Chapter 78: Chapter 78

THREE MONTHS LATER

"Hey, babe, I'm going out for a walk with Clarissa, will you be alright alone?"

Hazel eyes smiles at me but I can clearly see the strain in her eyes. It's all because of me. I trace my eyes across her features and dip lower to her boobs - they're fuller and bigger, straining against the tee shirt she's wearing. My eyes continue their descent until they stop at her baby bump. It's bigger and definable.

My kid is in there - our kid. I smile, knowing that in a few months, I'll welcome we'll daughter into the world. The smile slides off my face as I look back up at Hazel eyes. She's assessing me, the same way I'm assessing her.

"Are you alright?" Lines appear on her forehead as she gazes at me. Lines that weren't there some months ago.

"Yeah!" I nod. "Go on, get some air, you need it." I get comfortable on the bed as I change positions, but once she's gone, I sit up and stretch.

I swing my feet down from the bed and pad to the other room where my clothes are kept and stop in front of the full-length mirror taking in my appearance. I touch the dents in my chest where the bullets penetrated. It had hurt like a bitch at the beginning, but now, it's down to a dull itching throb. I scratch it mindlessly and trace my hands across the other litany of scars riddled across my chest.

Old scars that tattoos have mostly covered.

I sigh and remove the small box from the sweatpants I have on before tossing it into the dirty linen bin in the corner before backtracking out of the room and making my way to the bathroom.

There, I put the box on top of the rack and turn the shower on, making sure to turn up the hot water tap to the highest. In seconds, steam fogs everywhere and I close my eyes and bend back my head until it rests against the tiles behind me.

We're twins - we shared the same womb for nine months.

I open my eyes and huff to myself. "Even in death, he still plagues me."

I push away from the wall and pick a bath wash from the range of products on the rack and a

loofah, and begin soaping myself. Soon, the smell of strawberries is in the air, and I find my lips splitting wide in a grin. Of all the bath washes littered on the rack, I had to go and pick Hazel Eyes' favorite one, and now I'm gonna smell like her.

I hate you.

The words leak into my mind and take root, making me shut my eyes. "No!" I shout out into the fog clouding the bathroom. "I will not think about him, he's gone and buried and he'll stay that way."

Unfortunately, Domenico still finds a way to plague my life from the grave, so I let him. Once more, I lean my head against the tiles and close my eyes as I go back in time to where it was just him and I in that ramshackle building, fighting for survival.

It was either him or me.

Once Koldis takes Hazel eyes away, I splay my hands and cock a brow. "Now, it's just me and you, fucker, let's rock and roll."

Face-impostor bares his teeth in a rictus grin. "Say your last prayers, because one of us is going to die and it definitely won't be me."

He says this with such force and hate plastered all over his face that I'm forced to ask, for curiosity's sake. "Tell me something - who are you, and what is this vendetta about?"

He huffs out a laugh. "I can't believe you're so thick-headed that you haven't yet figured it out."

I say nothing and decide to wait it out because I know he'll humor me. I'm right when he opens his mouth and begins to speak, pacing the short length and breadth of the room, trying to expend the pent-up energy inside of him.

"I was born with a defect- a hole in my heart that made me sickly for the better part of my childhood years, but you won't know anything about that, would you?" He pierces me with a baleful look but I say nothing and wait for him to continue.

He shakes his head and continues pacing and talking. "I didn't know who my parents were until I was ten years old. I lived with my grandmother in London until a woman waltzed into the apartment we lived in one dreary winter day. This beautiful woman with a sad smile and a dull sheen in her eyes was introduced to me as my mother. I will never forget that day or the days and months that came after them."

"She would sit and stare at nothing in particular, and I tried- I really did try. I asked her repeatedly why she had that sad look in her eyes, and she would smile and wipe a stray tear away before telling me nothing was wrong, but I knew something was wrong. Then one day, she sat me down on my twelfth birthday and told me the story of how twins were separated at birth."

"I didn't know it then, how could I have? I was a twin. . . We shared the same womb for nine months, I am your twin." He says, practically spitting the words out.

My mouth opens but no words come out. I'm trying to wrap my head around his words but it's not just happening.

"Exactly my reaction when she told me." Face-imposter says.'"You were in this big house living it up with our dad who, by the way, didn't even know of my existence." His eyes glitter with hatred.

"Domenico, did you smoke too much crack or this is some fucking joke?" I can't believe this dude.

"I know we look alike but I thought we were-"

"Related! Ha!" He scoffs "We're related alright, all you oaf, have to do is take a long look at my face and then pick up a mirror."

My chest is so fucking tight listening to the garbage he's spewing. "Let's say for argument's sake, you really are my twin brother, why then, are you plaguing my life?"

His eyes glitter dangerously as he removes his tee shirt, bearing his chest. "Because I hate you, and everything you stand for, because you took the love my mother never truly gave me, because you exist, and that is wayy more explanations than I should have given you." He juts out his hand to me. "May the best man win."

I stare hard, at it, for a few seconds but take it. Within the twinkling of an eye, I'm on the floor Andrea on top of me. We roll around, hitting each other. It's obvious to me he's got a handle on some type of fighting skills, but me - I learned to fight three people at a time and to fight dirty.

He's not winning this one.

I come back to the present when I hear the bedroom door bang shut.

Hazel eyes. She was the one who put a stop to it by shooting me and then shooting him.

I honestly don't know how to feel about that. She calls my name and comes straight to the bathroom when I don't answer. She's naked as she joins me underneath the shower. As usual, my eyes zone in on her baby bump as her hands slide down my chest. We don't talk, but I know she wants something from me from the look in her eyes.

Unfortunately, it's something I can't give her, something I've not been able to give her since my twin brother's death. Her hands slide down my chest to my cock which is already twitching, but even with me at full mast, nothing's going to happen. Instead, I capture her wayward hand as it curls around my balls, and move it away. I can feel the tension bouncing off her as she looks up at me with a mixture of confusion and subtle anger.

She doesn't understand. Shit runs deeper than even I can. I sigh and back her as I pick something up from the rack. Once I turn around, she's already making her way out of the shower, but I stop her with a hold on her hand as I open the case and sink to my knees.

As my words come out, she gasps loudly. "Will you marry me?"