TILL D£ATH DO US APART
(The•Devil•I•Loved)
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Copyright © 2025
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★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
“Joyce….” Monika’s voice escaped her throat with slow but unsteady breaths as if she had just finished running a marathon.
“Joyce….” Her voice came out again, but this time…it has lost all slowness.
Her chest pounded with both shock and anxiety—and the brutal weight of disbelief hanging there.
Ivanna didn’t move. The gun still sat positioned in her hand, and Leonardo is still on his knees in front of her, his blood wetting his shirt, flowing down his chest.
It’s already touching the ground, spreading out in zigzags.
His mouth is open, and her finger went under the trigger, ready to pull it mercilessly for the third time.
“Did you….” He gasped, blood following those two words out of his mouth immediately.
“Did you ever feel anything for me at all? Were you ever…in love with me?” He whispered, his eyes taking the shade of his pouring blood.
So effing red.
Ivanna didn’t shake. Her eyes only became colder, and her stance more determined.
“No. And if you think I fell for you after the inhumane treatment you gave me in the beginning, then you’re a big fool. But thank you though…for making me cûm!” She smirked.
Her finger pressed the trigger down for the third time, shooting.
But the bullet flew past Leonardo’s body cos his body is already on the ground. The bullet entered the wall instead.
Leonardo fell flat on his face, another tears line running out of his eyes before they went shut.
“Daughter!” Monika ran to the lady, her eyes still wide with shock, but the disbelief is gone now, replaced with desperateness to touch her.
“Joyce…” She croaked, marching Leonardo’s head on the groundwith her first leg, then her second leg marched his back.
She literally walked over his body before getting to Ivanna. Her hands cupped her face dearly, her height lowering to hers since she’s on heels.
“Joyce… It’s… It’s really my daughter,” she gasped. One close glance at the necklace doubled her sureness.
She was shedding tears of joy before she knew it, but she wasn’t loud.
“My child….”
Ivanna remained soundless, just staring at the woman with soulless eyes in the silence of the hall.
“Leader!” Moo appeared in that hall with Hayden, and when she saw what’s going on, her eyes widened too, even more than Monika’s.
“Leader’s child?” She muttered.
“Impossible,” Hayden muttered too.
They both came closer, but Monika and Ivanna aren’t even seeing them. Mother and daughter are still staring at just each other.
“Leo!!!!!” Sandra’s voice yelled from the far end of the hall, and that made them jerk, but they didn’t fret.
“Hit the buttons!” Monika ordered, and Moo did the job.
She opened a door by the wall with her palm print, and as they entered the door, Sandra opened fire on them
Monika covered Ivanna with her own body, but Moo and Hayden shot back at Sandra, protecting them till the door shot them inside.
“Leo!!!” Sandra was still screaming as she continued firing into the now empty corridor, her boots pounded the metal floors as she ran.
“Leo!!!!”
When she got there and saw Leonardo’s body on the ground, the gun fell from her.
Her knees received the weight of her body on the ground.
She was even scared to touch him at first. The way his eyes are tightly close, and the blood. The blood…scared her, but those two aren’t as scary at the tears on his face.
“Tears?” She muttered. “Leo….cried?”
“He did?” Her voice was far below a pained whisper, and she could hear her own mind spiralling as she stretched her hand, reaching for him.
She placed a finger below his nose, but nothing came.
No breaths. No air rush.
Then…she turned his body. Seeing the two gunshot wounds on his chest…
“What’s this?” She stuttered…. “Wha…what… what is this!!!! What is this!!!! Leo!!!! Leo!!!!!!!!!! Leo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Leo no! You can’t….not like this! Nino!!!!! Tierney!!!!! Nino!!!!! Aghhhhhhhh!!!!!”
She was rolling on the ground like a kid before she knew it. Rolling in the redness of his blood and hitting her head on the ground too.
“You always said you’d never go before any of us! You said no matter how old you’d grow, you’d wait till we all die of old age and take care of us before you come to hell to meet us! You can’t go back on your promise! You can’t — Leo!!!!!”
Her nostrils snot fell on his shirt as she dragged him up, hugging his large breathless body to herself.
“Big brother…no. You didn’t even eat well for once. I planned to make you taste all the good food in the world and build an amusement park in your name so other kids will have the chance to enjoy the lively childhood you didn’t enjoy. Please…. please don’t…don’t die… please. Bob is wounded too….you can’t….”
