Toxicity

by Katie May

  I want to ask if he’s okay, if he knows about the doctor and Moder, but all I manage to do is whisper, “Dresser.”

  His head whips towards the dresser, and for a moment, he doesn’t say anything, brows furrowed. Understanding dawns on his handsome face when he spots the camera lens from beneath the pile of clothes.

  “You’re so smart, Mallie. So smart.” His hand resumes stroking my tangled, bloodied hair.

  I feel someone carrying me onto a stretcher. Whispered words. Cries.

  I’m sorry Phillip. Roman. Byron. Deluca.

  I’m so fucking sorry.

  I tried to hold on, to be strong. I tried to fight.

  Forgive me.

  And then I feel nothing.

  Chapter 27

  The first thing I’m aware of is the steady beeping of a heart monitor and the intermittent drip from an IV. My body feels heavy, leaden, as if thousands of weights are crushing my stomach and chest. While it’s an uncomfortable sensation, it isn’t necessarily painful. There’s a sort of numb, blissful quality invading my senses.

  Slowly, I open my crusted eyelids.

  I’m in a hospital room, that much is certain. The sleek, marble counters, white walls, and white ceiling makes the room seem almost daunting and unwelcoming. The smell of bleach permeates the air.

  “What—?” I rasp, turning my head towards the figure slumped over in a chair.

  The buzzed blond hair and broad shoulders are unmistakable.

  Byron.

  Here. In the flesh.

  At my croak, he jumps up so fast I almost laugh. His comically wide eyes stare down at my face. There’s such tenderness, such love, that my throat closes and my heart picks up speed—made evident by the traitorous heart monitor.

  “You’re awake,” he breathes. Tears give his eyes a glassy quality.

  “What…” I struggle to speak through the sudden dryness in my throat. Sensing my unease, Byron lunges for a glass of water on the table flanking the bed and hands it to me. I greedily drink through the straw.

  “What happened?” Byron fills in for me. Hand shaking, he takes the glass from me and sets it back on the table.

  I nod.

  There’s joy at seeing him. Immense, undeniable joy, but there’s also fogginess. There’s something I have to remember…

  “You were kidnapped,” Byron begins. He reached a hand out as if prepared to touch me before dropping it to his side.

  Vague images assault me. Aurora. Moder. Griffin. Doctor Asshole. And…

  “Nat!” I exclaim, sitting upright in bed. The movement causes the previously nonexistent pain to return with a vengeance. I groan, grabbing at my stomach, and Byron rushes to me, hands gentle as he pushes me back on the bed.

  “Careful,” he warns.

  But I don’t care about me. I care about my best friend. If something happened to her…

  “She’s fine,” Byron assures me, and I desperately search his eyes for any deception. Nothing but sincerity emanates back at me. “They got to her in time. She took a bullet to the shoulder, but she’ll live. She’s awake and already demanding to see you. Threatened to murder the doctors and feed their balls to alligators.” He chuckles dryly at my friend’s antics.

  “Deluca? Roman? Phillip?” I fire off.

  “They’re all fine,” Byron promises. “We’ve been alternating who’s here with you.” Grim amusement lights up his face. “They’re going to be pissed that I’m the one who got to see your beautiful eyes.”

  “How long?” I clear my painfully dry throat. “How long have I been out?”

  Darkness clouds Byron’s normally jovial gaze. With his formidable size, the sight is scary to see.

  “Weeks,” he admits at last. Pain laces every word. “Two weeks and three days.”

  That long?

  I stare at my stomach through the scratchy white hospital sheets. Only my erratic breathing ruptures the silence. I don’t feel any pain at the moment, but I imagine that’s the drugs coursing through me. I was close to death when I was brought here. Very, very close.

  “Aurora?” I whisper.

  “She was arrested for murder and attempted murder,” he answers darkly. “She’ll never bother you again.”

  Shuddering out a breath, I stutter, “Good.”

  There’s so much I want to ask, so much I want to know, but I can’t find the will to say any of it. Instead, I reach a hand out for Byron, which he takes hesitantly.

