LILLY

I hear the faint noise of Elijah screaming as he pulls me out of the wrecked car. My eyes take time to adjust and we're hardly a step away when the car blows up. Elijah is quick to shield me with his body but my ears keep ringing. I am bleeding. He's bleeding.

I am tired.

Carter.

♡

CARTER

I'm there as soon as I get the call that the car Elijah took suddenly went offline.
I'm on the verge of tears as the car is on fire and in this fucking crowd, I can't find any of them.

"Carter!" I hear my name and follow the voice to my best friend being strapped to the gurney to be taken away in an ambulance. He's bleeding from his temple and his eyes barely focus. I grab his hand and sigh that he's alive. He's hurt but he's alive. When his hand squeezes mine back, the pit of my stomach goes empty, if he means to tell me that my Lilly is dead, I cannot bear this. I know I will break down. My heart will be stolen from me again.

I can't lose Lilly. I just can't lose my will to live again.

I open my eyes to look back at Elijah, he was wearing an oxygen mask but he points somewhere. I follow the point of his finger and I find her sitting on the edge of the other ambulance, her head resting on the arch. Her left hand was wrapped in gauze, and bandages were on her right brow and her right cheek. I'm on the verge of crying when I pat Elijah on his chest and run to her. Somehow she notices my presence and opens her eyes, breaking into a cry. I'm not even close when she leaps off the ambulance and jumps, wrapping her arms around me, and holding me tight. I bury my face in the crook of her neck as I kept my cries down. She needed me right now.

She needed me to be there for her.

She cries, "I was so scared. I was so scared, Carter. I was so scared." Her form shivered in my arms. I feel her scrunch the collar of my coat in her fists as she holds me tighter and tighter, "I was so scared." I pat the back of her head, "I know. Baby, I know. I'm here, okay? Everything will be okay." I pull back and gently kiss her lips, "I'm here for you. I'm here for you, Lilly. You know that right?" She nods as she sniffs, the point of her nose red from crying as well as her cheeks and ears. She wipes her tears with the back of her hands and I notice her holding a piece of crumpled paper. She knows my gaze goes there and says, "Someone helped me and gave this to me to give to you. I don't know what it means though." I take the paper and straighten it out.

(Be glad she's alive)

My blood boils in my veins. This was no accident. Rossi is after us and he's going after my heart first.

♡

LILLY

He takes me home. Elijah had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days. He got it bad.

I was fine. No internal bleeding, no damage to any organs, my hearing was fine, and my speech was fine. Carter made them run every test in the hospital and all of them came negative. Thank lord.

He carries me upstairs and I say, "You know I can walk, right?" He doesn't answer at all. He's not speaking to me. He's not even responding to my questions or the little comments I make to get him to talk. He's a walking breathing statue with only one expression imprinted on his face. Anger. That's all I saw and that's all I felt. Every time he pecked me on my lips whenever he was relieved that I was okay, they were barely there. Not very comforting at all.

He gently put me on the bed and grunts, "I'll get you a change of clothes." I hook my finger in the loop of his slacks before he could walk away and that gets him to stop. He slowly turns and I tug, "Sit with me."

"Lilly, I don't-"

"Fine, I'll stand up then."

He doesn't let me. He presses his hands on my shoulder and makes me sit while he gets on his knees in front of me. For me.
He doesn't look at me, he doesn't even touch me. He refuses to touch me tenderly and I hated this so much.

I put my injured hand against his cheek and gently swipe my thumb across the faint scar there. His eyes close and it takes everything in him to not take my hand in his or kiss the inside of my wrist like he always does. I put my other hand on his cheek too and hold his face in place, "You know I'm your fiancée, right?" His eyes open and pin on me. I say again, "I'm not just yours, Carter. You're mine as well. It's a two-way street. Respect, love, and honesty are a two-way street. I have the right to know what goes inside your head just as you have the right to know what's inside my heart. Don't shut me out because you're scared for me."

He grabs my wrist to pull my hands away but I hiss at the pain that strikes my injured hand. His body goes on pause for a second when he realizes and he gently puts my hands on my knees and then keeps his gaze locked on the ring on my ring finger. His thorn ring. "How can I share my thoughts with you, Lilly, when my thought is filled with ifs?" Then he looks up at me, "What if Lilly was taken away from me today? What if Lilly hated me for this? What if Lilly stops loving me? What if Lilly wants to leave me? What if I turn into my father if Lilly tries to leave?" His voice breaks, "What if Lilly died?"

He takes a deep breath as if holding back his tears, "These thoughts have been going in my head since I got the call that you and Elijah were in the crash. These thoughts have been giving me anxiety since then. What if I love you too much that I suffocate you? What if I love you too much that people put your life in danger?" He takes out the piece of paper from his pocket, "The car crash, it was not an accident. Someone did this to hurt you. I'm fucking angry, Lilly, but I'm also embarrassed that I can't protect the girl I love. I can't protect you while I'm in the mafia, how do you think I can protect you when we leave? My life will be in constant danger no matter where I look. You will be in constant danger because you would be with me."

Tears well in my eyes, "So you want me to leave? Is that what it is? You're gonna back away from what we have just because of things that didn't happen?" He presses on, "But it did! It did happen. Look at you, bruised and injured because of me. Because of my name. You're hurting." I shake my head, "The bruises don't hurt as much as you're hurting my heart."
He bites his quivering bottom lip and looks down, sniffs, and breathes deeply in and out. Lost in thoughts.

He says, "I have to take over."

"What did you just say?"

His head shoots up with tears running down his cheeks, eyes red with anger and sadness, jaw clench as he says it once again, "I'm gonna take over the mafia to protect you. I'm gonna be the last one to run this mafia and then I'm gonna die." My eyes go wide and I hold his face again, panicking because I know he's stubborn.

He's too damn stubborn.

"Think about this, Carter," I say. More like begging, "Think about this. Your mother never wanted this. You're so close to your freedom and you can't give it up. You just can't. Your mother never wanted this. Your mother died because she wanted you out. Your mother wanted you to be happy. Your mother died protecting you. You can't let that go in vain."

He gently holds my wrists again, pushes them away from his face, and kisses my chin and then the bridge of my nose. I'm shaking with fear at his decision because I freeze when I hear it loud, "My mother is dead. I killed my mother. She died protecting things that had no meaning. Mafia una volta, mafia sempre." I'm shaking endlessly as he translates, "Once a mafia, always a mafia."

He kisses one last time on my bottom lip and then he's walking out without looking back while I cry in fear for his heart and soul.

My Carter's heart and soul.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

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Love, Hope
♥️♥️