WARNING THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTION OF SUICIDE, THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL OF MY AUDIENCE.

Marco POV

Lorenzo was screaming.

His blood covered hands shook her shoulders as he called her name over and over and over again.

The way he called for her made me flinch, his voice was tethered by nothing, and every syllable sounded broken.

Serina's name echoed like a chant, bouncing off the walls and mocking us. Mocking him.

His body trembled, and his hands that were on her couldn't hold still. "Serina!" He yelled at her, as she laid there motionless. A soft look on her face, almost like she'd found peace in this, while he found nothing but hell.

He grabbed her quickly, pulling her lifeless body
Into his torn up suit. Hugging her into his chest, And he cried.

My brother, my friend and my boss was never like this , yet as he held the body of his lover in his hands soaked with her warm and wet blood, he whispered prayers into her skin despite him being the most vile of sinners.

Their baby cried in my arms, thrashing. It's cries like a soft call to the both of them.

" you're okay. You're okay." Lorenzo told her, as he fisted his hand into her ratty hair and rocked her body.

Her hand still laying flat against the matress. Soaked in her own blood.

I just stared, and stared. My heart felt nothing, and I couldn't even move. I couldn't move even if I tried to.

She was dead. She was dead. She looked dead.

Lorenzo placed his forehead against hers, as he shook his head In pure and unhinged denial. Like he didn't believe this was real, that if he closed his eyes for long enough hers would open and she'd answer him.

But this—this truth. He couldn't bare this. Nor would he even try to.

A part of Lorenzo had always been broken, but I never thought I'd truly ever get to watch him completely shatter into pieces. Like the countless mirrors Serina had broken throughout her time with us.

He wore armour that was untouchable, but with a single look from her it could clatter to the floor.

She became everything to him. Everything he needed. Even if he refused to need her in the beginning.

And so, I envied what they had. Their love.
They were insane, they were crazy, yet they were so bound to each other's souls you could never say that they didn't love each other with everything that they had.

Lorenzo couldn't live without her. He knew he couldn't.

He picked her up in a swift movement, her body hanging from his arms.

"Lorenzo..." I began, but I knew there wasn't a single thing that I could say or do that could make him change whatever mission he'd take.

"Dont." He froze as I reached out to touch his shoulder, his back stiffening. "Not right now." His voice cracked, and his body that was hard as stone slowly crumbled into shards and shrapnel.

This would destroy him. It seems it already has.

And She would destroy him, just like he had always said she would.

This moment is why he is scared of her. Why he was so damn afraid to love her. Because he knew if she died, she'd take every single part of him with her.

He felt like he was disease. Killing everyone who came close. He hated himself for not saving his mother. Hated himself for being his father son.
Hated himself for knowing that If Serina dared to love him, it could kill them.

He shook out his shoulders, and walked down the hallway. Holding his wife like the most delicate of treasures.

The wails of his child made him stop once more looking back for a moment.

His gaze made me look down, at the little thing in my arms.

It's movement made my arm burn, yet I held him anyways.

He was so small, his hair a dark messy fuzz that mimicked serina's long hair. His eyes—the exact same colour that shown in Lorenzo's eyes as he looked back at me.

But as quickly as he looked back, he turned again, and walked down the hallway. Gone.

•
I didn't know what happened to them after he left. I wasn't sure of anything anymore.

I liked the think that I always was in control. Had everything covered.

Being Lorenzo's second hand man I tasked In preventing situations like this. Preventing invasions.

Prevent the shooting of his pregnant wife.

But yet once again, I failed Serina. And I failed myself.

When I am tasked with watching over her and protecting her, it's seems as if I can do anything but that. And I wasn't sure how my failures would affect how today would end, either with her death or his.

I felt like stone. The halls were so silent as people stood outside a door. Trying their best to catch a glimpse inside a room.

Countless people.

Of course none dared to enter inside, knowing better than.

"What's going on?" I asked, still holding the baby in my arms, Now wrapped in a little swaddle covered in a print of sparrows, and a bunch of people turned my way—some staring.

"The baby's okay?" Rosario stepped out of the crowd, walking up to me with tears in his eyes. His eyes red, strained, wide and desperate.