  “I love you,” I confess on a whisper. His breath hitches. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to say it to you for a lot of reasons. But you’re here with me now, and I want to scream it from the rooftops. Byron, I love you, and I think a part of me always has. Even when I was married and broken. Even when I wanted to give up. Even when I was so mad at you for sacrificing yourself for me. I always loved you, and I always will.”

  Tears glimmer in his brilliant eyes.

  “But—” I begin.

  “But I’m not the only one you love,” he finishes. There’s no pain in his eyes, only joy. Only happiness. “It’s okay, Mallie. I see the way the other guys look at you. The way they acted when they thought you were—” His face twists with pain at the memory. Clearing his throat, he continues doggedly. “You deserve all the love in the fucking world. If anyone is capable of loving more than one man, it’s you. I don’t know what this means yet. Are we going to be in a polyamorous relationship? Or is polyandry? Are you going to choose one of us?” I open my mouth to protest—it’s impossible to choose just one—but he continues speaking, undeterred. “We all love you, and you love us. The only reasonable thing to do is try this...this relationship. See where it leads us.”

  “Nat always joked I should have a harem,” I whisper fondly. My heart hurts when I think of my best friend. How she selflessly threw herself into the melee to save me. The gunshot. Her falling. There’s no words to describe the relief I feel knowing she’s okay. The love I have for her.

  “Harem,” he muses. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Just come over here and kiss me,” I demand. When he hesitates, eyes trailing over my battered body, I roll my eyes. “Kiss me, dammit!”

  “Needy, needy, girl.”

  But he complies.

  Roman and Phillip arrive shortly after, Roman first followed a few minutes later by my tattooed prince. I imagine they ran from wherever they were as soon as Byron called.

  After exchanging feather soft kisses with each of them, I dare to ask the question Byron had carefully evaded.

  “What happened?”

  Pure anguish transforms all three of their faces. Ghosts haunt their eyes.

  “We woke up, and you were gone,” Roman says breathlessly. He’s dressed nicer than normal—his professor clothes. I wonder if he came straight from class. My guess? He ran out in the middle of it.

  Phillip’s tattooed hand tightens around mine.

  “We couldn’t find you,” he whispers, eyes distant. “At first, we thought you left. Maybe went back to the bridge. But then we started to panic. We knew innately something was wrong.”

  “So they called me,” a soft voice adds from the doorway, and all three of us whip our heads in Deluca’s direction. His face is drawn tight, and his arm is in a sling. “Just that morning, I discovered that the video footage from the school the night of Jared’s murder had been erased from Moder’s computer. I began to follow him. At first, he did nothing out of the ordinary. A bunch of paperwork and whatnot. But then, he drove to your old house. I thought maybe he was doing another sweep of the house, so I followed him. He attacked me immediately, but I managed to fend him off. It was then that I heard the gun go off.”

  Nat. He heard the moment Nat got shot.

  He stares at a spot over my shoulder, seemingly unable or refusing to meet my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he says at last, voice taut. His entire body could’ve been hewn from stone with how rigid he’s holding himself. No laughter dances in his eyes, and tension thrums throu
gh him like an electrical wire. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get there in time.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I try to say, but I know it will take time to diminish the shadows in his eyes. The same shadows I know reside in my own.

  “You were right next door,” Phillip rasps out. “Because of me, you could’ve died. Because of Aurora’s obsession with me. Hell, I thought you would die. Because of me.”

  I hold up my hand for silence. “I hear a lot of blaming and self-loathing,” I begin, daring any of them to deny it. They all avert their gazes. “You guys have nothing to blame yourselves for. Nothing. You can’t control the actions of a sick individual. Because of you, I’m here and alive. You guys saved me.”

  I try to meet each of their gazes, try to convey with my eyes how fortunate I am to have known them. They saved me—in more ways than one.

