Chapter 137: Chapter 137
Amara watched Dominic eat silently.
He didn’t eat much, but he ate something. That was all that mattered. Death already seemed to be practicing its grip on him. Today, the spoon moved. Amara, sitting across from him, caught herself exhaling like it was her victory.
She was still holding Celeste’s hand, but she made sure she monitored him to eat. He took every bite like it was torture but she didn’t mind. As long as he ate.
"When was the last time you slept, or took a nap?" Her voice cut through the sterile air. She sounded steady but sharp, and her right brow lifted, already accusing him again.
Dominic didn’t answer. He pushed the tray aside with deliberate slowness, wiped his mouth with the table towel reserved for him, took a glass of water, and then, almost lazily, eyed her.
Amara refused to blink.
"I asked you a question," she said, straighter now, her shoulders pulled back, and her spine rigid like a soldier standing before a disobedient recruit. "I might not be Celeste, but you have to answer me when I ask."
Dominic blinked once, and in that blink she thought she saw a flinch. But when his eyes reopened, they were the same dead pools. He stared at her for a second.
There was no flicker of recognition, no anger, nor submission when he did. Just that haunting nothingness. And then, as if to remind her of the only thing that tethered him to breath was the woman on the bed, his gaze slid back to Celeste.
Amara’s frown deepened. "When last did you go to bed, Dominic?"
Her question received no reply. There was no sound from him, but just the beeping machine keeping Celeste’s heart from vanishing into the dark made sounds.
Her chest tightened. The air felt thick with anger and sorrow. "When last did you go to bed, Dominic?" She half-yelled this time, her voice breaking through the sterile calm of the room.
It startled even her. She stood now.
"Like I said, if you won’t be of any help this period, and would rather watch yourself disappear instead of staying strong for her, then get out of this room." She landed each words with no space for negotiations.
She let go of Celeste’s hand, stood at her full height and eyed him, her arms locked at her sides. "I won’t want you collapsing on her when she’s done fighting this battle."
His jaw clenched. His throat worked as if words threatened to form, but he swallowed them. Finally, his voice came, rough and low.
"No one gives me orders—"
"Shut up, and close your fucking eyes," Amara harshly cut him off.
Her tone, and the trembling barely contained anger in it shocked even herself, but she didn’t waver.
She cracked her knuckles, and went on. "If no one gives you orders, then that’s because you haven’t met me."
Dominic blinked, visibly taken aback. His face twitched, not with anger, but with bewilderment. He couldn’t process being spoken to this way.
Amara sniffed hard. Her chest heaved as if she were holding herself together with strands of fire, and her love for Celeste. She badly wanted to slap him back to his senses. She wanted to kill him, even. If she could, hed be the one on that bed, and not her little girl.
Amara caught her forehead in her palm, anf pressed it as if the pounding inside would split her skull. Then, she dragged her hand down her face.
Her eyes returned to him, blazing.
"You caused this," she spat. "You did."
His eyes, those dull graves, flickered. Just faintly, though, but it was enough to betray him.
Dominic swallowed, ready to accept all she had to say. He needed this. He needed some hate. He needed someone to rub how this was all his fault on his face.
"You and all your shady dealings." Her voice trembled with fury. "I still don’t know the length of how deep you go in whatever caused a gunfire, but I swear to God—" she jabbed a finger toward him, her body shaking now with the force of it. "I swear, Dominic, that with each order from me you defy, the more are my chances of making sure the day Celeste wakes up would be the last day you see her."
Her voice cracked, but she caught herself, straightened her shoulders, and pressed forward.
"Don’t test me, Dominic Cross. I’ve always supported you for her, but not if you’d endanger her life this way."
Silence filled the ward after her words. Dominic didn’t react to her words, but his eyes did.
The silence after her words was suffocating. Even the machines seemed to make their sounds quieter.
Dominic’s head turned slowly, painfully slowly, back to Celeste. His eyes dragged across her face as though afraid she might vanish if he looked too fast.
The tiredness in his frame was unbearable now. He wasn’t just sitting anymore. He was collapsing in slow motion, and his body refused to obey the laws of life.
Amara stood rooted, her pulse racing in her throat. She couldn’t just sit back, and act nonchalant towards him. Even if she was beginning to hate him with every second she saw Celeste fighting for her life.
She hadn’t planned those words. They had burst out of her, and ripped raw from her grief, from her guilt, and from her helplessness. However, she meant every single one of them.
She watched Dominic, waiting for a reaction. Waiting for him to stand up, and do something. She wondered what he would do, or what he planned to do.
Would he fight? Would he scream? Would he break?
However, Dominic only sat there, silent, eyes hollow, and his breath shallow like it didn’t want to disturb the air Celeste breathed.
His shoulders sagged, his chin dipped slightly, and for the first time since the accident, Dominic Cross looked breakable before another human. He sat hollowed out like a shell of himself.
His lips parted.
"I’ll sleep."
The words were so soft Amara almost didn’t believe they were real. Her brows knitted as if waiting for him to take them back, but he didn’t. His gaze stayed fixed on Celeste, but his voice trembled with surrender.
"I’ll sleep," he repeated, louder this time.
It wasn’t obedience. It was more of an exhausted acceptance, born from the fact that for once in his life, he couldn’t fight this battle with blood or bullets.
Amara swallowed hard. She didn’t thank him. Her silence was her truest reply.
Dominic dragged a hand across his face, and then stood up and moved forward. He pressed his lips gently against Celeste’s fingers.
His lips lingered there, as if the touch could anchor him, before whispering against her skin. "I’ll sleep, love. Don’t punish me for closing my eyes."
He rose to his feet slowly, every motion weighed down, and looked toward the door. "Rodger." His voice carried low but command.
The door creaked open, and Rodger stepped in immediately, as though he’d been standing outside the entire time, listening, and waiting. His eyes flicked from Dominic to Amara, reading the storm still crackling in the air.
"Boss?"
Dominic didn’t look at him at first. He let his hand trail over Celeste’s hair, smoothing it back from her pale forehead. Then, finally, his eyes lifted, heavy but resolute.
"Call in the doctors."
Rodger’s brow furrowed. "Doctors? She’s already—"
"Not here." Dominic’s voice sharpened, enough to slice away Rodger’s hesitation. "My room."
It was only then that Amara understood what he meant. He was serious about getting rest, to the point of moving them to his private suite.
It wasn’t like Celeste ward was bad. It was perfectly okay for a patient.
Well, Celeste was not just his patient. She was his world, and she would not lie in a place where strangers could touch her, or had once used.
He had been so swallowed in grief that he forgot all about it.
Rodger straightened instantly. "I’ll see to it."
Dominic gave a faint nod, his hand still resting protectively on Celeste’s arm. His voice lowered, almost a growl. "Tell them to prepare it now. I don’t want a single delay. She moves in tonight."
"Yes, boss." Rodger left the room briskly, already pulling out his phone.
The silence that followed was heavy again, but different now. The silence was thick with decisions.
Amara watched him. She watched the way his frame swayed with exhaustion even as he stood tall.
Dominic turned back to Amara, his expression unreadable, but his voice softer than she had ever heard it towards her. "She doesn’t stay in the open."
He lowered himself into the chair again, and his eyes fluttered. His body leaned against the armrest like sleep was already tugging at him.