Chapter 98: The Things He Left Behind
Nico
"Are you absolutely certain we shouldn’t call the resort’s medical staff for assistance?" Alaric asked for the umpteenth time, his voice tight with an anxiety that seemed to vibrate through the narrow hallway as we stepped into my private suite.
I didn’t bother giving him a verbal reply, merely shaking my head in a silent, dismissive refusal as I closed the heavy door behind us and locked it.
I didn’t care about the steady throb in my bleeding wrists or the warmth of the blood beginning to smear against my skin.
The physical pain was entirely irrelevant. The only thought clawing its way through the chaotic fog in my mind was knowing that he was safe, right here in this room with me, and he had promised not to leave.
I trusted him. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I actually allowed myself to believe his words.
"So, since we’re apparently hiding out in your room now, the least you can do is tell me where the first-aid kit is," he demanded, stepping further into the space and looking around with a tense, critical eye.
The suite was vast, a luxury VIP pavilion hidden away from the rest of the resort, featuring dark hardwood floors, heavy minimalist furniture, and expansive glass walls that overlooked the crashing, midnight surf of the Japanese coast.
I didn’t answer his question. Instead, I reached out, wrapped my fingers firmly around his wrist, and pulled him toward the master bathroom.
"Where the hell are you taking me, Nico? Let go of—" His words cut off with a sharp intake of air as I forcefully pushed the heavy frosted glass door open, dragging him into the brightly lit, marble-lined bathroom.
"We need to wash the lacerations first before we apply any dressing," I said, my voice eerily calm as I finally released his hand.
I turned toward the wide porcelain sink, twisting the chrome handles until a steady, cold stream of water rushed from the faucet.
Without a hint of hesitation, I placed my bleeding wrists directly beneath the running water. I didn’t so much as blink as the icy pressure hit the open flesh, watching with a detached sort of fascination as the deep crimson mixed with the water, swirling into pale pink ribbons before draining away.
Beside me, Alaric was practically vibrating with a tremor that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "Are you completely numb to pain?" he whispered, his eyes wide as he stared at my hands. "You didn’t even wince."
A dark chuckle broke from my throat, and I offered him a half-shrug, keeping my eyes fixed on our reflection in the wide mirror above the sink.
"This doesn’t hurt me," I murmured.
It was a delicate balance of a lie and the absolute truth. The physical sting was there, sharp and biting, but I truly didn’t care about a deep slash across my skin.
This was far from the first time I had drawn blood from my own body. Over the years, whenever the suffocating pressure of my family became too much to bear, I had sliced into my own flesh as a silent, desperate act of rebellion, later covering the jagged scars with the intricate black ink of my tattoos.
"You’re smiling," Alaric pointed out through the mirror, his brow furrowing into a deep, highly suspicious frown as he watched the dark amusement on my face.
"Shouldn’t I be?" I asked softly.
He hit me with another piercing, questioning look through the glass, a gaze so intense it sent a violent shiver straight down to the marrow of my bones.
The profound psychological effect he had on me was terrifying, a crazy, suffocating pull that I couldn’t regulate.
Even now, with the metallic scent of blood heavy in the air, my mind kept violently looping back to the terrifying image of him walking straight into that deadly undercurrent, almost disappearing beneath the black horizon of the ocean if I hadn’t arrived at that exact second.
"My father died in the ocean," I began abruptly, the confession tearing out of me before I could consciously think to suppress it. It was the sole reason I had lost my mind on the beach, the reason I had screamed at him with such unhinged desperation.
"Everyone in the family claimed it was a tragic accident—that he simply went out too far and drowned because the rescue teams were too late to find him. But I know the complete, ugly truth. He walked straight into that dark surf with the sole intention of ending his life."
A deep, bitter frown pulled at my features, and my heart began to pound violently against my ribs, an erratic, suffocating rhythm as more words forced their way past my teeth.
These were truths I hadn’t uttered aloud to a single living soul in a long, agonizing time, yet in front of Alaric, the floodgates were breaking.
I turned away from the mirror to face him fully. The water was still rushing loudly from the tap, the cold temperature finally slowing the bleeding from my wrists, and even though the constant friction was stinging the exposed nerves of my flesh, I didn’t care. I just needed him to understand what was tearing me apart inside.
"My father used to be an incredibly carefree, vibrant man," I said, my voice cracking slightly as a lone, hot tear slipped from my eye and trailed down my face, burning against the cold skin. "But almost overnight, that man completely vanished, replaced by a ghost."
The memory hit me with the force of a physical blow, dragging me back to the exact night everything shattered. I had been hiding in the shadows of the family villa, watching him engage in a vicious, explosive argument with my grandfather and my uncle regarding the horrific things my uncle had been doing to me behind closed doors.
I still didn’t know how my father had uncovered the truth, but when he furiously confronted my grandfather, demanding justice, the old man’s callous response had utterly destroyed his resolve.
"We have to protect the image of this family above all else," my grandfather had cold-bloodedly stated, just minutes before my father walked out into the dark and drowned.
That timing wasn’t a coincidence.
My coward of a father had chosen to submerge himself in the ocean because he couldn’t bear the crushing weight of reality any longer. He abandoned me. He left me completely alone to the wolves after we had explicitly promised each other that we would always have each other’s backs, no matter what happened.
And the most infuriating part of his Reckless was that his death didn’t change a single goddamn thing in that house.
My uncle continued and my grandfather turned a blind eye.
