Chapter 5 - The Fragile SilenceThe room was a disaster zone of quiet devastation.
The IV pole had been knocked over, the plastic bag of saline leaking in a steady, slow pool across the pale wood floor. The medical monitor was flatlining with a long, piercing, unbroken shriek that cut through the silence of the penthouse like a razor blade.
Simone was on the floor.
She had tried to get out of bed—perhaps to reach the call button, perhaps because the terror of the gunfire outside had overwhelmed her desire to stay anchored to the sheets. Now, she lay crumpled against the side of the nightstand, her breathing shallow, erratic, and terrifyingly thin. Sunny was sitting right beside her, frantically licking her pale cheek, whining with a frantic, heartbroken energy that tore at Thorne's soul.
Thorne dropped his weapon. The heavy carbine hit the floor with a dull thud.
In three long strides, he crossed the room, dropping to his knees beside her. The cold veneer of the ruthless mafia boss shattered completely, leaving only raw, exposed panic.
"Simone," he said, his voice cracking—a sound he hadn't made since he was a starving child in a municipal group home. "Simone, look at me."
Her eyelids fluttered open, heavy and slow. Her dark eyes, usually so sharp and piercing, were clouded with a dull, milky haze. She tried to smile, but her lips parted only slightly, a faint wheeze escaping her chest.
"You... you missed," she whispered, her voice barely a breath against his ear as he gathered her slight, weightless frame into his arms, pressing her against his chest.
"I didn't miss anything," Thorne said, his voice trembling as he pressed his face into her hair, inhaling the scent of lavender and impending loss. "The hallway is clear. No one is coming. You're safe."
"I was trying..." she coughed, a thin streak of crimson staining her pale lips. "I was trying to find... the book. The architecture book. I wanted to see the photograph again."
Thorne’s heart seized. He reached out with a trembling hand, pulling the drawer of the nightstand open. Inside, resting beneath a pad of medical notes, was the worn copy of The Architecture of Light. He pulled it out, opened the cover, and let the small, faded photograph fall into his palm.
The boy in the oversized hard hat. The construction site from thirty years ago.
He pressed the photograph into her cold, trembling fingers, folding her hand closed over it. "I have it," he murmured, his tears—hot and unfamiliar—falling against her wrist. "I have it right here."
Simone closed her eyes, her grip on his hand tightening for one brief, desperate second before her fingers slowly, irrevocably went slack.
The piercing shriek of the monitor continued its unbroken note.
May you like
Sunny let out a long, mournful howl, pressing his golden head against Simone’s lifeless hand.
Thorne didn't move. He held her against his chest in the center of the silent room, the city lights glittering far below through the floor-to-ceiling glass, completely unaware that the world had just ended for the man who owned it.
