It felt odd having control over an entire organization that I didn’t even know how to run. If something were to happen to Bennett, I wouldn’t know the first thing about being the head of a mafia family. But looking at the men that now surrounded me with their guns drawn to protect me, I knew that no matter what, they’d have my back.
I straightened my posture as I clutched my wound a little tighter. “Have the doctor patch Wilson up for now, as I don’t want him bleeding all over the place. I need him to stay alive long enough for him to take a trip down my memory lane.”
Chapter 12
BENNETT
I looked around to see that I was in my bedroom, everything decorated as it was when Stephanie was alive. A fire crackled softly in the fireplace, light humming coming from the closet. My hand went to grab my gun from my waist, but it wasn’t there. I was only dressed in silk pajama pants, but my shoulder was no longer injured.
“What the fuck?” I murmured, walking over to the mirror to look at myself. I could see the small bullet hole in my skin, but I didn’t feel any pain.
“What do you think?” a soft voice asked.
I turned and my heart nearly stopped when I saw Stephanie standing in the doorway of the closet, holding up a dress. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. She was dead and yet here she was, standing before me, waiting on my approval for the dress she held.
“Am I dead?” I asked.
She gave me a soft smile and shook her head. “Not yet,” she said.
“Then what is this place?”
“Limbo,” she said, putting the dress down and walking over to me. I ran a hand through my hair in confusion as I thought of everything that’d happened. I cringed when I remembered that Wilson wasn’t dead. If I was here, that means I’d left Aurora with him.
A wave of guilt hit me square in the chest. Now I knew why this was limbo. I was at a crossroads right now. Every night I prayed for a chance to be with Stephanie, whether in my dreams or in death, and here she was. But on the other side of this thin line was my pregnant wife and a potential future. To stay with Stephanie would be to die and leave the last of my family that I had left. And to live would mean letting go of Stephanie forever.
Stephanie cupped my cheek, her touch cool against my skin. “It’s been so long,” she murmured.
“This doesn’t feel real,” I said, shaking my head. I reached out to touch her arm, my fingers lightly brushing against her cool skin. Her eyes followed my hand as it moved up to touch her face, nuzzling my palm when I touched her.
“It’s real for now,” she said and kissed my palm before taking my hand from her face. She looked down at my attire and smirked at me. “You need to hurry and get dressed. We’re going to be late.”
“Late? Late for what?”
“Our last date,” she said and went back over to the closet and picked up the dress. “So what do you think about this one?”
It was just a simple black dress, but she could make anything look amazing. “It’s perfect,” I finally responded.
She smiled. “Good. Well, I’ll go get ready. You should go do the same.”
I watched her as she disappeared into the bathroom and looked around. This was fucking weird. Even seeing Stephanie now, it didn’t feel as I thought it would. Maybe it was because I was still in shock from everything that’d happened leading up to me being here with her. I didn’t even want to begin considering the second possibility.
“Ready!” Stephanie exclaimed after a few moments. She hadn’t even been gone for more than two minutes and she was all dolled up as she usually was. Her eyes softened as she looked at me, smiling. “And you look handsome as usual.”
I looked down to see that my pajama pants had been replaced with a tailored suit despite the fact that I hadn’t moved from the spot I’d been standing in. The black dress shoes on my feet were so shiny that I could almost see my reflection in them. Stephanie walked over to me and took my hand, leading me out of the bedroom. The house was quiet as we made our way down the stairs, all the furniture in the living room gone. Music began to play out of nowhere as she wrapped her arms around my neck, swaying to the music.
“You should see the look on your face,” she said and giggled.
“What look?”
“Utter confusion.” She stared at me thoughtfully, her hand idly stroking the back of my neck as she used to do. “You’ve always been a confident, sure man. It’s different seeing you so confused.”
I looked down at her blue eyes and stroked her cheek, smirking at her. “Well, you’d be confused to when you end up here and a bunch of weird shit is happening.” I sighed. “You’re dead.”
“I am. But let’s not talk about what we both already know,” she said. “Tell me about your life with her.”
“It’s been a struggle,” I admitted. “I can’t undo what I’ve done to her.”
“But why’d you do it in the first place?” she asked. She didn’t make it sound as if she was accusing me, only waiting for me to speak.
“I thought I needed to in order to distance myself from her,” I stated. “I thought if I hurt her and made me hate her, it would break whatever pull she had on me.”
She giggled and shook her head. “That didn’t work too well, now did it?”
“No,” I murmured. “Now she hates me and will probably leave at the first chance that I give her.”
The thought of her leaving made my chest hurt. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. I knew I wasn’t in love with her, but it was hard to not care about her. I wanted to eventually get to a point where our feelings were real and mutual. She deserved to be free, and I knew that we could never get to a point of having a real relationship unless I gave her a choice to choose where she wanted to be. And giving her a chance to reject me was fucking terrifying.
“I hated you when I first met you,” she reminded me. “Look how beautiful we were able to make our relationship.”
“But I’m not that man anymore,” I murmured. “The man that Aurora knows isn’t the same man that loved you.”
“He’s in there somewhere. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be thinking about getting back to her and your baby,” she said with a small, sad smile.
I exhaled deeply and rested my forehead against hers. “It should’ve been you, you know,” I whispered. She looked up at me with sad eyes, a slight frown on her pouty lips.
“Bennett, you have to let go,” she murmured. “You have to forgive yourself and let go.”
“But it’s so fucking hard.”
“I know. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it is for you, but you have to let me go. I’m gone, but you’re not. Everyone responsible will have paid for their part and you’re gonna need to start living your life. You have a wife and you’re about to become a dad. Look at this as your new beginning where you can do things right.”
“I keep telling you I’m not that man anymore,” I ground out, but my growing annoyance didn’t faze her.
“You don’t have to be the same person you used to be in order to learn to love someone,” she responded. “Aurora isn’t the same person either. I think you both just need to learn each other because you still don’t know much about her.”
“I know enough.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Do you know her favorite color?” she asked. I opened my mouth to answer, but then closed it. I didn’t know her favorite color; she only wore things that she thought I would like, not things she’d choose for herself. “What about her favorite food?”
“She likes…” I trailed, but I didn’t know that either. She’d only eaten what was provided for her. She never requested anything specific and always just went with the flow of the house. “So I guess I don’t know her the way I thought I did.”
“She doesn’t know you either,” Stephanie said. “She only knows what you’ve shown her. She doesn’t know about the man that likes to hold his woman at night when he’s had a long day.”
Memories of that
filtered through my mind. Coming home every night to Stephanie was what’d kept me grounded. I didn’t even have to say a word to her; she’d just wrap her arms around me and stroke my hair until we either had sex or I fell asleep against her.
“She doesn’t know the man who will move heaven and earth to make this woman happy,” Stephanie continued. “Or the man who will be the best father to a very lucky child because you love children.”
“How can I be the best father when I don’t have a clue how to be?” I asked, my insecurities coming back to the surface.
Stephanie smiled. “Because you’ll love and protect that child with every part of you. Underneath all of the bad that you like to cover yourself with, there’s still a really good guy in there that wants what we used to have again. You just have to stop convincing yourself that you don’t deserve it.”
When I’d first started with the mafia, I used to always ask my dad how one could find love when it was hard to find a woman that was accepting of this life. He hadn’t dated or remarried after my mom was murdered, which made me wonder if I was destined to be alone like he was.
“Bad guys don’t get happy endings,” was the only thing he’d said in response to that. But when I got with Stephanie, she proved that to be wrong. Everything had been perfect for a couple of years and then I got a taste of what my father had been saying for years. After doing so much bad shit, Stephanie was finally taken away from me, solidifying that bad guys didn’t get happy endings.
As if reading my mind, Stephanie smoothed her hands down the front of my suit jacket. “You’re not a bad guy, Bennett,” she murmured. “You’re just a guy who has done bad things.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
She shook her head. “You still have a conscience. That’s why you’re trying to be better for her. It’s why you protect her the way that you do.” She met my gaze. “It’s why you made her your queen.”
“I don’t know what to do when it comes to her,” I said with a sigh. “It doesn’t help that I’ve fucked up with her again.”
“Start with forgiving yourself for what you’ve done and then give her the choice to stay or leave. If she chooses to stay, then you love her with everything in you until she has no choice but to see and understand that you’re being genuine.”
“But what if she decides not to stay?” I murmured, the thought hard to think about.
Stephanie gave me a small smile. “Then let her go,” she said. “There’s always that possibility that she’ll come back.”
“If she leaves, I’ll never see her or my kid again,” I ground out.
“And if it’s meant to be, you will.” She took my hands into hers. “That’s enough talking about it for now. You need to go live your life now and try to do the right thing.”
“So, this is it, huh?” I forced myself to commit every detail to memory as I looked at her. Her beautiful blue eyes, wavy blonde hair, her gorgeous smile that lit up her face, and her pouty lips that I used to kiss every chance I got. I knew when I woke up from whatever this was, I’d have to let her go in order to allow myself to love Aurora the way I’d need to if I wanted to be serious with her.
“I think it is, but it’s okay,” she said and smiled. “You’re getting a second chance, love. Don’t mess it up by being stuck in your own head.”
“I won’t,” I said and took her into my arms, hugging her tight. “I love you, Steph. Always.”
“I love you, too, Bennett. Please take care of yourself. And take care of my sister,” she whispered and then she was gone. The music stopped playing and my surroundings slowly began to disappear until everything was black.
“Any update on when he could possibly be awake?” a soft voice asked. I could feel her squeeze my hand as I became more aware of my surroundings. I could hear the beeps of machines and smell the sterile scent of a hospital. The bright fluorescent lights in the room hurt my eyes even though they were still closed, but I didn’t move.
“It should still be any day now,” another voice—probably the doctor—said.
“You said that last week,” Aurora countered.
Last week? Fuck. How long had I been out?”
“Mrs. Moreno, your husband suffered a pretty serious gunshot wound. The bullet nicked a major artery and caused him to lose a lot of blood. He needs as much rest as he can get, as he can wake up pretty weak as his body acclimates—”
“I don’t need you to explain to me what’s wrong with him. I know that much,” she snapped.
