Deal • REWRITE • BOOK 1

11; Fill Me In

"That's not what you thought when you told everyone you wanted my díck yesterday,"

L U C I E N

"The wounds ruptured and caused the internal bleeding in his chest."

I kept my mouth shut, staring at the fresh white bandage that was across my father's chest. It emphasised the grey ill-like colour washing over his body, his arms by his sides and lifeless as the beat of his heart echoed from the monitor next to him.

"Is he stable now? Should we worry about anything else?" I heard Alex ask from behind me as I kept my focus on my father. The normal inflation of his chest was lacking, the result only coming from the fact that the wounds inside his lungs had split wide open due to the overload of work his body was taking on.

I could hear the doctor explain to Alex that he was stable but we needed to be weary and consider options, the very last thing he said making me scoff under my breath as I chuckled humourlessly and shook my head.

"Lucien, don't," Alex warned me when I turned around, ready to knock the doctor's teeth down his throat when he passed over a few pamphlets that were taken into my hand and then thrown behind me.

"Nobody is pulling the plug," I said firmly, looking at Alex when I said my words which made him run his hands through his hair before I heard him apologise for my actions to the doctor whilst I walked out the room. "Cazzo," I muttered under my breath, shutting the door behind me as I looked at my watch and read the time that was twenty past midnight.

Tonight had been eventful, in both the best and worst way.

I could still feel the heaviness in my muscles from the stop start teasing I'd put my body through with Aria, my limbs feeling like they were magnetised to the ground as I kept walking before I sat in the chairs across from the room door.

I shut my eyes and breathed out a heavy breath, my hands scrubbing over my face as I undid a few buttons of my shirt and leaned back with my shoes scuffing the linoleum floors.

I could feel the sense of deja-vu hit me when I went to pull out my packet of cigarettes before I came up empty, my fingers flexing out until I was gripping my knees and leaning forwards.

It was only Alex and I at the hospital since we'd been called three hours ago whilst we were still at the Moretti estate, the both of us having been informed that my father was in emergency surgery and we needed to be here as soon as possible.

Alex was the one to have told me when he'd walked into the bathroom where Aria and I were, her own shocking words having no explanation to them yet when I'd had Jinx take her home straight away whilst Alex and I drove to the hospital.

The entire night had my head in overdrive, my temples starting to throb with the promise of a headache just as I watched Alex nod at something the doctor had said before they both exited the room.

My foot was tapping impatiently by then, my fidgetiness not going unnoticed when Alex rolled his eyes at me and then reached into his inside pocket to retrieve something. Within seconds a foiled blister pack of gum was thrown at me, my swallow hurting my throat as I popped two into my mouth and then chewed at the nicotine gum that was (so far) doing nothing for my cigarette addiction.

The craving was constantly knocking in the back of my mind as soon as any stress entered my mind, and lately, that seemed to be more than often.

"We need to start thinking about-"

"Do not finish that fücking sentence Alex, or I swear to God I will rip you limb from limb," I snapped, my eyes narrowed into a glare at him before he stuffed the pamphlets I'd thrown to the floor into his pocket whilst I kept chewing.