I didn't answer him, I didn't even say a word.

Rosario looked into my eyes for a moment, before turning his gaze to the little thing that seemed to draw all attention without even trying.

Everyone was looking at the precious little baby that was in a crowd full of murderers and ghosts.

The baby that would one day be what Lorenzo was. He was Lorenzo heir. A prince of a kingdom of darkness and death.

"I asked what was going on." I commanded to know. And Rosario spoke but didn't lift his eyes from the baby, his hand reached out for a moment as if he was moving to touch it, but before he could he pulled it away.

"It's—it's not good she..." Rosario said, but I didn't even have to hear the rest of his sentence to know what he was going to say.

"Don't speak another word." I whispered, and he closed his mouth. Looking down at the floor he blew out a painful breath.

"Marco—" Rosario whispered but I just shook my head and walked past him, opening the door and letting it creak open.

I'd seen this scene before. Her laying in a hospital bed looking like death and him at her side. Holding her hand and whispering sweet prayers into her cold skin.

Yet now the picture I saw was a little different, Lorenzo now sat in a chair against the wall, staring into what seemed to be a endless nothing.

I closed the door behind me, looking back at the eyes that stared at me through the small window pane, and I stared back in a way that they all nodded and dispersed, until it was only the four of us.

Me, Lorenzo, Serina and the baby.

"I wanted to think I would get this." He said, as he looked at the paint. Like there was something there that I just couldn't see.

"Sorry?" I whispered.

"I wanted to believe I could give her this. Give her the family she never had. Be the father I wish mine was—" he continued, as a tear fell down his cheek. "But no matter what I do, I always put her in danger. I will always end up...hurting her."

"She loved you. More then anything. More than—"
I began, knowing that this was the kind of self destruction that led him nowhere good in the past.

"I killed her." He said painfully slowly, his lip trembling, his hands shaking.

I didn't know what to say. What I could say. But even if I was able to form words, nothing would be good enough.

Because he didn't want or need those words from me. He only cared when they came from her.

And like on instinct, like the little thing could sense all the poisonous intentions in the air, it cried. Lorenzo eyes shooting to his child's.

And before I knew, Lorenzo was before me, grabbing him from my grasp. Lorenzo stood before me, a wreck as he cradled his child in his arms, his eyes tired and dead. They looked so lost.

It seemed so strange to see him in this light, a monster all his own, holding a baby so innocent and pure.

He ran his finger across its cheek, before he turned his gaze to me.

"I wont live without her." He whispered "I can't." He continued plainly, as if he knew the word 'won't' didn't suffice.

"Lorenzo." I whispered shaking my head and looking at my shoes.

"I want to tell you that I'm strong enough." He whispered. "I should be strong enough. But Marco I'm not. I'm...Im not." He said, with eyes wet and shattered.

"She's not...not dead." I said, turning my gaze to her. And no, she wasn't dead. Yet she was strapped to so many machines I barely recognized her. She may as well have been dead.

"She's gone!" He screamed at me. And God he sounded like he wanted nothing more then to be gone to. "She is gone." He said each syllable like knives were slicing his throat.

He shook his head as he began pacing around the room, shaking and looking insane.

"I need you to promise me you'll keep him safe." He told me, as he came beck to stand before me.

"What?" I asked. But I knew exactly what he was talking about. I wasn't a fool.

"I can't trust anyone. Not with this. Him." Lorenzo was scrambling, breaking. His eyes shooting ever couple words to Serina and ever time his eyes came back to mine there were even more dark and empty.

"What are you asking me?" I growled. I knew that in his death and hers, everything would be mine. His domain and hers would fall into my fingers whether I wanted it to or not. But I'd know that since I've know what power Lorenzo was capable of, and that has never scared me.

But what he was asking me right now had nothing to do with his power, his money, his domain. And everything to do with—

"Take him." He Growled furiously, his jaw clenching.

"And when he asks about his parents. About Who he is?" I whispered as I grabbed him from Lorenzo's arms. "His future."

"Tell him he is a king." He said, while taking out his pistol, aiming it at himself as he walked to her bedside.

The Final chapter of Sparrow will come out not long after this one.

Xoxo-AbigalKnightly