10 Chapter 9.

January 19, 2016.

Ophelia's POV.

I carried some documents in my arms, heading for my father's office.

They were Empire Enterprise related documents, I had finished working on them and was taking them to the boss for the final signatures.

I opened my father's office door without knocking and noticed he was talking to a mob member. None of them noticed my presence.

The man, Raymond I presume, leaned on my father's desk with both hands. "The police are after them, one of them is severely injured."

"What caused the injury, why are the police after them?" My father's brow furrowed, he interlocked his fingers as he listened to Raymond.

"I can't say, boss but the target has severe gunshot wounds, arms and legs may be amputated. I think our man was provoked to shoot."

"This is bad, really bad."

"That's not our biggest problem now, they've escaped and are coming home but the last time I spoke to Alex, he said our man has passed out and is losing blood fast."

Wait a minute, Alex? He went out with Luke this morning. Oh My God!

"Who is injured?" I asked, notifying them of my presence, both men jumped at the sound of my voice.

"I can't say, miss." Raymond replied.

"What do you mean you can't say?" I dropped the documents on the floor, closed the distance and gripped his shirt.

"My love, calm down." My father intervened, in his calm voice. "We'll know soon enough."

"How long will it take them to get here?" I asked.

"They should be back before six."

I released Raymond, pushing him slightly before bending to pick the documents off the floor, placed them on my father's desk and stormed out of his office praying that it wouldn't be Luke.

_________________

6:54pm

I changed from my previous clothing into a white cotton T-shirt, matching thin cotton pants and my white house slippers. I paced outside the front door in my slippers, waiting for a car to pull up. My father was outside too but he wasn't as anxious as I was, he stood tall with his hands behind his back. Something was wrong, very wrong.

I stopped pacing when a sleek, black Lexus pulled up. The same car Luke left with this morning.

Alex came out of the car, his dress shirt all bloody. His brother and Nicholas also came out of the car but not Luke.

If Alex was the injured man he looked unharmed.

Wait! The injured man was unconscious, that could only mean...Luke!

I watched in horror as they pulled his limp body out of the car, his face was deathly pale and his clothes were soaked in blood.

My father pulled me into a hug, telling me not to panic as I started to sob. More men came out of the house to help and they took his body to the infirmary. He didn't look like he was breathing, was he still alive?

"Ophelia, I need you to calm down, honey. You're hyperventilating." My father said.

Calm down? I should calm down?

I broke the embrace and walked up to Nicholas.

"Nick, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

He managed a weak smile. "No."

I turned him around just to be sure. I inspected every inch of his body.

No injury found. Good.

I hit his chest with my fist, using all the strength in my body to shove him. "Then what the hell happened to Luke?!" I screamed.

Shock was evident on his face, then he became sympathetic and looked to the ground.

"I don't know."

I circled him and brought my voice down to a very low level.

"You don't know? What's that supposed to mean?"

Any wrong answer and I would definitely put a bullet between his eyes, friend or not.

Without raising his head, he pointed to the direction of the twins.

Victor, one of the twins raised his hands in surrender and pointed to his brother. His brother Alex glared at him and looked at me with pleading eyes.

"Miss, it's hard to explain."

I've had enough. I brought out the gun tucked in my pants, racked the slide and placed it on his head.

His eyes widened in fear, so did his brother's.

"Jesus Christ! Ophelia, control yourself!" My father shouted, coming in my direction.

I shot at his legs, missing his left foot narrowly, a warning sign. "Stay back."

I placed the hot muzzle back on Alex's head and glared. "You'd better start making it easy."

He raised his hands just like his brother and said. "One minute he went in, the next minute he came out a bloody mess. We had to leave the building, leaving us no time for explanation. The only person who can tell you what happened in that room is Luke and he is out cold." His voice quavered

I looked at his worried expression, then looked at his brother who was scared to death, my father knew I was going to kill somebody, other members of the mob had gathered outside, the atmosphere was very tense.

I returned the gun back to its original position and walked past my father into the mansion, shoving everybody out of my way. Running to my room, I got inside and slammed the door, I lay on my bed crying for my friend.

___________________

January 21, 2016.

Two days. Luke was out for two days. I didn't leave my room, my father occasionally came to cheer me up but it didn't work.

"The Doctor said he lost a lot of blood and he went into shock." He said, patting my back. "It could have been worse."

And that was all it took to open the flood gates. I cried and cried and cried, my father whispering reassuring words, stroking my hair.

"He's going to be okay, amore mio. In the main time, why don't you take a bath, eat something and take a walk, alright?."

"Okay." I managed to croak out.

"He's going to be fine, honey."

With that, he left the room to attend to other things that needed his attention.

I walked to my bathroom to take a cold shower. I needed my mind alert and off Luke for sometime.

After the shower, I decided to wear a black polo neck shirt and black pants. I braided my waist length hair, picked up a book from my little bookshelf. Wore black sandals and exited my room.

In the hallway, everyone was quiet when I stepped out, people made way for me to pass. The event that took place two days ago was still fresh on their minds, no one wanted to get on my bad side.

I made my way out of the house and walked towards the garden. The sky was cloudy, not allowing any ray of sun reach the earth. I chose to stay in the garden because it was serene, the fragrance of different flowers combining together was like a sedative, it calmed me. The trees provided shade on a sunny day and sometimes you could hear their distinct whispers around you as their leaves billowed in the wind, as if sharing a secret.