Tears didn’t even let her talk… till Nino and Tierney and fifteen other Outfit mobsters rushed into that hall.
“Jesus f+kin….” Nino gasped.
“Ghost?” Tierney stumbled and fell in shock too.
“Please… Nino….” Sandra looked up, her clothes soaked with Leonardo’s blood already, her eyes soaked with hot unstoppable tears.
“Please wake my brother for me….” She continued, sniffling.
“On my back!” Nino went down on a squat immediately, turning his back on Sandra.
With the help of Tierney, Sandra heaped Leonardo on Nino’s back.
Nino stood at once, running his way down the corridor.
Tierney and Sandra ran after him.
For five minutes after their exit, there was still loudness and gunshots outside, but in the sixth minute, it stopped coming, and in the seventh minute, Padrino Marko entered the Cave with his Private Prison-guards.
They roamed the bloody corridor for long before they sighted the last and largest trail of blood at the back.
Marko squatted there and touched the blood with his fingers.
It’s still warm, and there’s a earbud in the pool of blood.
On the bud, Leonardo. C was inscribed in italics.
Marko’s hahd tightened on the bud. Leonardo Coker.
Meaning…this bastard has been eyeing his father’s name for a long time, but now he definitely got hit judging by the warm blood.
He stood with a grunt, studying the footprints around.
There are many prints, also prints of someone rolling in the blood.
That only means the hit was massive, and he was carried away by people.
How hard the mighty has fallen.
Now his plan is foiled.
Renata ran into the hall, breathing hard. She studied the blood on the ground and quickly understood the situation, then she sighed.
“Robert?” Marko asked.
“Cardi took the hit for him, but she won’t die. I lessened my grip when the knife entered her, and it wasn’t her spine.” Renata reported.
“Robert?” Marko repeated the question, wanting her to say what he wants to hear.
“We fought. He fought fiercely, but he wasn’t a match. I nearly bursted his spine, but there was an interruption. Someone poured a heap of snowflakes on my face, it was too sudden, and I was knocked out unfortunately. When I got up, Robert and Cardi and the unknown third person were gone.” Renata narrated.
Marko faced her, but she held her standing position.
She expected a hit, and it really came. Marko stuck her on the face with his palm, and she fell on the ground, lip bursted. Blood trickled.
“The mistake you made by the river that day when you couldn’t kill Monika and her child, I already count that as the one and only mistake you’d ever make, but now you went ahead and made a new one? I heard faintly that Bobby got hit, and judging by the blood on this ground, Leo got hit too, now you’re telling me you hit Cardi too? And you ended up not destroying Robert? You don’t even know where they went!!!”
His glasses rested above his nose as his words hit Renata brutally.
She quickly went down on a knee.
“I deserve to die, father.”
Marko’s eyes rolled under the rims, and he grunted again.
“My plans got flawed, and now a new strategy is needed, but before then…”
He looked around the hall.
“That lowly wench Ivanna probably connived with her mother, and by my intuition, she probably knew about Monika’s identity since the start.” He said.
“You mean she didn’t come to the estate cos of the vault money but cos of Leonardo? To get back at him for his mother’s sins? Since Monika is still thinking Vera killed Santos.” Rebata replied from the ground.
“You said you saw Vera writing a note that day in the emergency corridor, and she placed the note in the basket with the child…who knows what that note might contain?” Marko sighed.
Renata stood.
The army of PP guards surrounding them were silent. They don’t speak unless told to.
“What next?” Renata asked.
“Contact my spies around this region. I want all of my grandkids at the valley before nightfall. Dead, or alive.” He replied.
“Yes, father.” Renata pulled her phone.
—
[A Abandoned Building]The sound of Robert’s cries covered the sound of Emma’s breaths as she tried to get the knife out of Bacardi’s back. Bacardi is still unconscious.
“Will she really be fine?” Robert sniffled again, harder than the ones he has been doing.
Emma didn’t reply. She focused on putting less pressure on Bacardi’s back, taking a deep breath before trying to remove the knife again.
“Will she be fine?” Robert sniffled impatiently again.
He’s wet with Bacardi’s blood.
“Can you just…” Emma faced him with a scowl. “Shut up?”
He nodded, and she returned to her business. At a sharp go, she removed the knife from Bacardi’s back.
Bacardi groaned unconsciously, and Robert held himself together.
Emma took his jacket and tied it around the knife stab, dousing the rate of blood loss.
“If you get her to a good hospital before an hour, she’d be fine. But if you take more than an hour, then sorry is the word.” Emma said.
“Why did you help me?” Robert asked, sitting beside Bacardi on the old bench. “Why did you pour snowflakes on Renata’s face during our fight? Aren’t you Lissa’s loyal maid? You hate Ivanna”
“You were actually fighting Renata? Do you know who she is? Take a good look at the wounds on your body and tell me if you’d have escaped death if I didn’t come to save you!” Emma snarled impatiently.
Robert looked at his own body, and truly, the wounds are brutal and still fresh. A stab on his arm, another stab below his tummy. His head has a wide gash at the fore. Multiple tear on his legs. His belly has a stick-stab, and his palms are bleeding.
“You can’t ever beat Renata even in twenty years time, you’d die if I didn’t save you…you were the target anyways…why fall for the devil’s granddaughter?” Emma muttered.
“I’m asking why you saved me! Your own reasons!” Robert shouted.
“Cos I’m a doctor, and I don’t just walk past when I see blood…” Emma replied, and he frowned.
“What!”
“I’m the only doctor in a family of attorneys and judges, so I was hated in my family for chosing a different path. That’s why I wasn’t moved at first when Lissa killed them, but then … They’re still my family, and as the only living member, I gotta revenge and go back to my normal life. I saved your parents too.”
“When Lissa captured them from the hospital, she wanted to kill them straight up, but I suggested she should let me operate on them so she’d keep them as bait for Ivanna later, that’s why your parents are still alive till today.” Emma shrugged.
Robert finally went silent, and Emma nodded, going for the door.
Robert started carrying Bacardi. There’s still 55 minutes left to get her to the hospital, and the nearest hospital to this place is 20 minutes since they’re out of the forest, so he’d surely make it in time.
He was still lifting Bacardi when Ginny rushed inside.
“Ginny?” Robert gasped. “Why are you here? How did you even find…”
Another person came inside behind Ginny. It’s a old man.
Robert frowned when he saw the man. Ginny has tears in her eyes too when Robert noticed.
“Gin, what’s going on?”
“We have to leave, now.” Ginny said in tears.
“I don’t —”
“We have to leave the country, now!!!” Ginny shouted.
Robert gasped.
“What the f+k do you mean we have to leave —”
“I was hired for this job by your sister Ivanna some days ago. I have to get you both to your parents place in Dubai.” The old man said.
“Du what? What exactly is going on!” Robert shouted angrily.
“Anna killed Sir Leo! She killed him so we have to get out of this country in an hour or we’re so dead!” Ginny cried louder.
“No…” Robert swallowed… “No, Iva wouldn’t…. wouldn’t…do…”
And that was interrupted by a gunshot. A tranquilizer dark entered Robert’s arm. Before he could get rid of it, he already got injected, and he crumbled to the ground.
Emma sighed by the door, looking at her gun. She did it.
“Now some silence finally…” She said.
“What did you do to my brother!” Ginny gasped.
“You want him out of the country? Take him. Even when he wakes up in ten minutes, his brain will stay numb and he’d follow your command to the plane…he’d stay obedient till the injection wears off.” Emma shrugged.
The old man took Robert, and Ginny started rushing after him, but she suddenly looked back at Bacardi who’s still unconscious on the bench.
“Leave that one to me. I’ll get her to a hospital and finish my job.” Emma said, and Ginny finally left.
Emma went to the bench and sat with unconscious Bacardi…
“Rob…” Bacardi muttered in her unconscious state.
“Ruined peeps. Your granddad is Lucifer.” Emma scoffed.
She carried Bacardi on her shoulder and left the building.
—
[House Of Esposito, Penthouse]Penny was still panicking about the fake dollars, parading the front of the penthouse with no idea to explore and solve the problem with.
All her life, she has relied on Lissa and Thaddeus, so she’s waiting for them to return from the mission.
It has been five hours now.
She couldn’t sit, couldn’t function well. Breathing is a problem.
