Chapter 64: Chapter 64

KADE HAWKINS/ CONNOR

THERE WAS only so much shit a man like me could take before he went berserk.

I was on the verge of losing the one man who I would call my brother. The one man who was more of family to me than anyone else in this shitty world.

On the same fucking day, the woman I would have gone to war for dumped my sorry ass. Regretfully telling me she was done with me…for good.

And that shit, her tears, her words ate me up, nothing bloody made sense anymore.

“She needs a minute”, my brother from another father quipped beside me not knowing the hell I was going through, the sting that was Cassie’s words and the gnawing fact that I had hurt her and I hadn’t apologized to her yet.

“She’s done with me”, I muttered and we stood in foreboding silence looking at the theatre doors where Ice’s surgery was still going on.

“Good because her handing your ass is your wake-up call to chase after her and earn her forgiveness”, Jr continued, I still couldn’t understand why they all stayed.

Jason, Misha, Nance, a few fuckers I didn’t know who grinned at me like we were buddies; they were all here and they bugged me because I couldn’t fucking wallow in peace.

“How’s Lucia?” I asked, changing the subject. Treading on hot coal and maybe trying to get the man I needed here with me as far away as I could.

He was right. In his own ‘I’m devastated after Lucia got shot’ way.

I destroyed everything I touched and they were stupid to stay after everything that had happened to all of them these couple of days because of me.

“Got a call a few hours ago that she survived. Our baby too”, I could hear the smile in his voice and I was happy for him.

Truly happy for him.

“You should be with them. Your ass should be in Texas with them”

Away from me.

“Maybe you are right but I know my woman and she would kill me if she found out I wasn’t by your side helping you go through your shit”

I chuckled. Amidst everything I could still chuckle as we both stood there gazing at those damn doors.

Two decades later, we were different men and yet…him being here made me feel relaxed. Relaxed than I ever had been since our parents died.

“I’ve handled my shit pretty fine all these years”

With Ice by my side. I handled shit with Ice and even now the only constant in my life was fading away.

“I’m here Connor. We are all here. They might want to smother you with kisses and hugs but that doesn’t mean I do too. Lucia was hurt because of your streak for danger, Cassie too. It’ll take some time to adjust to this but I’m here brother, for anything you need”

Brother, how long had I dreamed of that?

How long had I dreamed of having my own brother in the flesh?

My new sense of happiness was short-lived when the six feet three man-pretty strong for a man who looked like he was nearing his fifties-walked hand in hand with the woman I would assume to be his wife and a skinny trembling doctor behind them.

The man skimmed me over like he was trying to figure me out, I stared back giving back the same ambiance he gave me.

“Chief, Connor. Connor, Alessandro ‘Flames’ Petrakis”

Flames’ palm landed on my shoulder,

“Glad to see you kid. Jason wasn’t kidding when he said you took after your mother. Same fucking eyes but with the same scowl Callan wore like a badge”

The people behind me laughed. Laughing with a broken heart was shit I couldn’t manage.

His wife, the blonde behind him slapped his shoulder and he turned introducing us with the biggest grin I had ever seen in a man. The same grin I wore when Cassie made her little jokes or teased me in our home or rasped my name like I was her most favorite human being in the world.

Motherfucking fuck, I needed to get away from these people.

“I’m Mia, nice to meet you Kade”

She was the only one in here who called me Kade and I liked her right now better than anyone else in the living room who wouldn’t stop the ‘Connor’ name.

“I do believe this nice doctor has something to say to you. Something my husband clearly forgot the moment we approached you”

Flames’ eyes went an inch wider before he paused with an ‘ooh’ grabbing the scared doctor behind him and applying pressure on his shoulder more than necessary.

And somehow, I understood the doctor’s reaction.

Alessandro Flames carried power with him whenever he went. Power, respect, intimidation, same shit I had seen in Jr as he looked at the man, I was assuming was his chief and boss.

“We were in the next room and the ventilators allowed us to hear everything. Goodness, not that we were eavesdropping, we wouldn’t—”

Mia stuttered; Flames hugged her back interrupting her.

“I’ll take it from here, blondie. Doc you might want to tell him what you told her right about now”

The doctor, the tall skinny one stacking a bad mullet, stepped in front, his whole demeanor uneasy as he said,

“Your wife--…your woman friend is pregnant”

I raised a fucking brow.

Then his words sank in, his familiar face came to mind and I remembered he was the same fucking shmuck who’d told me Cassandra was fine before nervously running down the other way.

A few minutes ago I hadn’t paid heed to him, right now, right fucking now, I felt like hugging him and punching the mullet off his fucking chin.

“What?” Misha Bates was the one to ask before I could.

I couldn’t say a damn word as the words pregnant and Cassie formed in a sentence.