  I know it’ll take awhile before they forgive themselves. I can see doubt lingering in their gazes, but in time, they’ll learn that they have nothing to be sorry for. They can’t control Aurora. Forgiveness may be a bitter pill to swallow, but if I have to shove it down their unwilling throats, I will.

  For now, we’re together and safe. That’s what matters.

  Nat is wheeled into my room by a pretty nurse, and the guys politely excuse themselves.

  “Did you see her?” Nat asks eagerly, indicating the nurse now leaving the room. “She’s hot.”

  Her words make unbidden tears spring to my eyes, and I can’t stop the strangled sob from escaping me. The sob morphs into a heart-wrenching laugh.

  I’ve come so close to losing her. So fucking close. It’s a miracle she’s here with me. A miracle I’ll treasure until the day I die.

  Tears flood Nat’s own eyes as well, and soon, we’re awkwardly hugging—me bending over the bed, pain erupting in my stomach, and Nat still in her wheelchair, one arm in a sling.

  I don’t know how long we stay in an embrace, but I want it to last forever. Nat is comfort and protection. She’s love.

  “You scared me, bitch,” she sniffs, pulling back to survey my face. I imagine it’s bruised and scarred.

  “Right back at you, hoe,” I sob, resisting the urge to bring her into another hug. Fuck, I love this girl. “How did you find me? How did you know?”

  Nat uses her free hand to rub at the tears escaping.

  “Well, I got suspicious,” she admits at last.

  I quirk a brow. “Suspicious?”

  “I never liked that bitch ass girl, but I felt bad she was injured. You know how I sometimes volunteer at the hospital?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Well, I decided to visit her. See for myself what happened. The nurse led me to the room, but when I entered, it was empty. The bitch was gone. When I tried to bring it up to the nurse, the doctor intercepted me. He told me she was in surgery, but my best friend senses were tingling. It was then Phillip called me and told me you were missing. I followed the doctor to your old house and hit him over the head with a vase. I know, a total cliché. I’m actually kind of happy you were kidnapped, no offense, or else I would’ve been in a fuck ton of trouble for assaulting a doctor. And then I followed the scent of bitch to the bedroom and well…” Her hand absently touches her wrapped shoulder. “You know what happened next.”

  Tears slide down my cheeks rapidly as warmth migrates down my spine. Warmth and love for this selfless girl who saved my life.

  “You’re the best friend ever, Nat,” I cry. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Well, you don’t have to ever worry about that.” She tries to laugh, tries to act nonchalant, but she’s crying just as hard as I am. “You're my sister, bitch. Until death do us part. Besides, now we don’t have to worry about crooked cops and asshole doctors and malicious step-daughters. They’re in prison and won’t be out for a very long time.” She swats ineffectually at the tears sliding down her face. Of course, once she catches one tear, a new one instantly comes to take its place. “Now, let’s talk about your future harem, shall we?”

  I speak to Deluca when Byron and Phillip leave to go get coffee and Roman takes a call.

  The expression on his face when I ask him out for coffee is priceless. His mouth opens, closes, and opens again.

  “I do have to warn you,” I begin, watching Roman pace in the hallway outside my hospital room, phone held to his ear. “I have three other boyfriends.”

  And I’ll understand if he says no. I know I don’t love him the way I love the other three, but I also know I can grow to love him just as fiercely.

  But what type of man would want to share his girlfriend with three other men? Why would he want to partake in an unconventional relationship that will evoke rumors and gossip? He’s handsome and successful. He could probably have any woman he wants.

  But I’ll never know unless I ask.

  I don’t know where all this courage and confidence comes from, but...but I like it.

  Deluca folds his lean body in the unoccupied seat beside my bed, hands clasping together on his lap.

  “Did I ever tell you about my college relationship?”

  The abrupt change in subject leaves me reeling. I blink at him wordlessly, and he takes that as confirmation to continue.

  “I fell in love with a girl...who was in a relationship with two other guys. The relationship ended only a few months after it began, but it wasn’t because I was weirded out. Sure, it took some getting used to being around so many dicks and knowing that said dicks were fucking my girlfriend.” He chuckles softly, a hint of his infectious joy once more returning. I yearn to see it in his gaze. To replace the sadness lurking there now.

