Wanted By The Mafia

49

I stood frozen to the spot, trying to process the scene in front of me. "Che cazzo?! (What the fuck?!)" I felt Antonio's body tense next to me. He immediately ran to Cole's side, getting on his knees and checking his pulse.

"He's alive." Carina walked over to us, her eyes red and puffy. "The medics are going to take him to the hospital now. According to them, it looks like the bullet just missed his right lung."

I swallowed hard. "Who did this to him?", I asked softly. "We're not exactly sure as yet, but one of the guards spotted Maffeo outside the premises just after the shooting.", Carina told me.

"Maffeo? Do you mean Matteo?", I asked with a frown. "When Xander took me, he introduced me to Maffeo, his second in command.", she explained. I thought about the tattoo from the footage of him and how he tried to kill me, and slowly pieced everything together.

"Maffeo must be Matteo's brother. Maybe his twin brother? They look exactly alike.", I voiced my thoughts to no one in particular. "Matteo mentioned a brother once but it didn't seem like they were very close, he barely spoke about him."

Antonio stood up as the paramedics took Cole in the ambulance on a stretcher. "I'm going to fucking kill Xander, mark my words.", he said through gritted teeth. "I don't know what he thought he'd achieve by breaking in tonight, hell maybe he expected to shoot me instead. But this will end with him being dead, for real this time."

× × ×

The doctor entered the waiting room and we all stood up. I took Lisa's hand in mine and gently squeezed it, the poor girl wasn't taking all of this very well. "His vitals are good, the bullet thankfully missed any major organs. But for now, he's in a coma. We can't if it's a persistent vegetative state or not."

"A persistent vegetative state is when someone is severely unconscious and is completely unaware of their surroundings.", he explained after seeing our confused expressions. I sighed in relief and gave Lisa a reassuring smile. "See, he's going to be fine." She smiled back at me, a couple tears rolling down her cheeks.

"When can we see him?", Antonio asked the doctor. "Right now, actually. A maximum of 3 people can see him at a time, so he isn't overwhelmed if he is aware of what's happening.", the doctor replied. He nodded and turned to Lisa. "Do you want to go first? We'll join you in a sec." She smiled and nodded, walking off with the doctor.

"She's the first girl he's ever fallen in love with, you know.", Antonio told me, wrapping his arms around me from the back. "He was kind of a heart breaker before her." I smiled and turned my head to look up at him. "I'm guessing he learnt that from you."

Antonio faked a hurt expression and I laughed, kissing the slight stubble that was growing on his jaw. "I'm not like that anymore. Not after meeting you, anyway.", he said softly, looking into my eyes. I felt my heart flutter and smiled at him.

"Well isn't this just the couple of the year."

Antonio turned around sharply to face the door when he heard his voice and I looked to see who had arrived. "What the fuck are you doing here?", I heard Carina hiss. "Didn't you miss me, baby sister?"

Xander leaned in the doorway of the waiting room, his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. "You...you did this.", Antonio spat out, taking a few steps towards him. "Cole is here because of you."

Xander shrugged nonchalantly, raising his eyebrow. "Maffeo was actually supposed to shoot Gracie over here, but unfortunately, she wasn't home." Antonio's expression turned from angry to furious in a second.

He pulled out his gun before any of us could stop him and aimed it at his brother. I quickly walked over to him and took his hand in mine. "Antonio, put the gun away. We're in a hospital, remember."

His gun stayed raised and Xander stared at him, in an almost challenging way. "Listen to your girlfriend, brother. Who's going to protect her if you're in jail?"

I frowned, looking up at him to see if I'd heard right. "Mi scusi (excuse me), protect me? I'm very capable of protecting myself, thank you very much.", I told him, crossing my arms.

"I see why you like her, Antonio.", Xander said, amused. "What, you don't believe me? Okay, let's take this outside right now asshole.", I challenged him, starting to roll up my sleeves.

Antonio put his arm around me to stop me and I looked up at him. He was trying not to smile, but doing a bad job at it.

Do these idiots not realise that I can kick BOTH their asses?!

"As tempting as that sounds, I'll have to reschedule. I've got places to be. See you soon, Grace." And with that, Xander was gone.

"Ha, pussy.", I said, rolling my eyes. Carina snorted and Antonio laughed, shaking his head. "I love you."

His eyes widened as he realised what he had just said and I did a double take.

Did he just-

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Antonio in surprise and he visibly became nervous. "I think I'm gonna go and see Cole now." He walked out of the room, leaving me flabbergasted.

He loves me?

-

Hi cupcakes!💕

A filler chapter, so nothing really interesting happened. Well, apart from Antonio telling Grace that HE LOVES HER! Even I didn't see that one coming tbh.

I'm going to be updating every second day or so since I'm on holiday rn, and I really wanna finish this book by this month!

Don't forget to vote and comment :)

~Venus the alien👽