Pregnant. We were pregnant? Damn it, Red. Goddamn it, why hadn’t she said anything? Why hadn’t she…then the realism of what she had said to me earlier came knocking the air out of my lungs.

We were done? She wanted me out of her heart. She felt disgusted by everything I said to her in a moment of weakness? She felt alone…

“I have to go”, I SAID TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR, breathless, on the verge of buying booze for the entire hospital because hell…I was going to be a father!

“Cassie’s pregnant? Oh God, honey. Our baby is having a baby”, Misha was still digesting the news. Jason hadn’t said anything and the only moment he talked was to ask,

“Wait what were you and Mia doing in the next room…Jesus Christ Flames, you have five kids!”

“Never too late to add a sixth”

“I’m standing right here Andro”, Mia slapped her husband’s shoulders and the whole lovey-dovey thing going on between the geezers had me far more suffocated than the news that Cassie and my child were out of my life.

“Go get her”, Jr pressed, I was out the hospital and, in my car, faster than I had ever been in my entire life.

I was going to get my woman and my child back. If it was the last thing I fucking did.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“I warned you. I told you I knew jujitsu and I wouldn’t hesitate to kick your ass if you broke her heart. You broke her heart mister”

Anna Swan blocked the doorway. Stubborn as hell and intent on keeping me away from Cassie when I knew she was here.

Somewhere in the house behind her friend, feeling rejected and mounting as much hate as she could for me.

“I know”

“No you don’t know. With your brother Jr, she had a crush. Same crush every female teenager goes through but even that crush ended with her heart broken and her belief in love next to zero.

Then you showed up, the scowling villainy asshole that had nothing to offer her except your shitty mafia life and she fell for it. She took a chance on you and you ripped her heart apart dragging the pieces against sharp nails like it wasn’t anything valuable.

She’s valuable you know. She’s worth more than anyone and it is your loss for not seeing that, so tell me why the hell would I LET YOU in?”

Because I would fucking kill you if you wouldn’t.

“I love her”

“Try better asshole”

Fucking obstinate woman.

“I hurt her and I’ll live every single fucking day of my life regretting it. I made a mistake but that’ll be the only mistake I’ll ever make. Because my mistake was letting her go, taking her for granted, pushing her away.

I’m here to talk to her ANNA, I want to assure her she means so much to me than anything. I’ll stick to her side every day giving and showering her with as much love as this heart can give because she completes me.

Without her, I’m the same scowling villainy asshole who had no purpose in life, who wished that death would come knocking on my door to take me. I’ll beg if I have to. For your friend I’ll do fucking anything”

And that was the longest speech I had ever said to someone I didn’t give two shits about.

But she was Cassie’s friend, I’d learn to tolerate her at some point in life.

Anna wasn’t that much convinced but she still paved way inviting me to her home.

Once I entered her home, my feet wandered to the small walk-in closet that had served as Cassie’s room when I first asked her to move back in with him.

Anna’s place was always a dump and I would be kidding if I said I didn’t want it demolished by a damn bulldozer.

By the time I opened the door to Cassie’s old room, she was already asleep on an air mattress down the floor. Her hair sprawled on the pillow, her tiny frame trying the best it could to fit on that damn mattress.

I crouched down the floor, my ass kissing the ground as I wiped the small tufts of red hair from her face.

‘My woman. My feisty redhead who’s stronger than me, stronger than anyone I know’

I muttered.

My thumb traced her bottom lip, the one that still had a cut, the one that the bastard Lucas had hit.

And when she told me everything that had happened, I wanted to kill my bastard of a father all over again for hurting her.

I grabbed her right hand, kissing her soft knuckles, beating myself up for saying all those things to her, for pushing her away.

My eyes raked her sleeping form, stopping at her tummy and I just couldn’t help placing my big palm on it, trying to feel if the life inside her knew how much I loved them.

“Hey buddy. She tried to keep you a secret and I can’t fucking blame her for it. I hurt her, I hurt your mommy. Yeah, I know, I’m an asshole for losing a woman like her but you know what? I’ll win her back. Daddy’s going to take all her fury because he loves her more than anything.

I can’t wait to meet you baby. I can’t wait to feel you grow inside here, I can’t wait for her mood swings and her cravings. She’s a redhead you know? Once she gets mad there’s nothing that’ll stop her from throwing a plate to my face but we’ll manage that, won’t we?

We’ll manage her because we love her”

I was talking nonsense at this point but the excitement zinging in my body couldn’t give a shit if I sang ‘twinkle twinkle fucking little star’ to my unborn baby.

I was too preoccupied with my monologue to notice Red’s green-brown eyes shooting spikes to the side of my head.

“Don’t cuss at my baby”, she chastised.

My baby? Not our baby. Yeah, I had a long way to go in earning her forgiveness and I was prepared to grovel.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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