CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Audra's POV
For the next day, Leo and I spent all of our time together making love, cooking, and just enjoying each other's company. I never felt anything as like this in a relationship. It's great! After us taking a personal day, we're both going back to work at the hospital.
Stopping briefly at my house to put on my sky blue scrubs, I look in the mirror and a strong feeling of uneasiness eases over me. I've always been one to have an accurate intuition, but I ignored as I put some mascara and winged eyeliner on. Probably just something eventful at the hospital.
As we drove to the hospital, my heart pounded in my chest. THUD THUD THUD. I felt queasy and all I could do is give into the urge to squeeze Leo's hand. His dark eyes seem to brim with an unreadable emotion as he looks at me with concern.
"What's wrong baby?" His words are like a soft blanket around a wiry exterior.
"Yeah, just feeling funny." With a firm squeeze and a soft stroke on my hand, we approach the hospital, my nerves feel like they're being pumped full of acid. I notice a huge car in the staff parking. I haven't seen it before so it caught my attention. Probably Dr. Zi. He's the most vain man I've ever met. Being a plastic surgeon suits him!
Clocking in and starting our shift, my nerves ease a bit. We get a announcement over the intercom for Leo and I to report to the receptionist desk on the first floor.
"Leo did you request anything?" My eyebrows furrow in confusion.
"No, did you?" I shake my head. Eh, maybe the directors want to see us.
We reach the reception desk and no one is there. Looking around, there's no one even around us. What the hell?
At that very moment, a deafening blast goes off. Through the window Leo an I see his car being incinerated into a heap of ash and metal.
"Leo! What's going on? I'm afraid!" We start to run to the employee break room only to be ambushed with a shower of gunfire. My blood runs cold. Leo and I duck behind tables and chairs only for me to bump into one the mysterious gunmen in black.
"Well, well, well aren't a young a pretty thing?" He lifts me up and over his shoulder. I scream for my life desperately trying to get Leo's attention. But instead I see his body crumpled over a chair with blood running down his chest. My heart shatters and I finally manage to get away from the gunman.
I make my way to Leo and I don't see the gunner anywhere. I don't give a damn anyway because my priority is Leo.
"Baby don't leave me. Leo you've gotta wake up!" All is silent around us but that's not surprising since this is the private hall that's in the process of being renovated. The sound-proof walls allow everywhere else in the hospital to still function without unnecessary noise.
His chest is leaking blood but he's still clinging into life. I remove my scrub top and apply pressure to his wound. I've gotta save him.
"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! A DOCTOR HAS BEEN SHOT AND HE'S DYING! HELP!" All I can do is sit and scream for help. I feel so powerless and I can't help it!
"Baby...." I hear Leo's faint voice. It's chills me to my soul.
"Yes? Baby you're going to be fine." I don't believe it, but it's better than nothing. Tears flow from my eyes as I feel my heart breaking even more.
"No I won't. But while I have my last few breaths, I need to tell you something. I love you. I love you so much Audra. I don't know how or why this happened, but I'm glad I took that bullet for you..." Tears start to form in his eyes. " You're the most incredible woman that I've ever met and I was going to marry you, I really was. All of my estate is left to you also. But for my last wishes, find out who did this and make them pay baby. When I'm gone live your life. Don't turn away from love because of me darling. I'll always be in your heart and you'll always be in mine. Never will I leave you Audra."
My heart is shattered glass. I kiss Leo one last time and his dark eyes look at me with intense love. "I love you Leo."
He smiles and tells me this: "Walk by faith and not by sight Audra. I love you too, I'm never far away." Leo looks in my eyes one last time as I feel the life leave him. I know he's gone. I don't even check for a pulse. Kissing his lips and pushing down his eyelids, I pray for him and this situation. Insure to let him go, but I look around for an emergency alert button. I find one, but the cord has been clipped. So has the intercom box.
I sprint up the dim stairwell up to the main floor screaming hysterically. I run right into Dr. Zi with tears in my eyes. I practically yank him down the stairs to show him the scene of chaos that I just emerged from.
Standing in shock, he puts in a code blue memo and nurses, doctors, and security swarm the area. My head swims with an incredible sense of loss. Leo is gone...
As doctors and nurses rush Leo's lifeless body upstairs to the ER, I walk around entranced and refusing to talk to anyone. As I make my way around the bend of the downstairs stepping over glass and debris, I come across a body. A moving one...
