When Patience is a Virtue

With the media outside, the James brothers were left with nothing important to do other than watch the replays and critics of Alex and Lia. It was hilarious that the whole day had simply been dedicated to knowing what had happened to them.

Damien was bored, Carl was just seated drawing multiple SpongeBob arts, and Nick was playing catch with his gun. He had punched the darn punching bag till it tore, and now e was angry for punching the bag.

In defense of the bag, if that even makes sense, Nick had thought of Alex when he was punching away, but he figured with Lia in love with Alex, the worst they would do to him was punch his nose for loving their sister.

Ryan, on the other hand, was one excellent target.

One that they would work together and bring down no matter what his relationship with Alex was. So, he had punched and punched and punched till he felt better, and for a moment, he did. But right now, he wanted to punch more things.

He wanted to ruin his beautiful face.

He wasn't going to lie; Nikolai knew Ryan was a beautiful man out that was no excuse for making their lives miserable.

Carl was still contemplating how all of this would turn out. It was him in the middle of everything. He hated Ryan for breaking his family apart, but he respected and cared for the guy for loving Dylan in the night way.

Ryan had put Dylan before himself and even before his life.

For him, no one was more important than Dylan Coach, and even though they had been secretly in love, he had stayed loyal.

Theirs was the kind of love Alex and Lia had.

He couldn't help but wonder how someone who could love his brother with all of his being would also be responsible for breaking the family he had cherished and loved with all of his heart. His heart was at the center of all this had he didn't know what to do.

Maybe respecting Ryan was enough, and Dylan would understand him.

His biological parents had asked him what he was feeling about the James siblings, and his reply had been instant.

Granted, they weren't biological siblings, but James and his family had taken care of him when he had none, and seeing them dead was something that still haunted him. Maybe if he had even a good son, they wouldn't have been pushed to the wall.

Maybe if he had been there, Ronaldo wouldn't have made it into their lives. He should have been there to protect his parents from the almanac and Ryan, but he wasn't, and that's something that he and Damien would always regret.

The army hadn't been strict with Damien, but the fact that he had wasn't there the one time his parents needed him, that shit ate him up. He always regretted being away, getting himself captured, and more than anything, he regretted not being the bigger brother.

They had sent him to serve the nation, and they had been part of the nation he was serving, but he protected everyone and failed his parents.

His regrets wouldn't be able to sum up, the pain and anger he was feeling, but that was the same thing that the siblings were feeling.

They all had their regrets, and their only way to closure was linked to Ryan. They would finish with him and lead normal lives if anything was normal about their desire ad thirst for revenge and justice. Amelia had made them promise they wouldn't kill Ryan.

They would simply take everything away from him, bit by bit, till he had nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep him safe. Even though his father was dead, none of them knew the man had died by Damien's hands, but in his defense, he was saving the poor lad the energy to deal with his horrible father.

What kind of father left his children because he didn't feel like it? That had been the stupidest excuse and given a chance, Damien somehow knew Ryan would do the same.

It was a good thing he had the suicide note in his hands because no child deserved to see the pain and regret and their father's eyes, especially when they had been useless to them and when they had hit them.

Ryan was free from his father, and Damien was to be thanked for that, but that didn't mean that he would let him be. He was just getting started. The only question that still lingered was whether the James siblings were aware of the new truth that had been hanging in the air for months now.

Amelia was still with Alex, waiting and hoping the awkward bit of things were over and done with, but she knew it wasn't. For a while, she had known Lexi and had bonded with her several times, even before the first explosion.

She knew the girl had more to ask than she was letting on, but Lia could only hope that Lexi didn't bring up the fight that night because that was something she wouldn't know how to explain. She didn't know how she could start telling Alexander that she was behind the wreckage that had been left of their dressing room.

The image of the room was something that Lexi could never forget, especially when she had been helplessly grounded by shock.

She had watched Amelia turn live humans into the broken dead, and if she opened her mouth, then Amelia would be in deep shit.

The only thing she could do for now was hope and pray that Lexi didn't say anything. She couldn't imagine what Alex would think of her or how he would see her.

While she didn't want to be a monster in Alex's eyes, her fight for justice also depended on her relationship with Alex. Staying closer meant they would never suspect her, and she would have more control, but if they split, then even hell wouldn't have mercy on Ryan.

She would go all out irrespective of what happened.

Alex was her link to her humanity which is why she couldn't lose him, not at this point in her mission, not when Reyna was already out of the mission, not when she knew Carl and Jill wouldn't be able to reach Ryan the way she wanted.

Or maybe she would use Carl's relationship with Ryan, but that would be too heartless.

She wasn't going to cross that boundary, not even when it was her life on the line.

All she had to do now was wait.