Mafia's Final Play (Mafia's Obsession #3) - Summer Cooper Page 0,44

of trees that clung to the hills and mountains around here. Cedar, pine, and a few other kinds of trees populated the mountain the house was built on. Snow covered them all now, turned them into blobs that could be anything.

Marie wondered how many nights she’d spend like this, unable to sleep but so tired. Even when she made up for her lack of sleep with a nap, she felt tired the next day, like she’d never feel rested ever again. She knew it, she knew it in her bones, even without seeing a doctor - she was doomed.

A snuffle from the bed drew her attention and again she wondered if she should just run away. He didn’t deserve the hell that was coming. He didn’t deserve to sit and watch her wither away. Or spend all of his money trying to make her well again.

She turned back to the window, pain a tight vice around her heart. She didn’t want to leave him. He’d said only a few hours ago that she was his home. But he hadn’t seen the end stages of Parkinson’s disease. He didn’t know the shame of losing control of your own body, of how you became totally, completely dependent on someone to take care of you.

That frightened her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep living if she made it to that point, if it became that bad for her. Her mother had even started to lose the ability to speak towards the end, to swallow. That was no way to live, was it?

For a moment, for a very brief moment, she understood some of her mother’s anger. She’d been helpless and that was one thing Ruby hated above everything. Marie hoped she didn’t turn out like that, but she knew it was unlikely. Her mother had been a terror before she became ill; she’d been mean and cruel before the first signs appeared.

No, she wouldn’t end up being an abusive bitch, but would she become depressed, unresponsive? Would she give up?

They were all questions she’d thought about a thousand times, but each night, when she couldn’t get to sleep, or back to sleep if she’d been asleep, they came back to haunt her. They made her question whether it was fair to stay with Matteo, to let him become even more attached to her.

Maybe she should just go away, disappear, but where would she go? All she had left was the house in Louisiana. Could she go back there? She missed the quiet of the house, the way the night sprang into life with the sounds of insects and animals on the prowl. The noise in New York, that constant noisy hum, was something she’d become accustomed to, but now that she’d thought about it, she thought maybe it was time to go home. Back to where life made sense.

Motion caught her attention and she became still, breath held, as she stared into the space where the light faded into darkness. Was it the bear, back to scratch its back and explore the place where the humans had invaded? She narrowed her eyes to try to focus in on the spot, but it didn’t happen again. It was probably just a raccoon then, she decided, and left the bedroom to make a cup of chamomile tea.

The tea soothed her but it never helped her get back to sleep. It was pleasant though, and she sipped at it while she flicked through a list of stories on different channels on YouTube. She’d found a few people that read out stories in a variety of genres, and she liked to listen to them when she needed to sleep. It was enough to distract her brain and help her get to sleep sometimes.

She’d grown up in a household where most technologies were something she saw on television or outside of the home. She’d had some things from school, but they’d never been hers, it was just stuff for school. After that, there’d been no money to pay for fancy smartphones or computers. Internet would have been another bill she would have had to pay, so she’d done without it.

Now, she was discovering there were things she could do that she could have never dreamed about doing. It was amazing, but right now, she just wanted to sleep. It would be nice to not have to walk around like a zombie, trying to function with zero energy.

She listened to the story as it played until everything