I Can't Own You? (BOOK 1)

35 (NEW)

JAMES

I hear beeping...I see whiteness....and hear faded commotion. I'm in a room, on a bed. I think. A blurry figure moves slowly before me. A person? I don't find an answer because my eyes shut down to darkness again.

I dream of Karen on our wedding night, on a windy beach. Hanging lights cover the area along with pure white tents and a crackling bonfire. My body on hers as we dance to a pretty instrumental. Her baby bump brushing against my stomach.

Karen... in all white, radiant. So beautiful with flowy, curly, blonde hair.

The surroundings change fast. In a high rise office, I gaze out the window, holding a phone to my ear. Karen's voice shouts viciously: "YOU STOP PAYING ATTENTION!!"

Then the scenes changes to a sloppy backside of a fat fucker, to the sound of flopping skin, and the squeaking of a bed. Moans that used to belong to me, a woman who used to belong to me...being ridden like a bull.

"YOU STOP PAYING ATTENTION!!" Karen's voice echoes.

"Wake up, little boy." Don Siciliano's voice jolts me awake. My sight blurs, gradually becoming clear. You motherfucker! I scream in my mind. FOCUS. DON'T LOOK WEAK!!! "Haha, are you losing the war?" His slithering, Italian accent taunts. "Look?"

Something yellow is placed in front of my face. Poison? A weapon? I bend my eye's will to focus, nearly busting a blood vessel on my forehead: where sweat falls. Finally, the asshole is visible, holding a yellow rose before my eyes. Greasy haired fuck! His black, demon gaze surveys me.

"There you go, good boy." Don Siciliano leans over me. "Listen...don't drain your energy; you'll need it. No hard feelings about the hit, am I right? There needed to be...responsibility on your end. The others were not keen on passing over the antidote to your guard with the girly name. I'm not as heartless...so I gave you life again. Of course, this is causing a bit of a feud. Nevertheless, the Dons will compromise. Our business is still in agreement." He places the rose on my chest...and lay my hands atop it, one by one, as if I'm within a casket. "We'll see you soon."

I blackout, leaving the bright hospital room to another dream. Or a vision. Maybe a mixture of the two:

The three Dons applaud as I enter a grand auditorium. It's just the four of us...no guards...which is strange. Why am I here? What's with the clapping? I feel shadows behind me, stretching wide over the floor ahead, I turn to spot gang of men, their faces missing. The men raise guns at me, clicking the triggers...the clapping of the Dons transition to gunshots.

I wake in a cold sweat, heaving loudly.

"Sir, are you alright? "A nurse asks while rolling me through a hospital's hallway. I ignore her. "You're being prepped for Hemodialysis and a blood transfusion." The whiteness from the lights above me blinds my sight. I huff, feeling pale as a sheet of paper. With each movement, I feel my skin crinkling, jerking, going rubbery.

I'm dying...that's why...that's why I'm hallucinating. I'm dying...OH GOD!!

No, no...don't think about it... find a distraction. A distraction!

Another dream renders me unconscious:

"Stressed?" The voice of my mystery woman asks from a junky hallway. A chubby-faced with chocolate eyes and messy black hair, greets me. She wears a graphic, long sleeve, the indentations from the mattress show on the left side of her beautiful face.

I crave that voice. "Only halfway, thanks to you."

The memory glitches...somehow buffering. I end up face to face with the sexy thing. "Tell me your name," I ask the sexy woman.