Page 67 of Toxic Love

“Jesus, Tempest…”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she blurts, looking away. “Look, it’s nothing, just forget?—”

She jumps as my hand on her jaw pulls her face and her gaze back to me. “Tell me.”

“Dante, forget?—”

“No,” I growl. “Tell me.”

Her gaze drops, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

“Short answer, it’s this liver thing, and usually only babies get it, but…” A shadowed, wry look crosses her face. “Well, lucky me.”

Fuck.

I’m not expecting or prepared for the wave of emotions that hits me. Anger, for one. I want to tell myself it’s anger at her for not disclosing this before. But it’s not. It’s that I’m angry at the unfairness of someone as young as her having something like this.

“My body doesn’t effectively break down fats and proteins, which creates a buildup of something called methylmalonic acid in my blood.” She raises her eyes to me, a dry smile on her twisting lips. “So, I’mliterallytoxic. My blood is, at least.”

I don’t immediately say anything because how the hell do I respond to that.

“No one knows about this,” Tempest blurts into the silence. “I meanno one. And I want to keep it that way.”

“Your brothers, though?—”

She shakes her head. “Not even them.”

I bring my hand back up to cup her jaw again, and raise her gaze to mine.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I actually have no idea…” She looks away. “I guess you caught me asharing mood,” she mutters sarcastically.

My head slowly shakes side to side, still not quite comprehending.

“You’re…”

“Dying, Dante,” Tempest says quietly. “Ceasing to live.”

“How soon?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Tempest…”

“To be determined. But…six months, maybe?”

What the fuck.

The pain in my chest is sharper than the blade she tried to stab me with earlier. It also cuts much deeper. I’m trying to wrap my head around that.

I mean this is Tempest fuckingBlack—aka the pain in my fucking ass who weaseled her way into a blood marker marriage to me. She’s not myactualwife. She’s not my girlfriend.

We don’t even fuckinglikeeach other.

So why the hell does learning all this make me want to destroy something?

I slowly shake my head. “Tempest…”

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