Behind her, the maids are in a line, waiting with her too.. “you are reading from www.mhiztaemy.com.ng” including Island who’s thinking a pregnant woman like herself shouldn’t be standing for as long as this…
At 5:30, Thaddeus’ car drove into the estate, and it didn’t stop at the park.
He drove directly to the Penthouse.
Before he could step out, Penny already went to the car, and when he came out, she didn’t notice the grief and sorrow in his eyes.
She didn’t notice the gloom.
“Thad, the dollar notes are—”
She couldn’t say fake before Thaddeus opened the backseat of the car where Lissa’s body lay.
Lifeless. Cold. Dead.
Penny lost momentum immediately. Her arms fell beside her. Her eyes turned larger as if the blowing wind is working on expanding the width.
Merely seeing Lissa’s arm is enough to alert her. It’s frozen, meaning; she had died for more than an hour.
Penny’s breaths left her completely. Her eyes rolled up. Her knees gave out, and she went down, fainting.
Thaddeus didn’t move till she hit the ground heavily, but the other maids surrounded her, trying to get her up by pouring water and whatnot.
Thaddeus looked at Lissa’s body in the car, then he looked at Island who hasn’t moved from her spot.
Island smiled at him, rubbing her belly slowly.
—
[A Hidden Mansion]Ivanna has no idea about the geographical location, but she’s sure they’re still inside Chicago.
Just that this mansion is far from where civilians live. It’s the only building in that greenery area.
After they entered the wall door earlier, it led them to a underground park, and from there, they drove out, following a unused unpaved road to this place, so it’s hidden.
It’s two hours drive from the city.
Moo stood by the door of the living room. Hayden stood beside her.
Monika sat in front of Ivanna who’s sitting on the red couch.
They haven’t said a word to each other since they got here, and Ivanna doesn’t look like she’s interested.
She’s just staring emptily at her mother who’s trying her best to make her talk to her.
Monika held her hands, smiling dryly at her before talking.
“Why didn’t you find me all these years? Huh? And if you knew you weren’t gonna find me, then why haven’t you killed Leo before today? You made him fall for you, so you could have taken him out with a death pin, easily…why wait till today? Why have you—”
“Why did you kill Hilda?” Ivanna interrupted her coldly.
“We met as mother and daughter after how many years, and first thing you wanna talk about is another woman?” Monika glared.
“Why did you kill Hilda?” Ivanna repeated, still cold.
“Cos she deserved to die for breastfeeding Vera’s kids!” She deserved to f+kin die!” Monika yelled, standing.
“You have no idea how much I hate anything related to Vera and her kids! You should even be glad I’m not targeting all the kids! You should be glad I’m targeting Leo alone! I suffered after that chest shot I received from Vera by the river! I was in coma for a year! I lost my life essence when I woke up! I looked for you like crazy but couldn’t find you! I ran mad! I was in the psych ward for another year. I suffered!! All because of this Vera!” Monika shouted.
Ivanna stood.
“You suffered cos of Vera, and I’m not against your revenge, but killing Hilda? Low!! Hilda was like a mother to me!!!” She yelled back.
And that was responded to with a blinding hit from Monika. Monika slapped her on her right cheek.
Ivanna fell back on the couch, her hair covered her face.
“She was like a mother to you?” Monika scoffed. “No one suffered with me when I carried you for ten months in this stomach, Joyce. Yes! Ten damn months cos you came late! That one extra month was hell for me and Santos your father! We had no one! Then you were birthed and Santos got killed! I was forced to float you on a river! I got shot too!”
“You grew up in a nice family, and you knew I was your mum, but you stayed hidden! Ivanna Cooper? No! You are Joyce Nikova! Joyce is the name I gave to you, I just couldn’t finish writing it cos I was in a hurry that day so you saw Joy! And Nikova is your father’s surname! The only reason why I’m not gonna kill the Cooper couple for giving you their surname is cos at least they took care of you. I am your mother! The only mother you’ll ever call mother!”
By the door, Moo and Hayden watched with crossed arms.
“I still can’t believe this,” Moo muttered.
“Not completely unbelievable. She’s hot, and I already got promised her hand in marriage, so I’m glad.” Hayden shrugged beside her.
Moo looked at him, pinching herself secretly on the arm.
Ivanna pushed her hair away from her face, looking up at her raging mother, defiantly.
Monika calmed down, then she looked at her hand, getting back to her senses. She gasped and sat back in front of her, holding her face again
“I’m so sorry for the slap, baby. I’m so fuckin sorry. I just lose it when I hear you praising another woman that’s not me.” She muttered.
Ivanna sniffled, holding Monika’s hand with her face.
“Mommy,” she sniffled again.
Monika smiled, shedding happy tears again as she caressed her cheeks with her thumbs.
“Say that again?”
“Mommy,” Ivanna repeated, tears falling off her eyes.
“That’s it…” Monika pulled her into a motherly hug, stroking her hair and back affectionately.
“I love you so much, baby. I love you like the air I breathe. I love you madly.” Monika tightened the hug, her tears still flowing.
They stayed that way for minutes, sharing warmth and the centuries they spent apart.
When they pulled free, Monika removed the necklace on her neck, opening the locket and giving it to Ivanna who took it slowly.
The father carrying the child picture is still inside.
“There’s Santos, your handsome father. You have his chin and eyes and lips. I took this picture the day I birthed you. After I woke up from my coma in my family clan, I went back to the river house to pick this picture up.” Monika smiled.
Ivanna stared at the man’s happy face for long, rubbing her thumb on it and wishing she got to meet him. He must he a sweet father.
“He was very sweet… Santos.” Monika said as if confirming her thoughts.
“He’d sing bedtime songs for me even before I got pregnant, but after I got pregnant, he added bedtime stories to it, and snacks. He spoiled me with sweet tea till I got addicted to it, and he ended up complaining about my addiction.” Monika was smiling as she spoke, as if she’s telling about the greatest man that ever lived.
“Sweet tea…” Ivanna muttered, still staring at the picture, but then she sighted something inside the locket… small, tiny…won’t be seen unless if carefully looked at.
It’s a tracker. So this is where the second tracker is. No wonder Leonardo located the Cave very fast earlier. She removed the tracker and crushed it under her feet.
“My baby…” Monika caressed her cheek affectionately. She couldn’t stop touching, and Ivanna looked up.
“The grave? I mean…my dad’s grave.”
“Before I woke up from my coma that year, my family clan was kind enough to have buried Santos. They honored the man I loved despite the fact that it was against their rules. They buried him in our home…” Monika replied.
“Home?” Ivanna blinked.
“Oh dear, you really didn’t think Chicago was our home, did you? We belong in New Orleans, that’s where our clan estate is. I’m the only one who came to settle down here in Chicago for the purpose of revenge, and now that it’s done, it’s time to leave. You’re the heiress of The Crimson, time to meet your family.
“Family?” Ivanna repeated.
“Your granddad is still alive, Joyce. Your grandmum is still alive too. Our clan is still alive.” Monika said.
Ivanna went quiet.
Monika stood, snapping her fingers at Moo. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes. We’re ready to fly tomorrow at 6, but Leader… Bradshaw’s body…” Moo said slowly.
“I don’t give a f+k about that dead bodies of the gangsters including Bradshaw’s. Their death is their fate, and now that I left Hydra forest and the cave, the Chicago government will take care of their corpses.” Monika replied cruelly.
“Didn’t know you were this softhearted,” Hayden told Moo. “Enough to care about dead bodies? You’re boring.”
Moo ignored him.
Monika pulled Ivanna up, and a ring fell from Monika in the process.
A thumb ring shaped like a snail. Ivanna picked it up, and Monika took it from her.
“This fell from Vera that day when she came to murder Santos. I found it when I went back to the river house after my coma.” She said, then flung the ring out of the window.
“Baby! Come take a look at your wardrobe! I always imagine your size and I change it every year… you’ll love it!” She said excitedly, giving Ivanna’s neck tattoo a glance.
She’d have to do something about that ugly thing.
Ivanna finally gave her a smile, then she followed her inside.
Hayden was smiling as she watched her backside.
—
[Phoenix Valley, 7pm]The valley is restless with guards running here and there, the sound of their footings disturbing the walls as they went on one errand or the other.
Since the alliances in thirteen countries have been withdrawn, Marko’s spies reduced by far.
Lots of them returned to their countries already, and lots resigned. A lot of them committed suicide.
Marko already ruined them, so living on felt meaningless.
Marko sat in his guestroom, his walking cane tall in his hand as he stared into space.
Now, Renata is the one leading his remaining spies and guards on the search for his grandkids.
He gave them the order to find them dead or alive before nightfall.
The night is here already, but there’s still no news about anyone of them.
No Sand.
No Cardi.
No Bob.
No Leo.
Ginny and Robert have been rumoured to be out of the country, and his remaining network of Chicago spies is not enough to ransack the airport and find out where they flew to.
Even Monika seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Ivanna is nowhere to be seen too.
His grip on his walking cane tightened.
His brigadiers and old men can’t do nothing cos the thirteen broken alliances affected them too, and now they’re targets for higher ups in the police. The only thing still protecting them is The Outfit name.
Left without that, things would have gone wilder than this.
And to rebuild the broken alliances in new countries, it’d take too many years. He has been building them since he was in his thirties, and Leonardo destroyed them easily?
Fool.
He threw away his walking cane angrily, huffing.
A radio report came from Renata through a walkie-talkie on the table, and Marko picked it.
“No leads to any of your grandkids yet. Over!” She said.
Marko threw off the talkie, and Thaddeus instantly came inside.
He’s in tears as he went on his two knees again in front of the man.
“I lost my daughter,” he started.
“And?” Marko responded, too detached.
“But I’m expecting another child from Island soon. Leo tampered with the vault money… they’re all fake now…”
“Let me guess. Your contractors are asking for a refund on the projects? And you just became the Acting Don, so you have no direct right to touch the clan accounts yet.. that’s why you’re here to meet me…” Marko said.
Thaddeus looked up.
He said nothing, but his silence means Marko guessed right.
He didn’t see the result coming, cos Marko bursted into laughter.
Thaddeus’ mind broke.
—
[A Health Home]Thanks to the unending network of Leonardo’s spies, and thanks to Stanley and Nino’s hardwork, the brothers were successfully brought here without attracting attention.
This home is like an emergency home built by the Chicagoan spies in case of emergencies like this.
It has only one doctor—a surgeon, and luckily, the surgeon already finished getting rid of Bobby’s bullet before Leonardo was brought.
So…even though Bobby isn’t stable yet, he was put on anesthesia, so Leonardo got attended to.
It’s a long process on Leonardo, and the surgeon is still inside the house ward, attending to him.
The spies inside this building are more than fifty.
They’re just roaming restlessly. The fear in their eyes is huge. That’s how much he means to them.
Some are silently praying that he should be able to make it.
Sandra sat on the bare ground outside the ward, legs propped and arms wrapping the legs. She’s still crying, and at the same time trying to track Bacardi’s line.
Tierney is standing in front of her, hoping Leonardo makes it. Leonardo is the reason he’s still alive.
Eighteen years ago after his parents gave birth to him, they were returning from the hospital at night when they had an accident.
His grandpa was in the car with them, and he was the one who held Tierney against the ruins of the car after his parents died.
The grandpa and Tierney would have blown up with the car too, but thanks to Leonardo who was on his way to a mission that night.
Leonardo was ten back then…he just lost his mother, but he still helped.
He saw them, helped grandpa and Tierney out of the car before it blew up. He saved them.
He wanted nothing in return, but grandpa insisted on returning the favor, so he became a spy for Leonardo.
And that’s exactly how it is for every of his spy.
He saved everyone from one danger or the other, so they owe their lives to him. Everyone of them.
Tierney was about to go meet Sandra when Nino joined them there.
Just like Sandra is soaked with Leonardo’s blood, Nino is soaked too cos he carried him on his back.
He sat beside Sandra on the ground, but Sandra isn’t even looking at him.
He didn’t bother to talk. He brought her head to his chest, and she hugged him, crying slowly.
“Ivanna….I swear on my damn life…if I don’t kill you with my hands, then I’m not Sandra Coker… I swear!”
Stanley is in Bobby’s ward.
Bobby is still unconscious cos of his anesthesia.
Stanley just stayed there, silently.
He still can’t believe this.
The fact that Ivanna betrayed.
The fact that he was deceived by her sweet smiles, bemused by her sass and bewitched my her craziness.
He still can’t believe it at all.
Stanley stayed in an orphanage, but the orphanage owner was into organ harvesting. Stanley almost got butchered too, but a mission brought Leonardo to that orphanage, and he saved Stanley and twelve others.
Those twelve others became part of his spies outside the clan, but Stanley has always been a clingy one, so he became his closet guard before he faked his death and went to Britain.
Now he came back, and Leonardo was hit by a whore?
Stanley’s fists went balled when he imagined Ivanna.
He hasn’t even informed Anthony or Felicia cos he knows how much Anthony loves Leonardo.
Will he be able to take it?
He’s not even sure if Leonardo’s making it yet, he can only hope.
He was still deep in thoughts when Bobby’s eyes opened.
“Bob?” Stanley stood.
Sandra and Nino rushed inside, Tierney behind them.
“How come the anesthesia cleared off so fast? He’s not supposed to be awake yet.” Sandra said.
“He’s a druggie…he can’t sleep for long…” Nino muttered.
Bobby tried standing, but pain shot through him from his back.
“Aghhhhhhhh!!!”
His yell made some spies gather around that ward.
“Bob, stay down!” Sandra tried to hold him, but he stubbornly got down from the bed, pushing Sandra away from his path.
His back is already bleeding into his hospital uniform again.
“Where Leo?” He groaned painfully, his pale lips splitting.
“Where’s my brother?”
—
[Leonardo’s Ward]Despite the fact that there are long over fifty guards surrounding this house, there are ten more inside this room, none of them willing to leave.
They stood rigid as the surgeon worked, his hands moving with professional urgency.
His voice was clipped, carrying the strain of a man racing against a clock.
“His BP’s dropping again.”
Leonardo’s heart monitor had been beeping steadily since the surgery began, and that was a thin but existential reassurance, but two minutes ago, the sound went flat and fell into a single, endless tone.
“Epinephrine,” the surgeon snapped.
One of the spies rolled his sleeves up, his hands trembling as he passed the epinephrine syringe.
The needle slid into Leonardo’s IV line, adrenaline flooding his system in a last attempt to force his heart to remember it’s job.
No response.
“Another bolus. Now.” The surgeon ordered urgently.
The spy passed the fluids to him—a rapid saline infusion to replace what Leonardo’s body had lost.
Tranexamic acid was pushed into his system next to slow his internal bleeding.
Atropine came after, then amiodarone—in measured quantities.
Still nothing.
“Come on, Ghost. Don’t make your nickname real. C’mon,” one of the spies whispered from the back, not realizing he’d spoken aloud.
The room grew unbearably hot despite the cold biting through the walls, snow hammering the windows like a reminder that the world outside was still alive.
Sweat ran down temples of the spies. Their hands shook. A few other spies turned away, unable to watch Leonardo’s chest which is still not moving despite the surgeon’s efforts.
“Start norepinephrine,” the surgeon ordered, his jaw clenched.
The pressor entered Leonardo’s system, forcing constricted blood vessels, trying to hold pressure where the body no longer could.
Relentless chest compressions followed. Every push echoed with hope and fear intertwined.
Nothing answered back.
Leonardo didn’t move. Didn’t stand. Didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t breathe!
The monitor lines stayed cruelly straight. Thin red lines carved across the screen like a final verdict.
The beeping never returned. The smell in the room shifted. Not foul, just unmistakably final.
The surgeon stopped.
Slowly, he removed his gloves. The sound of latex snapping free was deafening in the silence.
He looked at the nearest spy, his eyes heavy with unspoken grief.
“Write this down.”
No one breathed.
“Leonardo Coker. Time of death—January twelfth. Eight p.m.”
The door slammed open.
Bobby stumbled inside immediately, blood soaking through his clothes, his breath uneven, eyes wild.
Sandra entered behind him, and merely seeing the flat monitor, she went down… collapsing straight.
“No—” Bobby’s voice cracked violently. “Take that back. Take that shitty statement back!”
He staggered forward, his hands shaking, disbelief pouring out of him raw and unfiltered.
“Eat it! Leo can’t be dead! Leo can’t be fuckin dead!” His voice broke completely.
“He ca-can’t leave me. He can’t—”
He dropped beside the surgery table, gripping Leonardo’s unmoving hand. His tears were hot as fûck as tears poured out of his sick eyes.
“My Leo!!!!!!…. Don’t leave me!!!!!”
TBC.