Movement caught my eye, I saw the familiar pair of chestnut brown hair coming in my direction, the twins. They were coming out of the garden and walking to the house as I was heading to the garden. One, I assume was Victor saw me first and alerted his brother. Alex looked at me and immediately whitened, fear etched on his face. They turned around the same time, trying to avoid crossing my path.

"Wait!" I called out.

They stopped unsure of what to do. As I got closer I swore I heard Victor telling his brother, "We'd better make a run for it. She nearly killed you the first time, how sure are you she won't do it now? As much as I hate you, I do not want you to die." He urged his brother to run.

Alex was having a mental debate. He knew the consequence of disobeying a direct order from someone of higher authority. He also knew what would happen if he stayed.

Before he could make up his mind, I walked up to them and came to face to face with both of them.

"Alex?"

His head snapped up at the mention of his name. He didn't maintain eye contact for long, his eyes went to my hands that were behind my back, not sure of the weapon I carried.

I took in a deep breath, looked him in the eye then I enveloped him in a hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck and closed the distance between us. From his stiff body stance, I knew it was a surprise.

"I'm sorry." I said, in a small voice. "Please forgive me."

His hands remained at his sides for a very long time before they hugged me back. He placed his chin on my head, "I forgive you. I know it wasn't your intention to hurt anyone."

I felt a rock hard chest behind me and another pair of hands around my body before I heard Victor say, "Group hug."

I laughed, it was the first sincere laugh since Luke was brought home.

Alex disentangled himself from my arms and wiped my tears away with his thumb, his brother on the other hand refused to let go of my backside, he placed his head on my back to get comfortable.

"Victor, Let go of her."

"Nope. She needs a hug and since you're not interested in giving her one, I thought I should. From a different angle."

"Sure, go ahead, wait till the boss comes out."

That seemed to do the trick because he let go.

"Come on, we've got work to do." Alex said.

"If you don't mind me asking, what are you two up to?"

"We saw a flower back there, I said it was a white Rose but he said it was a white lily so we're going inside to find someone to help us figure it out." Victor answered.

I laughed. "Who do you have in mind?"

Silence.

"That's the thing, no one but we're willing to ask everybody." Alex replied.

Ask members of a Mafia house about flowers? Very Funny.

I thought for a moment. "It's okay. I can help, besides I was going to the garden before I bumped into you guys."

"Seriously? You will?" Victor asked me with a huge smile on his face.

I nodded. "Come with me." I motioned to both of them.

The few minutes I spent with them made me learn a lot about them. Victor was the chatty, free and touchy one because he had his arm around my waist during the entire walk to the garden. Alex was the calm, reserved and somewhat shy one because I was the one holding his arm and asking questions on the entire walk to the garden.

I led them to the green house to get something. It was a large book, now dusty, containing pictures all the flowers in the world, information about them and other 'did you know' facts.

After retrieving it, I let them lead me to the bone of contention. It was a white fragrant flower, I knew immediately what the name was but I needed backup so the boys could believe me.

"It's called Gardenia." I opened a page in the book showing the flower and information about it. "Each flower lasts for about 3 days before it dies off."

A mixture of hmms and ahhs came from both my left and right.

"Well we lost this one, bro." Victor slapped his brother's back. "Let's go on to the next one."

We spent hours in the garden. The boys guessing and me verifying. We went through flowers like, sunflowers, daffodils, carnations, daisies, thistles, passion flowers, bluebells, tulips, hibiscus both purple and red, lilies both black and white, water lilies and we were heading towards the rose bushes.

"Rose!" they both yelled out the same time.

I laughed. "That's very good, boys. That's red and those over there are the white type."

Victor walked over to the red rose bush and attempted to pluck one. "Victor, no!" I warned but it was already late. He got himself pricked by a thorn, his index finger was bleeding.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry." I examined the finger and collected the handkerchief his brother offered. I tied it expertly around it. "Make sure you use a band aid when you get home."

I looked at him and from his expression it seemed it really hurt.

"Don't ever to do that again, there are shears always close to the bushes so you can cut one if you want to." I said.

He nodded, his mouth pushed out in a pout.

"Oh come off it." Alex rolled his eyes at his brother. "You've had lethal knife stabs in dangerous places and you're crying over a little prickle?"

Knife stabs?

He stuck his tongue out at his brother. "You're just jealous she doesn't care about you."

Before Alex could reply, I cut him off.

"Knife stabs?"

Victor puffed his chest out like a solider with many medals. "Yeah. I can show you the scars if you want to see them and then I'll tell you the story behind every single one."

"Oh boy, here we go again." Alex huffed. In his cute accent.

"I'd love to see them, maybe another day."

"No problem."

"Ophelia, right?" Alex asked.

"Yes."

"We'd better get you home, its getting late."

True to his words, light had faded from the sky. Time does fly when you're having fun. My father was right, a walk outside did do me good.

We walked hand-in-hand, waist-in-arm to the house. The boys arguing all the way.

They led me to my room and each got a goodnight hug from me and a promise to get together tomorrow.

They turned to leave.

"Wait!" They stopped. "Have any of you seen Nick?"

"You mean Nicholas?" Alex asked

I nodded.

"The big man has been scarce after what happened." Victor said, referring to what happened when Luke was brought home.

"You really hurt his feelings." Alex added.

"I know, will he ever forgive me?" I replied, feeling sorry for what I'd done.

"That's not our choice to make, its his." Alex said. "Don't work yourself up, baby girl. Its going to be okay."

I nodded and went into my room.

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