Healed By Love

CHAPTER 52

AUDELIA'S POV

I feel my heart drop to the pit of my stomach as my eyes register the person standing in front of me. I feel my heart pounding against my ribcage, my breath catching in my throat, and I unconsciously let go of Lorenzo's hands, mine falling to my side.

"Smeraldo?" I hear his voice, but my attention remains fixed on the man.

Memories flash in my mind, one after the other, each one worse and more gruesome than the previous one. I feel my hands shaking at my sides, and I fist them to calm myself down.

Nothing makes sense to me anymore. He should have been dead years ago. Yet, he is not. He is in front of me. Breathing and alive. Not dead. A wave of pure rage washes through me.

"Are you okay?" Lorenzo steps in front of me, taking my face in his hands, concern etched on his features.

I move out of his grip, holding on to the thread of hope that it was not true and had been a trick of my mind. That he is not there. It is someone else in his place.

But it is not. He still stands in his position, typing something on his phone, not knowing I stood mere feet away from him. I felt a shiver run down my spine as I realised it was all true.

It was him- the man I had believed was dead for years now. The man who destroyed everything. The man who was responsible for the pain I had been carrying all these years. The man who tore my life apart. Tore me apart.

"Who is he?" Lorenzo asks, lacing our fingers together, providing a sense of comfort.

My gaze moves from the man in front of me and locks with Lorenzo's, my voice trembling as I speak. "My mom's murderer."

I look back at him—Henry—and at the same time, he turns in our direction. Time freezes as our eyes meet, his cold eyes locking onto mine. His face is etched with lines of age, yet unmistakably the same. My mind races and I saw his eyes widen upon seeing me.

He staggered back before spinning and running. My body seemed to work on autopilot as I remove my gun from my waistband and shot him in the legs. He groans and stumbles, falling to the ground while clutching his bloody leg. My hand shakes as I lower it to my side.

I stay rooted to my place as Lorenzo moves when Henry tries getting to his feet. He knocks him at the back of the head with his gun, causing Henry to fall unconscious.

"Are you okay?" Lorenzo asks me when I finally move towards them.

"I don't know." I answer truthfully.

All these years, I have lived thinking that my mother's murderer got what he deserved, that some sort of justice had been served. I have been wrong. He was roaming free, not suffering from any consequence of his actions.

"What do you want to do?" He stands next to me, wrapping an arm comfortingly around my waist and stepping closer to me.

As memories of my mother flooded back along with the justice that eluded her, a resolve hardened in my heart. "I have some questions to ask."

***

My knuckles make contact with his face and the sound of bones cracking resonates in the empty, cold, dark, room. He wakes up with a groan, blood spilling from his nose. While he is still getting used to his surroundings, I punch him again, letting my anger seep into every move.

After knocking him unconscious, we took him to one of our abandoned places. Something told me he was in our main base for a reason, and keeping him there was not the best idea. If he managed to get into the base without any problems, it was certain that he knew someone in our mafia to have helped him. Though two questions replaying in my mind are: