Ruins of Autumn

35• Against The World For You

"One day you're going
to wake up and notice
that you should've tried.
I was worth the fight."

| unknown |
••••

 
    Blerimi wanted to go after the criminal for Leonora, but he feared that while he would be looking for them, the latter would go to the hospital and finish the remaining work halfway. The doctor suspected that they had deliberately wounded Leonora in her belly on the left, not to kill her instantly but only to injure her, because they had planned to play with her before getting rid of her.
 
    What if they had paid an employee at the hospital to kill Leonora? He looked at the closed doors of the operating room to the left, stood up, more alarmed than before that he could be right in his guessing, and began to brainstorm a solution—how to get into the room. The lack of power to protect someone he loved returned to him stronger than before, and it succeeded without much effort in making him a slave to despair. 
 
    He had thought about such a turn in his life, but not that it would be the end. Leonora's love had given him hope that everything would be fixed, the past would remain in the past, and he wouldn't be punished for having chosen the wrong way to take revenge on Amarildo Idrizaj, because he was really sorry that his sister, Anila, had suffered without being guilty because of them both, and she too would get the happy ending.
 
    If only he had felt a little more intensely for her, had thought a little more deeply that she was innocent and didn't deserve that crime, that perhaps she had suffered the same way from her brother as Xhuliana from Amarildo, but she had never spoken about it. Or maybe the same thing had happened to her sister, Visara, but she had kept quiet out of shame and fear. By killing him, Blerimi would have saved her.
 
    He had saved her, but Anila had been charred. Instead of breaking the chains, Blerimi had continued the story with the same injustice, and now it was returning in the form of payback. He had caused Visara the same suffering as he had suffered in relation to Xhuliana. Anila had experienced her fear of losing the freedom she had had in life, and now he was in danger of experiencing the fear of never finding out the truth about who had shot Leonora and why. 
 
    Anila's smiling face dominated his thoughts, along with her humour and bright gaze, and her way of showing love through touch and flirtatious compliments. He tore her away from the memories before the images of that last night between them flashed back, and her laughter turned to tears, her lively gaze to tears of pain, and her touches to squirming, to be saved by his torture.
 
    The story between them could have gone so differently. Even if, however, he hadn't met Leonora, if he had decided to choose Anila, he wouldn't have been there in those moments. Maybe he wouldn't be in a relationship with her anymore, but he wouldn't be suffering from the fear of losing Leonora forever, and she wouldn't have been through so much because of his fault.
 
    No one would have been through if Amarildo hadn't made that mistake in the first place, and they wouldn't have been so in the abyss in those moments if Blerimi hadn't fallen to the level of the enemy, whom he had killed three years ago.
 
    Albioni had told him that he knew Amarildo because he had worked with him for some time in France, and he had agreed to tell Blerimi if he ever met him again. Blerimi had explained to him that he had an urgent conversation to have with Amarildo about a trap set for him by Anila's brother. 
 
    A few minutes after midnight on November 3rd, Amarildo had arrived in Tirana, had taken a private taxi to a hotel, and the taxi driver with another order taken over for that night, Albion Huba, had then informed his friend as to where Blerimi could find Albioni's unexpected client.
 
    He had a clear image of Amarildo's shocked anger in his mind when he opened the door of the booked room and met Blerimi's eyes, immediately recognised Xhuliana's younger brother, understood the reason for the hateful look from him, and was completely caught off guard by the pointed gun from Blerimi before he had said the sentence, 'Whatever you have done to my sister, I have done the same to yours.'
 
    He had left only a few seconds for Amarildo to fixate on Blerimi's triumphant smirk, to go mad and seek revenge for Anila, and then Blerimi had killed him.
 
    In his advantage that the hotel had been located far from the centre of the capital city and had looked like a spare business of the owner, who had somehow neglected the building and not fully adapted to modern conditions, Blerimi had managed to escape, unnoticed by anyone, and hadn't been found by the police. He had succeeded in taking revenge, as he had wanted, considering the disregard of conscience when he had been warned that he had unforgivably crossed the line from the injustice done to Anila and her family in relation to him. 
 
    Conscience didn't hesitate to remind him once again, while he was waiting for news about Leonora, that Anila had offered to be the heroine in his life, but he had decided to only be the villain in her story, and for that role, he was being punished at that moment.
 
    He was willing to accept a life without Leonora, just so she could be okay. He would even endure seeing her with someone else if that was the price he was asked to pay for her to be alive. He didn't want to be tested on how much strength he possessed to face her loss. He was sure that he wasn't wrong at all when he thought that he had no power for that.
 
    "Blerim Agolli?"
 
    The woman with short shoulder-length, dark blonde hair, and calm blue eyes in front of him was wearing a police uniform, as were the two other officers in their thirties beside her. 
 
    "I am Detective Viviana Ksander from the Los Angeles Police Department. I have the case of your wife, Leonora." She showed the badge and was silent for a moment out of necessity, to awaken herself from the still disbelief that everything she was experiencing was real and no longer a part of the fictional scenarios in her mind for years. She had just been promoted at work and had taken over the first case to solve it. "We have to ask you some questions at the police station," she blinked to hide her emotions, more in adrenaline than usual.
 