“Why are you talking about me as if I’m not here?” I mumbled.
“Bennett?” Aurora said. Her voice was laced with surprise and concern.
“Turn that light off,” I stated, squeezing my eyes shut tighter. Aurora started to pull away, but I squeezed her hand tighter. “Not you. Whoever else is in here.”
After a few moments, it became dark behind my eyelids again. I slowly opened my eyes, Aurora being the first face I saw. She gave me a small smile and squeezed my hand.
“Welcome back,” she murmured. She wore a sweater and a pair of jeans and she wore a shorter, dark-haired wig. She looked more like the woman she was when I first got her.
“Always nice to wake up to a gorgeous face,” I said and returned her smile. Bruce appeared next to her and grinned.
“Here’s my gorgeous face telling you to hurry up and get out of that bed and come back to work,” he said, chuckling when Aurora playfully elbowed him in the stomach. “Good to see you’re awake.”
“How long was I out?” I asked and attempted to sit up, wincing when a sharp pain traveled across my right shoulder and collar bone. Aurora placed a gentle hand on my chest to stop me and pressed a button on the bed to sit me up.
“Almost three weeks,” Bruce answered.
“Bullshit,” I said and looked to Aurora and then the doctor. “Why the hell would I be asleep from a gunshot wound?”
“You lost a good amount of blood and needed surgery to remove the bullet,” the doctor explained. “Your wife thought it would be best to put you in a medically-induced coma to help you heal and manage your pain.”
“Because I figured you’d want to leave as soon as the surgery was over,” Aurora said before I could even respond. I grinned. I may not have known much about her, but she definitely knew a good bit about me and how I was.
“If you needed a vacation, you didn’t have to get yourself shot,” Bruce teased.
I chuckled. “Fuck you, you asshole,” I said and turned my attention to Aurora. “How’s your arm?”
“It’s fine. Still hurts a bit, but it’s fine. You’re the one with the major injury. How are you feeling?”
“As good as I can be. I’m ready to get the hell out of here,” I said and looked over to the doctor, who hadn’t said a word yet. “Is there any specific reason why I need to stay here or can I continue recovering at home?”
“We’d like to keep you here a little while longer to make sure you can move steadily on your feet and—”
“If I can do that now, can I get out of here?” I interrupted. The doctor looked at Bruce and Aurora. Aurora squeezed my hand and grinned at me.
“People don’t usually just wake up from a nearly three-week coma and walk right out of the hospital, Bennett,” Aurora said. “Besides, now that you’re awake, they’ll probably need to do some more scans on your shoulder to make sure things are still good. Can you stay still long enough to let them do their job?”
I exhaled deeply and settled back in the bed. “Fine,” I said.
“Well, now that this prick is awake, I’m going downstairs to get some coffee,” Bruce said and looked to Aurora. “Do you need anything? Your usual?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said. He nodded and walked out of the room.
“I’ll give you two a moment. A nurse will be in here soon to draw your blood, Mr. Moreno,”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Aurora said. When he left us alone, she turned to me. “Are you in pain or anything?”
<
br /> Though my shoulder throbbed like crazy, I shook my head. “Not too much,” I said. “Everything okay with you? The baby?”
“We’re fine,” she said with a soft smile.
“Been eating okay?”
She playfully rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve been eating, Bennett. Your men picked up with your nagging as soon as you were brought here,” she said.
“How’s Saint?” I asked. I could still remember all the blood on the floor. He’d lost consciousness moments before the doctor and right before Wilson called. The only thing he kept saying was to tell Giselle he loved her and it broke my heart. If he didn’t make it, I had no idea how to break that kind of news to a three-year-old who’d already lost her mother. Saint was all she had.
“He also had to have surgery. He’s stable, but still in bad shape.”
“Does Giselle know?”
“I only told her that Daddy got hurt and he has to stay with the doctor to get better. Since the other kids have gone home, she’s in the house with me. You may have to fight her for your spot back in our bed.”
“I guess I better get used to it. I’m sure our own baby is going to take over our bed soon,” I said with a chuckle.
She giggled and nodded, looking out toward the door. “I wonder what’s taking Bruce so long,” she mumbled, mostly to herself.
“I thought caffeine was bad for the baby?” I asked with a frown.
“Caffeine? I didn’t ask for coffee.”
“You said you wanted your usual when he asked what you wanted.”
“Oh yeah.” She grinned and patted her belly. “This little guy has specific tastes these days. I’ve literally been living off of pepperoni pizza and lemonade.”
My heart tightened in my chest. A son. A small boy that I’d have to teach to be a man. A small boy that I’d have to be a good, strong example for. A small boy that would turn into a strong man that’ll carry on the Moreno bloodline long after I was gone.
“Wow,” I finally said. “When did you find out?”
Confusion crossed her face briefly before she shook her head. “Sorry, I probably should’ve worded that better. I don’t know the gender just yet. I’d wanted to wait until you were home before I had that ultrasound,” she said.
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