A L E X A N D R A

It wasn't unusual for Andrea to call me; however, it was odd that she was the one calling me first, considering that she hadn't entirely warmed up to me yet and only interacted with me if I instigated it. I understood her reservations, so I hadn't let her quiet, shy nature deter me from striking a reluctant friendship with her. Before answering the phone, I allowed my gaze to slide over to Creed, who was sitting on my couch, a pencil in his hand, his tie loosened, and his sleeves folded up to his forearms as he read over the spreadsheets and my proposal for our new project.

I ran my tongue over my suddenly too dry lips and brought the phone to my ear. However, no amount of physical and mental training could have prepared me for that call.

Andrea sniffled on the other end, and I stiffened, my fingers tightening around my phone,

"Andrea, honey, what's up?"
"Alex," She hiccuped, "I... shot... him," she managed through sobs, and I could feel my heart beating against my chest.

"Shot who?" Before I could finish my sentence, Andrea's scream shook me, and her whimpers followed soon after. "Andrea, what's going on?"

"Let me go, Carlo!" I didn't think Andrea was talking to me anymore, and I stood up, the phone still attached to my ear as I rushed towards the elevator to go to Renzo's penthouse. "I'm not leaving him!"

Before I could step a foot inside the elevator, an arm grabbed mine and turned me around just as I came face to face with Creed. His eyes that I'd always compared to the sea and pebbles narrowed on me as he pinned me with his gaze.
"You can't go up."

For someone who'd been Renzo's lawyer before he was elected CEO, Creed knew a lot about our less-than-legal businesses. However, right now, I wasn't in the mood to listen to anyone, so I twisted my arm and got out of his grip,

"You can't tell me what to do." Creed narrowed his eyes before sighing and stepping into the elevator behind me.

"Then I'm coming with you."

He took out his phone and started typing on it furiously, and it didn't take a genius to know he was calling for backup. Before I could type in the code for Lorenzo's floor, he captured my wrist in his callused hand, and a shiver ran through my spine. I closed my eyes and exhaled, reminding myself that while every man would kill to fuck me, the one man I really wanted didn't want me. And it was no wonder that man was none other than Creed Vaughn. So I channeled my frustration at him,

"What now?"

"Did you at least pick up your gun?" My eyes widened as his jaw hardened, and he reached behind him and took his pistol out of his waistband, handing it to me,

"Here, take it."

"And what will you do?"

"You're a better shot than I am, so it's best if one of us has a gun; it's you." If it hadn't been for the gravity of the situation, I would've smiled, but I nodded and wrapped my fingers around his gun, my fingernails brushing his palm in the process.

I straightened and jammed the code after that, my mind running wild with a million scenarios and none of them any less bloody.

Once we reached his floor and the elevator doors slid open, I wasted no time rushing towards the living room, my shoes clattering against the hard floor. However, even while I imagined the worst, I could have never dreamed of the sight in front of me. I stumbled back into Creed's chest, who cursed under his breath as he steadied me and then stiffened once he saw what I was seeing.

Lorenzo was lying unconscious on the floor in the pool of his blood. The same blood that was now soaking my shoes. However, it wasn't the crimson elixir that fazed me; it was the fact that for the first time, something had managed to put Lorenzo down, and not just down; he appeared lifeless.

Breaking free of Creed's arms, I dashed to Renzo and collapsed on the floor next to him, but before I could touch him, Creed's gruff voice found me in the deepest pits of my turmoil,

"Don't touch him. You'll make it worse." He squeezed my shoulder as he crouched beside me, his brows furrowed as he kept his eyes on me, comforting me without the heat of his embrace or the spark of his touch, but merely just his presence and the ghost of his skin next to mine.

It didn't take long for the rest of the guys to get here, and then some paramedics came and put Renzo's comatose form on a stretcher as they took him down. Alessio was stiff beside me; his eyes narrowed on Creed as he noticed that I was holding his hand; however, at that instant, I didn't care about the rumors. I needed the warmth Creed gave me by merely holding my hand in his.