    "Leonora hasn't come out of the surgery yet." Blerimi resisted the order.
 
    "We have a unit here specifically to guard her. We will inform you about any news during the time you will be at the station."
 
    "Can't you ask me here?" He opposed more openly and noticed the raised eyebrows of the officer on the right, who was looking at him, in an orderly way for Blerimi to follow the rules and not cause problems. 
 
    "We would greatly appreciate it if you didn't waste any more of our time, as it wouldn't be in the best interests of us to make such a mistake," Viviana said sternly. "There is a criminal out there who has put your and your wife's lives in danger as well, and who knows how many others are in a similar situation because of that person. The sooner this case is closed without casualties, the better, I say."
 
    Blerimi glanced at the doors of the operating room, thought about Leonora fighting for her life, and hoping that when he returned to the hospital, her operation would have ended successfully and she would have woken up, he agreed to go to the police station.
 
    He sat in the back seat of the car to the left of the officer who had judged him a little earlier for resisting, while Viviana sat on the right of the other officer in front.
 
    The road seemed too long the further he left from the hospital where Leonora was.
 
    Denada must have been worried about Leonora if she had called her and not heard from her. Maybe she had informed Graniti, and they had already left for...
 
    "Watch out!"
 
    The detective's sudden words weren't on time enough to warn the driver, who was focused on the road ahead, to notice a black car speeding towards them, and therefore it forced the police vehicle out of the lane. 
 
••••
    Marinela Huba closed the black door behind her with the key and turned on the light in the corridor. She had found that small apartment away from the crowd, just for people like her, who did the dark jobs that society hears about as illegal in the newscasts and needed a quiet place away from too many prying eyes.
 
    She was waiting for Leonora to wake up to continue with the rest of the plan. The wounded woman was in for quite a surprise if she woke up. If not, she would be saved with that, and Marinela would be satisfied with the fact that, since Agustini wasn't alive, Leonora deserved to breathe either.
 
    If she lived, then the rest of the payback was waiting for her.
 
    She had had a lot of doubts about making the plan to separate Leonora from Blerimi. The memory of the meeting between her, Blerimi, and Anila Idrizaj four years ago had come in handy, she had immediately searched the Internet for the latter, found her Instagram account, where she hadn't posted for over three years, read the news on the Internet about the murder of Amarildo Idrizaj and had made up the story that Blerimi and Anila had been together, she had wanted to break up with him, when she had discovered that he had been dating with her for interest, he had raped her, she had wanted to report him, but Blerimi had threatened her, that he would hurt her family, Anila had reported him, the police hadn't believed her, the media hadn't made that event public, Blerimi had killed her brother, Amarildo, for whom Marinela had no proof, that he had really been Anila's brother, but she would benefit, because they had the same last name and Anila had been forced to remain silent; Blerimi had continued to live happier than ever. 
 
    It had seemed too dangerous to tell the story to Leonora herself, as she would doubt her intentions and discover that her former sister-in-law wanted to trap her and stay by Blerimi's side, but even finding someone seemed even more difficult until she met Diana in a park.
 
    She had been walking behind her, sitting on a wooden bench, when she heard her talking to a friend on the phone and telling her that she urgently needed money because she had spent it all on trips and gambling, but she couldn't ask her family or her other friends for anything because of pride.
 
    Marinela had waited silently behind her back for Diana to finish the call, and meanwhile, she had prepared the opportunity to offer her twice the amount of the money she was asking for to return home to New York and pretended as desperate as she could to require help for her sister, Leonora, who was in a relationship with someone who only loved her for the money she had, but Leonora hadn't trusted Marinela when the latter had told her what she had discovered about Blerimi and Anila, and therefore Marinela was forced to use lies to save her until she found evidence of the truth.
 
    Diana had thought, as a first reaction only, that there was a mad person in front of her and then that she needed the money to return home since she could no longer afford to stay in a hotel in Los Angeles, and the fear that if she neglected that opportunity, she would really be forced to work since she wouldn't be able to find the money otherwise, when in the meantime she had other plans for the autumn and couldn't work, convinced her to close one eye and agree to help Marinela in exchange for the promised payment.
 
    Fortunately for her, Leonora had believed that story; Diana had taken the money and returned to New York; and now Marinela only had to wait for the enemy to wake up. 
 
    She took off her black hooded sweatshirt and headed for the bedroom. She lowered the bronze handle of the narrow door, looked dismissively out of the window into the living room, and stopped moving with her gaze fixed on the black silhouette of someone in the dark.
 
    She reached for the key, not at all afraid, guessing who had come uninvited and unannounced to her apartment, and turned on the lamp to meet Granit Vitori's blue eyes. 
 
    "If I didn't know you, I would have thought you were afraid." Marinela referred, ironically, to the gun he was holding in his right hand.
 
    He compared, just for a moment, the time when they had been in the same class but in different social groups and therefore had rarely spoken to each other, with that moment when he had come to kill her. He wasn't swayed at all to turn back.
 