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Danté's POV
Dealing with another restless night with Bella getting up from bed, a fear grips me. Something's going to happen. I hear Bella's light footsteps coming up the stairs and I call out to her only to be greeted by a dark figure.
"We meet again Danté." I recognize that voice anywhere- Antonio. What's he doing here?!
"What are you doing here?" He lets out a sadistic laugh and this is one of the times I desperately wanted to have eyesight.
"My plan was to get Audra back, but you fucked that up. So you'll pay for your stupidity. You thought that idiot Alex could beat me up enough that I'd leave? Do you know who I am and what I'm capable of?!" I had no clue, but I'm pretty sure he could kill me at any moment.
"Where the hell is Bella?" Oh fuck, she's working with him! I should've known. That backstabbing, lying whore!
"She's talking to her husband silly. Did you think she'd come back to a blind imbecile like you? Haha! She told me about your family. Quit being a bitch and suck it up, you know they fed instead of being with you any longer. Too bad, it should've been you burning to a crisp." His words struck a nerve with me. But instead of feeling sad, I'm pissed. So I charged at him.
We fight for a bit only to have Bella sprinting up the stars and for her to plunge a knife in my stomach without saying a word. A searing pain rendered me weak. A steady stream of blood flowed from my abdomen.
"C'mon Bella, we've gotta get him in the car if we want our plan to go smoothly." What plan? Am I going to die? I'm not scared of death but I regret up and leaving Audra. Word from Dani tells me that she's dating Dr. Del Zotto. Women literally fall at his feet and sure enough, he had to have her. With that soft mocha skin, curly ethnic hair, curvaceous body, and strong nature, any man would want her. Formulating my own description of Audra's appearance I hardly notice being lifted into the backseat of a large sedan. Applying pressure to my stab wound, I fall into a pained and fitful sleep.
Waking up to an unseen brightness, Antonio or Bella are still driving the car. Where in the hell could we possibly be going?
Antonio talks on his phone trying to be as quiet as possible, but my hearing is excellent because I can't see and my other senses make up for it.
"We're coming up to the hospital so get your asses into place!" Antonio hisses into the phone.
So that's where we're going. Who could possibly be there.
"Where's the fucking will Danté?" Antonio yells in my face. It has a foul odor that I'm sure would've melted my face off is he was here any longer. But what will? I don't have a will!
"What are you talking about?" I hear a sigh and a growl. This time I hear Bella speak with venom in her voice.
"The will that your family left to you before I burned them to a crisp!" Oh my God, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My world of agony and despair was caused by Bella's greed?! Though my heart split in two, my anger was directed fully towards her. I will never hit a woman no matter what she's done though.
"You stupid whore! I don't have a will!" Can't she get the point?
Bella sits there in silence. Antonio cuts into the palpable tension between us.
"Fuck you Danté let the games begin." He picks up his phone and orders whoever is on the other line to go in with the plan. I hear an explosion not even a minute later. Goodness what are they doing?
I hear sadistic laughing from Bella and Antonio and I wonder what else they have prepared. All of the arguing was hurting my injured stomach. While I clutch my abdominal wound, I am roughly pushed into a room. This just be the hospital. Then gunshots go off.
My blood runs cold when I hear a familiar voice crying out in fear and agony: Audra. I stumble towards the direction of her voice. Why was I so stupid? Why did I have to leave.
She's yelling for someone and keeps calling him "Leo"; who's he? When the word "baby" slips through her lips in a sob, I know she has found someone else. My emotional state deteriorates even more so as a knife is pressed into my back.
"Don't move" an unfamiliar voice commands. Ignoring the screams and gunfire, I fight against him only to be stabbed again in the stomach. I drop to the ground and unconsciousness swallows me. Where are the other doctors and security? I hear bustling and people running and the sound if an alarm.
I struggle to pull my eyes open and I see the one person who can make this mess better. Audra!
I faintly plead with her to not leave me. She murmurs something about "gunmen being gone." Sounding the alarm again the medics come but for me. Then suddenly everything goes black and the last thing I hear is Audra's yelling. I know I'm dying...
*Hey guys! I literally just found out that I passed my STNA test!! I'm so happy! Now that that's over with I'll be updating quite a bit more hopefully.
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