  “You were in…?”

  “I’m okay with sharing, Mallie, for the right girl. My ex-girlfriend? We had our differences, and I quickly realized that she wasn’t for me.” His eyes ensnare my own, hold me hostage. His beauty captivates me.

  “So you just need to find the right girl?” I whisper, heart thumping, thumping, thumping beneath my rib cage.

  He stands and moves to my bed. His lips brush my bruised cheek, feather soft.

  “As soon as you’re released from the hospital, I’ll take you out for coffee. Real coffee. The coffee of men.” His voice lowers on the last line as he flexes his muscles.

  I scrunch my nose. “Ew. Keep that bitter ass liquid away from me.”

  “Liquid. Of. Men,” he repeats slowly. A laugh bubbles up from my throat. The first laugh I released in a long time.

  And I know that everything’s going to be alright.

  We need time to heal, time to grow, but I have the distinct feeling that we’ll have each other to lean on.

  Being with them, any of them, is freeing. The toxicity once coursing through my veins is rapidly draining.

  I’ll be okay.

  We’ll be okay.

  Together.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  The house is beautiful.

  Large, with a manicured front lawn and a woodsy backyard. The house implements both modern and Victorian-era styles. Twin pillars are erected from the front porch, holding up a spacious balcony. With six bedrooms and five bathrooms, the house is more than enough.

  And it’s ours.

  “It’s perfect,” I whisper breathily, stealing a glance at Roman on one side of me. His smile is glorious, and my breath catches at the sheer perfection of this man.

  Mine.

  He’s mine.

  Just like this house.

  When Jared’s lawyer contacted me about my late husband’s will, I was shocked to realize he had left me everything. Everything. His house, his stock shares, his money. It was all mine.

  I suppose he had to do one good thing in his life.

  We decided quickly to sell the house, though Byron insisted we keep the stock shares. With the money we earned, we began house hunting. We needed a place that could fit all of us and the little one growing inside me.

  The mansion went on sale shortly after we sold my old hou
se, as if the fates themselves had aligned.

  Byron lets out a whoop, racing up the steps of our new home. We’ve already explored the house in full with the realtor, but this feels different. Maybe because it’s ours and ours alone.

  Phillip shoves his hands in his pockets and hangs back, watching Byron with amusement. In the past year, his eyes have come to life. There’s still pain lingering in their depths, still guilt and self-loathing, but it’s not as prevalent. Therapy and love has helped him tremendously.

  I know he blames himself for Aurora’s actions, but I also know that the guilt has dissipated with time. Soon, it will diminish completely.

  My step-daughter is still on trial for murder. She pleaded insanity as her defense, but according to Roman, the jurors aren’t buying it. She’ll face a lifetime in prison for her actions.

  Moder, Griffin, and Reiner (the name of the doctor) have all been sentenced to forty years in prison for helping Aurora cover up Jared’s murder and for kidnapping me. They’ll be spending the rest of their miserable lives in there, and I feel nothing but morbid satisfaction whenever I think about it. Maybe that makes me cruel. Heartless.

  But then I think about how they hurt me, and that guilt is swept away by a tidal wave of anger.

  Gerald, too, has been arrested for human trafficking and smuggling. He’s still on trial, but Roman estimates he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars. It’s sort of anti-climatic, in a way. Everything about his arrest happened so quickly that I still struggle to wrap my head around it.

  Apparently, one of the women came forward as an anonymous witness. Roman can’t tell me who she is, but I have the distinct feeling that it's a certain redhead protecting her daughter.

  Phillip and I have both written testimonies that will be used in court. Hopefully, that will be enough. I don’t think either one of us is capable of testifying.

  I rub my belly where a tiny life is now forming inside of me. The guys had been ecstatic when I shared the news though we all agreed that we wouldn’t do a paternity test. With the nature of our relationship, the guys need to love the child regardless of his or her birth father.