But I knew it was not Creed that was making Alessio anxious. It was the fact that with Renzo incapacitated, Alessio was command, and even he knew heavy was the head that wore the crown.

"How'd you know what had happened?" Luca asked me, his eyes red-rimmed with what I'd assume was a mixture of grief and anger.

"Andrea called me."

"And where is she?" Luca looked around, and I calculated my answer. There was no way I could tell them what she told me when I hadn't entirely made sense of it myself. Telling them would condemn Andrea to death, and I knew she didn't deserve that, not when whoever had puppeteered this had taken her with them.

"They took her," I whispered back, fingers tightening around Creed's hand, who surprisingly didn't grimace despite my painful hold on him.

"Who?" Alessio was now in my face, his eyes alight with fury and the air in the room abuzz with confusion and rage.

"I don't know; in the little I caught in between, Andrea was screaming at someone named Carlo." Everyone stilled at my mention of the name, and my stomach sank with the revelation that all of them in this room knew who this Carlo was. "Who is Carlo?"

"Carlo Murphy. The Irish Bastard." Luca spat out before his bloody fingers curled into fists, and he rushed out, his phone to his ear.

After some more questions were thrown my way and promises to keep me updated, the guys dispersed. Soon after, when we all went to the hospital, I met with Eva, who was trying to console a crying Zia Vittoria while Zio Leo was pacing the room, glancing at Zia every so often with a frown on his face.

It became clearer at that moment that every mountain has a foundation, and when that foundation trembles, chaos is inevitable. Renzo was that mountain for all of us, and nothing could have prepared us for his absence because his being gone was something neither of us had ever anticipated.

It had been a week, and while the doctors had removed both bullets, they'd also had to remove a small part of Renzo's right lung.

Because of being shot in his lower back, Renzo would need therapy after he woke up if he wanted to walk or indulge in strenuous physical pursuits. He'd also hit his head when he fell, so it was unclear what the situation would be once he woke up. The news had come as a shock to all of us, especially when we were hanging by the loose thread of hope that seemed to be getting thinner by the second.

In all of this, the only silver lining was that today they'd try to wake up Renzo as most of his operations were done, and any further examination would have to wait for him to wake up. And none of us were patient. I'd rushed to the hospital right after work with Creed on my tow, and once there, I went and sat next to Zia Vittoria, who had barely eaten the past few days.

Alessio and Roberto were worried, with Roberto barely leaving her side, his own eyes mostly swollen with a hoodie over his head.

They say happiness is a fickle little bitch, and I found out just how much when we got a false sense of security when the doctors told us that Renzo was awake. However, we weren't allowed to see him just yet. It turned out we wouldn't need to step in to see him because once Zia Vittoria and Zio went in, soon after alarms of code-blue rang out, they were pushed out of the room with Zia even more defeated than she had been the last time. She collapsed on the waiting chairs, and this time Zio sat with her, holding her as she cried, while the rest of us came up with our own horrid interpretations of the situation because, as they say, nothing is the worst than the human brain allowed to roam free.

We'd been told it was a waiting game, so we had waited, and soon the days we'd been counting had turned to weeks, and those weeks turned into dreary months. We were told that Renzo's blood pressure went abnormally high, and it wouldn't come down, so they had to wait for his heart to stop and then try bringing him back.

That was over ten months ago. It was hard to believe that Renzo hadn't been with us for the last ten months. It'd been ten months since Renzo had that cardiac arrest after we were told he had been recovering, and he hadn't woken up since. He'd fallen in a coma, and while his reports seemed fine, he hadn't woken up.

Everyone seemed to be mad at everything, Murphy's hiding, their inability to piece the puzzle of that night, and Renzo's stubbornness in not waking up. The last one was irrational, but emotions had a way of clouding the judgments of the best players. It wasn't like I had made it easy for them by telling them what I actually knew. That somewhere in this fiasco, the blame lied on Andrea, but I'd heard the pain and desperation in her voice, and there was no way anyone could fake that, so I kept this little tidbit to myself until I could talk to either Renzo or Andrea.

