𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬

《 57 》

The IV on my hand stung and the sound of the monitors pushed me over the edge. I could barely feel my eyebrow and lower lip, and the bruises all over me made it hard to move. Thankfully, I could move around, but some of us weren't that lucky...

Denise and Mateo were inside Nathan's hospital room. One of Leonardo's men had reached him and stabbed him under his vest, and now he was fresh out of a surgery, resting inside that room. Blake and Xavier were supporting each other outside another surgery room, where Xiomara was being treated. She had a concussion and a fractured collabone, plus the two bullets she received were being removed.

My Gabriella was also in surgery fighting for her life. Leonardo had shot her knee, but with all the extra pressure she applied and all the blood she lost, doctors were afraid she'd lose the ability to feel her leg. Then, to finish it off, second degree burns on the right side of her body.

Sitting inside my empty hospital room felt depressing and stressful. If I had been fast enough, maybe she wouldn't have been caught in the middle of the explosion. But it was too late.

My mind kept going back to the moment during and after the explosion. It wasn't planned, but the van exploded a few seconds after it was set on fire.

Aurora died in the act, but Leonardo's reaction was the one that left me to rethink everything. Once he saw what happened and heard his mother's screams right after she died, I saw him fall down to his knees, crying like no man had cried before. That man made me realize he had nothing else to lose except his mother. It led him to the point where he grabbed a piece of glass and slit his throat right there, in front of us.

Before that, when I began to beat him up, the words he told me went unnoticed by me at that moment, but now I just began to process them all.

"I'm the rightful heir. You all abandoned me."

What did he mean by heir... He's not related to any of us as far as I know. Hell, I never freaking knew he existed until the time when Gabriella came with Luciano and Isabella.

Speaking of Isabella, her voice was heard and made me perk up from my seat. The door burst open with her, whose wide and worried eyes were full of tears.

"Where is she?!" She panicked as she hurried over to me and took in my state. "And Xiomara- Nathan?!"

"Nathan's resting, and Xiomara and Gabriella are still in surgery..." I sighed.

"Hey, man," Luciano greeted after he walked in and examined me. "Your mother came along."

My shoulders stiffened when a few seconds later my mother walked in with a sympathetic look on her face.

"Angelo..." She cooed as she sat beside me on the bed and gently caressed my bruised cheek.

"Can you give us a moment?" I asked Isabella and Luciano, who then stepped out of the room at my request.