I left the cemetery without a word.

Maybe I saw Adrian coming out of the black car, constantly apologising for his actions and blaming and cursing his brother for tricking us. Maybe I saw him giving the capo a punch or two and getting a nosebleed. Maybe I heard them shouting at each other in their rapt country language then suddenly getting quiet as I crossed them in between and silently sat in the back seat of the car, gazing out of the closed window.

The journey back was...blur.

I don't remember much. Just the stairwell of the private jet, same interior, same room and the exact same bathroom. Nothing else. I might have heard a knock or two throughout the whole flight but I didn't respond.

I couldn't react about any of the things I had learnt and seen.

I was dead. Dead to my parents. Dead to my friends. Dead to my brother.

Runaway or not, everybody considered me as a dead girl and they left.

I had made myself comfortable by sitting on the toilet seat straight through the whole flight and not moving at all. I didn't wanted to leave that small confinement I called as a bathroom.

I liked not moving at all. Dead people don't move at all. They stay still.

I had seen death only two times in my whole life. Besides the things I had been cleaning up, I had never seen a person actually die in that place.

First was my pet cat. It was just a silly myth that cats have nine lives so I tried to prove this myth to myself. I rode my bicycle over her.

I guess that was her ninth life.

The second time I saw death was of my Grandma Martha. I was having a tea party with Freddy and Maria in the backyard when she called us back in to have cookies and milk.

That was the last thing she ever said. I was told that she has gone to visit Grandpa.

Who am I visiting now? Grandpa? Grandma? My cat? I don't see any of them here.

Maybe they left me too.

I couldn't feel anything except coldness in my chest. Is this how dead people feel? Cold? Strangely, I liked this feeling as if it was meant for me and me only.

I don't know how long I stayed like this, but the door in front of me broke open and a man with hazel eyes stood in front of me. He looked angelic. Like he was sent down to Earth to fetch me and take me away from all the bad. He held out his hand.

"Come."

And everything was blur again.

I found myself looking around, taking in the familiar walls and standing alone in the giant hall with a giant staircase in front of me. As if my legs had their own minds, they made me climb two floors, pass through the looks men gave me and I stood in front of a familiar door.

Without knocking, I opened the door and leaned to the side.

"Boys..." My eyes which were staring into space finally rose up and gave a pleading look to the familiar men who were sitting in chairs, in front of a desk, hiding the angel's figure who was sitting behind the desk. "Leave."

The men kept staring at me.

"Boys," I growled, the coldness in me slowly turning into anger. "I said leave."

They didn't move.

"I SAID LEAVE!" I shouted. They quickly grabbed their things and scurried off, each of them giving me a look of pity. I hate pity.

I tried to take a step ahead, but my legs went weak so I supported my body by grabbing the sides of the door with both my hands.

My face remained blank as I finally take a look at him. "You knew."

It was a statement, not a question. It was the most simple truth.

He closed his file, got up from his chair and leaned by his desk.

His silence told me everything.

"You knew...and you didn't tell me." A short laugh escaped from my lips. "Since when?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled sharply. "Since I challenged you."

"Don't lie to me!" I spat. "We both know that's not the truth. I want answers. Honest answers, Leonardo. How long have you known?"

Then I remembered something.

"T-That night, in the kitchen, on the day I-I landed on you. I never told you about my highschool life." I whispered in disbelief, "But you knew."

Oh my God. I covered my mouth in shock and tears pooled in my eyes.

"You have known it all the time." I said in realisation. "You knew that...that my parents, my brother and my friends had left and considered me as runaway or dead or whatever that is! YOU KNEW!" I cried, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"You knew and you didn't tell me." I sniffed. "Why?"

He played with his cufflinks and looked everywhere, avoiding my eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me, Leonardo?" I asked, feeling my legs pain as I took three steps in his direction, "You could have told me but you didn't. Why?"

It's like everything he spoke to me on that specific night came back to me as a slap on my face.

"Is this about me being too proud and stuff?" He shot me a look and I chuckled humorlessly. "Oh my God, it is. Me being too proud, having my head high up in the clouds, too much talking and your way to get me down. Wow," I clapped sarcastically as I gave him a pure fake charming smile. "I didn't see that one coming, Leonardo. In fact, I want to thank you for bringing me down to Earth. You know, you actually opened my eyes, removed all the hope, the happiness and every positivity I had in me which actually helped me survive the past years here. Thank you, capo, for taking out your valuable time and going after a girl who has been dead to her loved ones for years."

He kept ignoring me and sighed deeply.

"Oops!" I giggled, "Am I talking too much? I'm sorry, but I'll try my best to not to talk now because that's what dead people do or maybe I should search for your brother and ask him to cut off my tongue. I'm sure he'll agree after a bit of persuasion."

"Are you out of your mind?" He sneered, still not looking at me.

"Yes." I answered honestly. "Yes, I am. I am completely, utterly out of my mind, but worry not because this is the last time."

He treated me with silence again.

"I should have known." I whispered, tears already falling on my face. "I should have seen it coming. I should have thought in the negative manner. Nobody was going to wait for me after all these years. Why would they? They have their own lives, own responsibilities, own happiness, so why to waste time on me? But you..." I laughed bitterly and shook my index finger at him in a naughty way, "You knew this and you didn't tell me."

"And you would have listened to me?" He asked, coldness washing over his face. "If I had told you everything, you would have believed me?"

"Probably not." I answered. "But I would have had an actual possibility beside that fake hope and shit. You would have got the opportunity of rubbing it in my face by saying 'I told you so' and then I would have stayed away!" I cried. "You were the one who didn't let that happen. Don't try to change the cards here, Leonardo, because I am sick and tired of it! If you had told me all those months ago that my parents considered me dead and they have left, then I could have stayed away from getting shot, stayed away from your brother, stayed away from the men and I would have stayed away from...you."

