Page 45 of Capuleto

The smoke was choking me; I could barely breathe. The car had caught fire, and I was afraid it would explode. I aimed the extinguisher at Dante and tried to put him out. The fire almost surrounded us, and with that small extinguisher, I couldn't put out the fire. I had to get him out of there before it was too late.

"Could you reach the emergency exit?" Julieta inquired. Romeo shook his head.

His dark eyes were so moist that I feared he might break down.

It was impossible, the flames were besieging it, I had to break through the glass window, it was the only way out considering I was carrying a hundred-kilo scorched man. When I picked him up, he screamed and fainted. The flesh was peeling off under my fingers. And the smell...

He couldn't continue writing. His body was shaking, and tears were falling on the whiteboard, soaking the letters. I felt terrible, really terrible. I placed a hand on his forearm to make him stop.

"That's enough, we can imagine how it ended," I intervened. "You don't need to go on." Even I felt the pain.

It could have been me there; after all, Mentium was a product of my pharmaceutical company. Jonás could have come after me instead of Romeo.

The marker began to move again.

It was my fault, I shouldn't have acted as I did, I should have been more cautious, immobilized Jonás, taken him to the office, and called the police. If I had done that, now Dante...

He dropped the marker and brought his hands to his face to start crying. We could all feel his frustration, his suffering, as if our own flesh was being torn open.

He was shattered, tormented inside, and undoubtedly uncomfortable being seen in such a state. Tears were often misinterpreted in a world like ours.

I asked everyone to leave us alone.

I pushed aside the bitter aftertaste of his betrayal as a husband and hugged him. I let him unload his pain on my shoulder, absorbing some of his anguish.

I couldn't imagine my brother taking such risks or crying like that for one of his men. And me? How would I have acted if it were one of my men? R interrupted my thoughts.

"It's impossible for him to survive, and if he does... he won't want to live in those conditions," he muttered, straining his throat.

"Now is not the time to think about that." I ran my hands gently through his hair. Romeo was devastated and it wouldn’t be easy for him to overcome what had happened. I didn’t even know what to say to him. Highly emotional situations weren’t my forte, nor was giving comfort. I felt uncomfortable not knowing what to say or do.

Romeo made a gesture with his hand and struggled to make room for me. I pursed my lips and stretched out. Was I doing the right thing?

His hand rested on my stomach, and I remained stiff.

"I love you," he blurted out, needing me to know. It tormented him to think that... he paused because it was enormously hard for him to keep talking... he was going to die without having told me. His voice was gone; I had to strain to understand him.

His confession hit me as if a bullet had struck me right in the solar plexus.

If I hadn't seen those images with Irene just a few hours earlier, I would have responded that I loved him too, that I didn’t know how it had happened, but that the suffocation I felt every time I saw him could only mean that, or that my heart was suffering a diabetic coma.

But now everything had changed, a gust of wind had turned my helm towards an unknown course.

I didn’t respond. If he hadn’t been in that hospital bed, suffering because Dante was hanging between life and death, I would have told him that before filling his mouth with "I love yous," he should clean it from his lover's drool.

I bit the inside of my cheek and managed to murmur:

"Go to sleep, you need to rest."

We fell silent, and after a while, his breathing became more relaxed. The medication had taken effect. Half an hour later, when I made sure he was sound asleep, I stepped out into the hallway.

Outside were Massimo and my mother.

Julieta had left with Irisha to take care of Adriano.

My father-in-law and I went down to the cafeteria while my mother watched over Romeo's sleep. I told him I would take charge of the Mentium issue, that it was my business, and I would find the bastard who had caused all this commotion.

The media would soon pick up on it, and it was going to be another weight on my shoulders.

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