    "You would have thought wrong even then," Graniti replied with a sharp voice and strong notes in it.
 
    "I am on my right," Marinela justified herself. "Even you, if you had been in my place, you would have done the same thing. They both killed Agustini."
 
    "It wasn't them," he confessed with a responsible look, letting her understand that she had shot the wrong person.
 
    The real assassin was in her house, and she couldn't even take the gun out of her belt to kill him because Graniti would get rid of her in one move.
 
    "You!" she realised hatefully, not daring to approach him.
 
    "Albioni wasn't going to leave Nora alone, and Agustini would have been on his brother's side."
 
    "I knew Agustini, not you. He wouldn't have done such a thing."
 
    "Enough, Marinela. We're not talking about people we met yesterday. We both know very well who was one and who was the other." He twisted his face, indignant at her denial of the truth.
 
    "Then why did you marry Nora to Albioni, since you knew who he was?"
 
    "What I do is none of your business. You shouldn't have messed with Nora."
 
    "What are you going to do? Will you kill me?" She challenged him. "What if the whole world turns against her? Will you kill everyone for her?"
 
    Graniti stood up and looked at Marinela, unyielded by the challenge that she guessed about his sister.
 
    "She won't be alone," he referred to Leonora, and he didn't give the woman in front of him a chance to speak anymore.
 
    The sound of the gun when he shot her was silenced by the silencer placed in its muzzle, and before leaving, he erased all traces so as not to get into trouble. 
 
    He had wanted to go to Leonora immediately, as soon as he had arrived in Los Angeles, but at first, he felt compelled to get to work and find out who had wounded her. Without avenging her, he couldn't have faced her. He had left Denada to stay in the hospital, with whom he had travelled to America, and now he was going to the hospital too.
 
    He found his former close friend sitting in the corridor in front of the room where his sister was. Denada gave him a judgmental look and arrogantly ignored him, after saying in silence that it was his fault that Leonora was in that state.
 
    "The doctors just took her to her room. They said to wait for her to wake up; if she wakes up."
 
    Graniti thought that Denada didn't add any optimistic words afterward, as it was in her nature not to be completely discouraged, just to hurt him.
 
    From planning with her two close friends of the university, Xhuliana Agolli and Redona Selimaj, that after finishing their studies, they would travel the world every week a month, Denada ended up in a hospital in California, with Xhuliana left only in the memories of the past, the discovery of what her brother had done to take revenge for her, an acquaintance of her in danger for life, and she herself crushed by the effort of coming to the aid of people who were going through difficulties in life. She was going through all such cases in her mind, supporting Leonora, and still did, because she felt it was the right thing to be done, to Blerimi, too, after the death of his sister and the suspicion that he had found out about Amarildo and Xhuliana, by overhearing the conversation between her and Redona, when he had been staying at her cousin's house for a few days.
 
    Denada had thought that he had been asleep and unable to keep everything inside any longer, she had confessed to Redona that she felt guilty about what had happened to Xhuliana since she had been the one who had introduced her to Amarildo, but she hadn't known what kind of person he had really been. 
 
    Had Blerimi ever held her responsible? Had he thought about hurting her too? Denada longed for the times when there had only been worries about school and no other disturbances, when life was beautiful as it was, and she didn't care to think that it could have been even more beautiful if only a few things had gone very differently.
 
    Graniti looked at the door behind which Leonora was and slowly approached it. If he had been alone in that corridor, he wouldn't have entered the room immediately, but now he didn't want Denada to think that he didn't have the courage to go in, so he lowered the handle, pushed the door, and slowly pulled it behind him after entering the room.
 
    His sister was lying weaker and more vulnerable than ever on the bed, with the surrounding machines near her. He felt so much weaker because he couldn't save her from that state, and she could die at any moment.
 
    If she had been awake, Leonora wouldn't have allowed him to even enter the room. She had persistently begged Denada not to let him know what had happened between her and Blerimi because she had known that he would go to America for her. The news had come to him only after she hadn't answered Denada's phone call.
 
    Now Graniti struggled to go closer to her without her permission.
 
    He took the small, high blue chair on the left and sat down next to her bed. The lack of strength to make things right had never before killed him as much as in those moments. How had he allowed them to end up in so much pain? They had had no one but each other and their parents to lean on blindly, and he had turned his back on her, leaving her alone to fight untrained in the ring of life. 
 
    Leonora had had all those problems, and Graniti had known nothing. She must have tried to call him so many times to ask for help, but had given up at the last moment out of fear that he would scold her, he would tell her that it was only her fault for marrying Blerimi, and now she deserved all the consequences.
 
    Where was Leonora in those moments, with her eyes closed? Just asleep, or somewhere imprisoned in any dream? Was she waiting for someone to call her and save her from that situation?
 
    "Nora," he touched her slightly cold hand. "Nora," he called again with notes of entreaty, for her to get up, but Leonora didn't.
 
    Graniti removed his hand and looked regretfully at his sister. He had failed in his duty as her older brother, and now he was risking losing her forever.
 
    He knew that he would never completely recover, and there would always be an empty void in his soul if she died.