82 - Harry

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

- Winnie the Pooh

. . .

I was sitting outside the room Kylie was in. Harry was dead.

You can't save them all.

It felt like I could not save anyone at all.

Kylie didn't know. Her wounds were still being treated. Lorraine, Kylie's mother, would break the news to her when the doctors would approve it.

I watched as Lorraine cried into her hands, her shoulders shaking. My grandmothers were here, along with Mrs. Summers, Micahel, Samuel, Fabiano, and Dante. Giovanni was with Olivia.

I leaned back into my seat, looking up at the awful white ceiling of the hospital. Kylie's leg was broken, her knees completely shattered. We didn't know what exactly had happened and I was not insane enough to question a thirteen-year-old whose dad had died.

"I want to see her." My paternal grandma, Gianna Vitello, walked towards me. "I want to see because of whom my family is suffering."

"This is not Olivia's fault, grandma."

"Like hell it's not, boy." My hands fisted. "Thirty good men died, including your own damn uncle. Give the girl to the Russians. End this."

"Anyone puts a hand on Olivia," I stood up, making sure everyone in the room could hear me. "I will cut that hand off." I looked at it grandmother. One of the bravest women I knew but sometimes a fucking nuisance. "It is for her fault."

"Is it not?" Lorraine thundered, sobs breaking through her frail body. "H- He-" She swayed, Michael was there in a second, screaming for a doctor.

I watched as my aunt was taken away on a stretcher. My phone buzzed.

Little one - please tell me what is happening.

I felt bitter. I kept the phone back in my pocket. She was worried. Giovanni must have told her about Harry. She must be sad. The urge to go to her and take her in my arms was too much.

But my family needed me.

So I wanted towards my maternal grandma, Fiona MacQuoid, and I let her sob into my chest.

. . .

Kylie sobbed. She didn't stop crying. No one could make her stop. Zavier was continuously sitting at one spot in the room, looking out of the window as if not looking at her would somehow make her misery ease.

Xerxes was pacing outside, trying to find out what the fuck happened. "Where's Edrick?" I asked Samuel.

He frowned, looking around. "Probably back to trying to find Olivia's father."

I hummed, returning my eyes to Kylie who was sobbing into her hands. It was just my brothers, Samuel, Michael, and I in the room. With Lorraine in another hospital bed for a heart attack, grandma Fiona too weak to stand, and Grandma Ginna refusing to even let out a word, my brother and I were forced to tell the news to Kylie.

"Kylie." I had tried to console her. I was unsure how exactly I was supposed to do that.

Her shoulders shook violently. Her leg was in a large cast. There were wounds all over her.

Xerxes entered the room. He walked to her. "Kylie." She sobbed harder.

I walked out of the room, her sobs echoing in my head and somehow they got mixed with the memory of my mother's sobs. Loud sobs which always come from her and my father's room at night. I was reminded of her screams when she had burned.

Everything was so fucking hot. I couldn't grab the handle. It was burning my hand.

She was burning inside, just the tip of her feet on the ground, and the rest of her was hung by a rope tied to the chandelier. The fire was everywhere and my father was laughing. I could hear his laugh.

"You can't save them all." I couldn't save them all.

I never could.

My phone rang.

Little one.

I declined the call.

. . .

"I checked the CCTV," Edrick said. "Nothing is there. No one got in, no one got out. Maybe it's one of the Italian soldiers."

"Say that again?" Dante's eyes narrowed.

Edrick gulped. "I don't mean it like that..." He shuffled on his feet. Dante sat down on the edge of my table, picking up Alarick's file with tatted hands.

I sat back in my seat. We were at the office. It had been a week since we went home. A week without kissing Olivia. I couldn't deal with this. I felt like my head was going to explode. Zavier and Xerxes were equally

miserable. We reeked of blood. I could not even remember how many people we had interrogated.

"Leads on Alarick?"

"It's like the guy disappeared." Edrick sighed. "I will find him. " I drummed my fingers on the gable. "Dante. Can you do it?"

He nodded. "I'm doing this." He looked at Edrick. "Get out." Edrick's jaw clenched but he walked out.

Dante went through the file. "He looks like this now?" He showed me the sketch Olivia had made.

It was a sketch of his face, half of it illuminated. And his expression was feral - of barely contained rage. I could only imagine how scared she must have been. Her scream still lingered in my ears. We had run to her room only to find her gasping for breath as her whole body shook

I nodded.

He hummed. "No wonder she's scared." He flipped through the file. "He was tortured."

"Brian's father gave the guards money to torture him." "Fucking politicians."

I hummed, leaning back into my seat, closing my eyes. I hadn't slept in days.

"Go to her."

"I'm seconds away from losing it, Dante. I don't think it's a great time to go to her."

"You think you will blow up on her?" "I don't know."

"Just fucking go. Giovanni can probably use a break." "He likes her."

"Yeah, as a friend."

I hummed. I knew that. He liked her because she probably reminded him of his dead sister.

"Fucking go."

I sighed. "I'm going. Shut up. "

He waved at me as I walked out of the office. "Fucking shower before you go."

. . .