache from how hard he pulled.

I shake my head, tasting bile, willing the images to just stop stop stop just fucking stop.

Natalia squeezes my hand reassuringly, bringing me back to her. "You don't have to say anything, Ros. It was wrong of me to ask."

My throat feels raw when I say, "He didn't. He almost did. If Nero hadn't been there..." My voice fades because I can't say his name, can't think of him without feeling an inconceivable amount of pain and anguish.

She lets me sit in silence while I fight back tears.

"How is he?" I eventually choke, and the weakness in my voice is pathetic.

I can see how tired she is. She sighs. "He's alive." And then I see the pain on her face, too.

Just when she thought she and Nero were family again, that things could be normal for once, this happened.

"Has he... woken up yet?" As angry as I've been, the thing that unfurls right now in my gut is hopelessness, a dull ache, the protective need for him to be okay.

There's a glassiness in her eyes. "He's in and out. His doctors say it's normal, that he should regain full consciousness in a couple days." She tries to smile at me, but I think she winces, instead. "I know the surgeon who worked on him. He's very good." I forgot, for a second, that Nat is a nurse who does shifts at this same hospital. "He'll be okay, Ros."

I don't say anything for a long time.

When I finally speak, my voice is barely a whisper. "Is it horrible that a part of me doesn't want to see him? That I wish I didn't love him this much because it's not okay and it hurts." The tears are running down my face, I can't look at her. "It hurts so much, Natalia."

She passes me a box of tissues, squeezes my hand hard in both of hers. "When he wakes up Ros, you should be there. It will kill him if he doesn't see that you're okay."

Am I okay? Not really.

A part of me wants to spend every minute by his side, holding his hand until he regains consciousness.

Because I didn't get to do that with Caleb, I had to let him go.

And Nero is alive.

He's alive and he's mine.

But when I think of everything that's happened, all the scars and memories and I consider what the fuck is actually good for me, I'm just so, so tired of it all.

So tired of feeling too much, all the time.

Of worrying and fretting and keeping secrets—even thinking about it exhausts me to the point of tears.

I don't know if I'll be able to look at him again, not yet, without reliving every sordid, horrific, disgusting detail.

I wish it didn't have to be this way.

I wish I felt more love and less anger, more gratitude and less grief.

I don't know when this gaping wound in my chest, this dull, senseless ache, will heal.

I think I just need time.

***

A/N:

Hey you guys. I know a lot of you are probably shocked over that last chapter. But this version of a cliché Wattpad mafia romance isn't supposed to be a cliché.

Happy ever after and roses and babies are not necessarily out of the question for the future of this book (I can't spoil anything) but in a real, imperfect world there would have been, inevitably, violence.

Food for thought.

Thanks for sticking with me on this crazy journey. I appreciate every single vote and comment. It makes me so happy to hear from you, the good stuff and the bad. I love you guys so much. ❤️

Also, your Throwback Thursday hit for this chapter is definitely Brittany Spears' "Criminal".

XOXO Ami

Thanks for reading! Please consider voting if you're enjoying BTW. Votes help books do well in the Wattpad stats. ❤️