Weak. Tired. Jet lagged. In pain. Runaway. Dead. That's what I am now. It's all over for me. To hell with it, it was over for me when I woke up here.

I just realised it too late.

"I did what I had to do." He said in an authoritative tone. "It is not my fault that your famiglia gave up so soon. It was already done years ago. You had to be taught a lesson about not crossing my path or my famiglia's path, irrespective of everything that had happened before this weekend. It was for the best for my famiglia—"

I scoffed. "Family? You are telling me about family and what's best for it? Well guess what, Little Leo? Wakey wakey time!" I cooed, "Because you don't know a single thing about family. You don't know what celebrating Christmases and Thanksgiving with your parents and sibling feels like, you don't know what it feels like when you get a fever and how everybody in your family worries about you and you especially don't know what I am going through right now!"

My vision blurred as that immense pain in my heart finally cracked open and every special minute, those little moments I had spent with my family started replaying in my mind, the same family whom I'll never see again.

I released a shaky breath and I sobbed. "You...you don't know what it feels like to come home running from school, to smell those freshly baked c-cookies as your mother hugs you in the kitchen and asks you about how your day went, your brother coming from behind, stealing those cookies and having that satisfying feeling when your mother scolds him and snatches away the plate as a punishment. Those are just one of the many, many beautiful times I'll never get to experience ever again and you probably never did."

The man in front of me was red. Red in anger and red in shame. He was shaking as he kept his eyes on the floor.

"And you wanna know why you never experienced this?" I asked, a cruel smirk appearing on my lips. "Because your dear old daddy kicked out your mommy, you son of a bitch!"

In a blink of an eye, the cold metal of a gun was pressing deep on my forehead.

"WHO TOLD YOU THAT?!" He barked, pressing his gun deeper with a shaky hand. "TELL ME!"

My face remained impassive. I waited for the fear of being held at gunpoint to come up and not surprisingly, I don't feel anything.

"There are only three people in this house who know about this!"

Hmm, so I guess Adrian doesn't know about this. That is a bit weird though. Seeing that they are brothers and stuff.

"Ooh, I finally hit a nerve, didn't I?" I whispered hoarsely, feeling proud of myself. "Good, I was getting tired of your silent treatment. First when I found out Adrian was the one who harmed Rylie, then on the balcony and now here. It was pissing me off."

"Amelia, shut up!" His grip around the metal tightened.

"You could have said something. You could have gone like—'Oh! Little girl, I am not sorry to say this, but your parents consider you as their dead daughter and they have moved on with their lives. This also includes your friends. Stop being such a pain in my ass and get back to your household duties. Don't show me your face again!' A piece of hint like that would have given me some sense of my actual life." I snapped.

His hands kept shaking, his eyes were blazing in anger and jaw clenched so tightly that I would actually throw a party again if it breaks right now, right here.

"What are you waiting for? Go on. Do what you always wanted to do ever since I landed on you." I chuckled softly, feeling the tears dripping from my chin, falling on the carpeted floor and I motioned to the gun pointed at my forehead. "I'm not even scared of this, you know? I don't have anything to lose now."

He hesitated, but kept his grip firm.

"Go ahead, shoot me." I choked on my sob. "Finish this over. There's no harm in shooting a girl who is already dead and buried in her neighbourhood's graveyard."

His index finger touched the trigger, but he didn't press it. He was still showing some hesitation.

"Shoot me, Leonardo." I whimpered when a sweat trickled from my head and felt it touch the cold metal. "I-I have no last wishes. Nobody to care about me. Nobody to go back to."

His eyes, now clear of any hesitation, narrowed to slits and he gulped. His hands stopped shaking.

"Shoot me." I begged, getting desperate to get this over.

He didn't listen.

"I SAID SHOOT ME!" I screamed at his face.

One click. Two click. Three click.

Leonardo Agostini kept pressing the trigger, but no bullets came out of it and no blood shed from me while I kept a blank look on my face, mentally counting how many times he is pressing the trigger. Soon, I lost the count.

He looked tired and his hand started shaking again, but he kept pressing the trigger.

Then he threw his gun in a corner and crashed his lips on mine.

My eyes widened and my knees went weak at the intensity of the kiss. I felt my feet off the ground and I gasped in shock when my back hit the hard surface of the wall, my feet now dangling in the air. I grabbed the support of his shoulders. Instead, he took my hands and pinned them above my head.

My mind was spinning. This was too fast to keep up. Too hot to withstand. Too intense for me. It was like he was sucking away all my pain through a kiss.

A strangled moan escaped from the back of my throat as he pushed his tongue deeper into my mouth. Somebody save me because I am going to pass out any second now, probably due to lack of oxygen!

Everything in me was fluttering, flipping, somersaulting and spinning.

He swiped his tongue over my lips and pressed his forehead on mine. I was too shocked to breathe while he was panting heavily.

"Been wanting to do that for some time now."

What was my name again?

He released my hands and gently held my face, his eyes softening.

"Come with me."

I shook my head in a very lazy manner and blinked rapidly when I felt it spin again. "N-No. Y-You said it yourself. I don't follow orders."

"Please."

Oh dear, sweet mother of God. This is not an order.

Author's note:

And she went into shock again.😂

We got 2K reads!

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They kissed again!

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She came back to the mansion!

Yaay—Wait, what?

The next update is going to be a week later!

Booooo. 😂

Try to find something fishy about what Leonardo said about three people in the whole mansion knowing about his mother being kicked out. 🧐

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