Page 54 of King Of Order

The doctors were kind enough to fill in the gaps.

They claimed a ‘good Samaritan’ spotted me on the street and drove me to the hospital.

Whoever it was had pinned cash on me—sufficient to cover my bills and even pay for a cab ride home. I didn’t know then who they were and had never found out, but I owed them my life.

Patching me up was swift. A few stitches here, a couple of bandages there.

The bruises were deep, but nothing that wouldn’t heal.

On a physical level, at least. The real damage was waiting for me at Villa Tesoro.

When I arrived at the residence, the atmosphere hit me like a punch to the gut. My brothers, Enzo, Alessio, and Vitto, sat together, broken and grieving.

Their faces were pale, eyes red-rimmed and hollowed from the sleepless span.

I’d been missing for hours—long enough for them to believe I was dead, too.

When they saw me walk through the door, their relief was overwhelming.

‘Rio!’ Lorenzo’s utterance cracked, raw with emotion, as he rushed forward, pulling me in a tight embrace.

I winced, the pain from my injuries flaring up, but I didn’t care.

He was shaking, his grip like a lifeline.

Alessio and Vitto followed, their hands gripping my shoulders, their faces streaked with tears they probably didn’t even realize they were shedding.

‘We thought you too were -,’ Vitto whispered, burdened with grief, unable to finish the sentence.

‘I’m here,’ I managed to say, but my voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar. ‘I’m here.’

But my being present didn’t change the fact that our parents were deceased.

Their absence hung over us like a dark cloud, suffocating and relentless. I’d returned, but they hadn’t.

The pain of their loss sat heavy in the villa like the air laced with heartache, too thick to breathe.

Aunt Bianca arrived and drew us close, her face pale and drawn.

She’d lost Costa, our uncle, her one true love. The devastation in her eyes mirrored the hollowness in ours.

We all held on tight, endeavoring to stay upright, leaning on each other to bear the burden of this unbearable agony, the only way we’d survive.

Lorenzo was trying to hold it together for everyone, but I recognized the cracks in his armor.

Alessio, the joker among us, didn’t say a word.

Vitto, the youngest, trembled every time he reached for something.

‘We’ll get through this,’ I told them, even though I didn’t believe it. How would we get through something like this?

The joint funerals came and went in a blur, the grief so heavy it was hard to breathe.

We stood side by side in the church, the scent of incense filling the air as the priest’s words washed over us without registering.

I remember the sound of Aunt Bianca sobbing, her hand gripping mine as if letting go meant falling into the abyss.

When they lowered our parents’ caskets into the ground, part of me was buried with them.

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