Page 44 of Capuleto

"I'll see what I can do." The man handed me a card.

"Ask for me, I'm Inspector Ramos." I tucked the small piece of cardboard into my purse. "We hope you recover soon, Mr. Capulet," he said, addressing my husband. "We'll return when you're better and able to answer more questions. Thank you for your cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen," was the last thing he said before leaving the room with his eyes on me. I didn't like his look; it made me distrustful.

As soon as the door closed, Julieta carefully hugged her brother and I went to the bathroom for something to clean his face. My head felt like it was going to explode and I needed a few seconds alone.

How was it possible that Mentium was circulating among young people? What was I missing?

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Another thing that bothered me the most was the lack of control, someone else steering the ship in the shadows without my knowledge, leading me astray again.

Yuri couldn't be behind this; he no longer wanted to drag my name through the mud because it made no sense, and if it wasn't him, who wanted to sink me in the dirt? I was going to find out.

19

Clue

Iarrived home exhausted.

Everything was so tangled that my blood was boiling.

I spent several hours at the hospital, just like everyone else. The doctor told us that Romeo would stay a couple of days due to the burns. If they didn't get infected and he progressed well, he could go home, provided someone took care of his dressings.

R could barely speak, and we all were too eager to solve the mysteries flooding our minds. At Massimo's request, Julieta went to get a whiteboard and a marker, so my husband could communicate more easily.

That's how he told us what happened.

"What happened, Romeo?" his father asked, once he had the requested items on his lap.

He began to write. The painkillers he was being administered allowed him to do so without too much pain.

Dante had called me to discuss what was happening with Mentium, and what the police had said about the betting app. We heard a loud noise, came out of the office, and saw that Jonás had crashed his car into the club’s entrance door.

He showed us the whiteboard, and when we read the content, he erased it and continued writing.

He got out of the car with a lighter and a can of gasoline. I was nervous, but not overly concerned. There were two of us and only one of him. We could easily disarm him of his "threat." In my eyes, he was just a father who had just lost his son, so I tried to calm him down and reason with him.

He showed us what he had written again.

"You don't reason with a father in those circumstances," Massimo commented after finishing reading. R quickly erased the content and wrote again.

It was a mistake to underestimate him.

"One that you've paid dearly for," his father reproached him.

Romeo's expression tensed, and he began to write even more hurriedly than before.

We couldn't have known he had a second lighter in his pocket; if we had, we would have acted differently. He waited to block the exit with his body and then set himself on fire. The gasoline that had spilled in the club ignited, engulfing Dante. He was soaked in it because he had struggled on the ground with the journalist.

Romeo hit the whiteboard after showing it to us. What he was writing pained him, and it was evident.

He burned in front of my eyes. He roared in agony while I looked from side to side, searching for something to help him with.

His hand began to tremble.

I smelled his flesh, his hair, his bones wrapped in flames. He threw himself to the ground trying to extinguish the fire, but it was impossible. I ran for the damn fire extinguisher next to the bar. I unhooked it. The fire was spreading, engulfing everything... If I hadn't insisted on the interior of the club being made of wood, maybe...

I was sitting next to him and read it before anyone else.

"You can't blame yourself for that, you couldn't have known what was going to happen," I said to ease his distress. Romeo continued once everyone had read it.

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