Rosie's Thorns 🥀|18+|🥀

13 | Hope

《¤Rosie¤》

There were only a few familiar faces in the crowd of my new crew. Chuck and Gabriel stood towards the back, the first with a bottle of Corona raised to his lips. And that girl, I believe her name is Hana, sat on a stool towards the front and propped her elbows back on the bar behind her. Occasionally, her grey eyes would flutter towards me, maybe out of curiosity or possibly out of annoyance. I couldn't really tell with her.

I stood before the small gathering in the lounge of La Vipora in the shadow of Rivera. As much as I hated to admit it, but standing before the very men and women who had orders to kill me if I fucked up with Luca, rattled my nerves. I shifted my weight uncomfortably while I braced myself for the venom I was about to recieve. I could see it in their eyes, on their faces that I wasn't what they wanted. I wasn't the leadership they were hoping for. I could tell by the quick glances towards Rivera. In those quick glances was hope. Hope that he'd be the man to run the Costa Mafia.

A hope I was about to crush.

Cautiously, I glance sideways towards Rivera as something fell like a rock in the pit of my stomach. He didn't know.

The car ride here was silent, charged with his utter hatred towards me and my own embarrassment. We sat a foot apart, yet I could still feel the waves of betrayal and silent heartache pulsing off of him.

He didn't betray me, but yet he did.

He could have come to me and asked what really happened that night. Whether I would have told him, I didn't know. The fact he believed my fathers manipulative words and ghosted me when I needed him the most, somehow it hurt more. If he'd have come to me, I could have sought comfort.

A part of me had died that night. It was the carefree, hopeful, and optimistic part of me that took the brunt of it. If I could go back and change the outcome of that night, I would. But I can't. I never can. No matter how much I try to cleanse my mind, my soul, and my body of the events that took place that night, it would never work. Perhaps, for the smallest and briefest moment I can forget and push it away in the far dark corner of my mind, it never lasts long before the memories of that night threaten to suffocate me.

Was it my fault?

Maybe.

Could I have done more?

I don't know. There were moments when I believed if I'd done something different perhaps I would have escaped him. Maybe, just maybe, I could have changed the outcome of that night and Rivera- Dominic and I would be together.

A shiver of disgust, both at the masked man in question and at myself, trails down my spine like a decomposed finger beckoning me into the darkness. I swallow back the acid rising into my throat and flicker my gaze back up to Dominic as he calls the meeting to attention. What would he do if he knew what really happened that night? Does he even still care? Would he care?

He used to care, but I doubt he still does. After that night I was nothing to him but an easy slut. A slut who spread my legs for another man.

Would he care if he knew I didn't want it to happen? What would he say if he knew I was out of my mind that night doped up on drugs I never meant to take? Would he change his mind? Would he embrace me like I hoped he would have when I attempted to call him that night, only to find out he had blocked my number? Would he care that when I woke up in the middle of it, I was screaming his name?

Tears sting the back of my eyes, but I blink them back rapidly as I swallow the lump building in my throat. Hysteria and panic, the same I had felt that night five years ago, threatens to bubble out of my chest and collapse my lungs.