Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 202

Delilah:

I sat alone in the Infirmary, the silence of it making my heart ache with each passing moment. I ran my finger over the bandage, grazing it, ignoring the pain that I felt. It was a distraction from what I wanted to think about, from that girl who sobbed from her in my arms. The gentle gaze that I looked at her with.

It was enough to remind me of that day. That moment. The blood. The silence. And the absence.

A soft shiver rippled down my spine.

The room around me began to blur as a memory took its place, one I had fought so long to bury. One that I did my best not to think about, to pretend that never existed.

Flashback:

I was eighteen. Barely old enough to understand the weight of life, let alone its loss.

I was barely old enough to understand what I carried over my shoulders. All I wanted was the revenge that I was growing up to live for. That he raised me to now.

The room had been cold, sterile, with the sour smell of disinfectant clinging to the air like a punishment. I’d woken up groggy, confused, my hand instinctively reaching for the swell that was no longer there.

I looked down on my stomach for a moment before taking a breath as I stared in front of me.

My baby was gone.

Only blood. Only pain. Only emptiness.

And then… Giovanni.

He’d stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable. No fatherly warmth. No condolences. Just a nod, like a deal had been settled. A consequence had been accepted.

“You’ll be fine. Just like those before you, you’re going to be fine.” he’d said coolly, like I’d merely scraped a knee. “You’ll learn.”

But I never did.

I never understood why I needed to endure all of that. Why did everyone seem to hate me? Why did everything turn against me?

Because the next visit came with a cold diagnosis; I couldn’t have children. The loss had done more than take a life. It had taken the possibility of life. Permanently.

The doctor hadn’t said it with remorse. He had said it like it was a simple fact. Like it didn’t rip something out of me that could never be put back.

Giovanni just kept his eyes on him, raising an eyebrow, his arms crossed over his chest before he shook his head. “At least now you know that you’ll never have a weakness.”

He walked out without allowing me to say a word.

I hadn’t cried then.

I didn’t utter a sound then.

But I cried now.

I allowed myself to give in to my pain now.

“Everyone has something that breaks them,” he said quietly. “Doesn’t mean you’re weak. I know that you might not trust us, and I understand that you might find it in yourself to want to fight back. Sometimes you need to allow yourself to understand that you are human too. At least there is a side of you that is. It’s a good thing, by the way, not a bad one.”

“I’m not weak,” I snapped, more to myself than to him. “And I do not need lecturing from you.’ “}

“I know,” he replied, unshaken. “I’m just saying that you’re not a bad person. After all, a person who can feel who has remorse to a few things is not a bad person. Not completely.”

I blinked at him, unsure if I should laugh or scream.

He stood and reached for the tray near the table. “Soup. Bread. You don’t have to eat all of it. Just try. You are going to need to allow yourself to strengthen and if you’re going to keep this up, then you’re just going to end up falling apart. And I doubt that you came here to fall apart.”

I didn’t move.

He sighed, set the tray down gently by the bed, and turned to leave.

“Ethan,” I said before I could stop myself.

He paused.

“…Thank you.”

His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded once, not turning around. But it was his next sentence that made my shoulders loosen as a small smile formed on my lips. “Don’t make me come back and find the soup cold. Maybe then I’ll free myself completely and just dedicate myself to annoying you.”