Creed often thought Renzo would be mad once he found out I knew; however, he hadn't gone against my wishes by confiding in anyone else from my family, and I appreciated that. I also appreciated the plethora of lies he'd been telling for me without asking for anything in return. And considering that he was a ruthless businessman, it was something.

There was a knock on my office door, and when the door opened before I'd uttered a word, I knew it was Creed.

"Why knock when you don't even wait for me to let you in?" I arched my brow as he sat on the chair across the table.

"It's more for my benefit. I don't want to witness something I shouldn't be seeing again,"

"A single knock won't make me stop riding a cock," He visibly flinched as a shadow passed over his face, and I couldn't help the grin on my face.

Clearing his throat, Creed looked me in the eye, "Then it's a good thing that you're not doing that sort of thing anymore."

"What? Getting fucked?" At his scowl, I laughed, "Ease up. I'm not fucking anyone,"

Creed covered his mouth with his hand, and I couldn't tell if he was smiling behind his fist, "This conversation is inappropriate and not one I'm here for. Luca and your mother called. Which one do you hear first?"

I exhaled at the name of my meddling mother, "Go with Luca first. I think I know what Mama wants,"

Creed nodded, "Alessio lost his shit the other day and offed two men because the doctors suggested taking Renzo off life support as his brain activity has not improved...."

"And Alessio refused, right?"
"Refuse might be an understatement, but yes, he did."

I breathed out a sigh of relief and pulled my hair into a messy bun with a ballpoint I'd picked from my desk, and faced Creed's inquisitive gaze again,
"What?"

He shook his head, "Do you still want to go to the dinner your mother invited us to tonight? I can easily postpone it."

His concern bled through his words often. However, at this point, I knew I knew it was nothing more than friendly concern. If it had been, he would've been long gone after all the messed up pieces of me he had been unfortunate enough to witness.

"No, it's okay. We'll go." I offered him a small smile and reached for the file I needed him to sign, "and since you're here anyway, why don't you sign this, so I don't have to waste my time getting it to you."

He reached for the pen he always carried in his pocket and uncapped it as he caught the folder I'd slid to him with his free hand. As Creed focused on reading the fine print, I was fully focused on ogling him. His subtle beauty was easy to miss but impossible to unsee. He had gotten rid of his jacket and had his sleeves folded up to his forearms, leaving those veins of his on display. He'd gone with the glasses today, and while they framed his sand-pebble eyes, they also highlighted his cheekbones, making him appear all the more appealing. 

"Stop staring at me, Alex, and do something productive," Creed smiled with his eyes on the paper and turned over to the next page.
"I can't help it that you're pleasant to look at,"

He hummed as he remained focused on reading, and I took that time to drag my eyes back to my laptop screen, unaware of the catastrophe my mother was brewing.

* * *

Everyone seemed to be losing hope that Renzo would ever wake up, but none of us dared to voice the thought out loud, almost like giving voice to it would make it real as if it wasn't already.

However, it is often said that light can only be found in the throes of darkness. While I wasn't much philosophical, Zia Vittoria was, so while I sat with her in Renzo's room, she reminisced on all the times she didn't have the courage to go on and how it all eventually turned around.

The machines connected to Renzo kept on beeping, and Zia's sweet voice was an excellent relief. Zia gasped, and she gripped my hand tightly, drawing my focus on her,

"What...?"

"Tell me I'm not seeing things,"

Tears glistened in her eyes, and once I followed her line of sight, I saw what she did.

After thirteen months of seeing Renzo's eyes closed, his eyes were finally open, and he was looking at us, a ghost of a smile on his dried lips.

* * *
What do you think?

Any theories? Thoughts?

Curious about Alex? Her story is next after Lorenzo and Andrea so enjoy these snippets!

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