Four hours later, the head surgeon finally came back from the operating room. He was the best surgeon in the country. He had been in a conference in Seattle but flew over as soon as Amelia was brought in.

Dr. Parker was a middle aged man who still looked fit and had a few grey hairs in his dark hair. He had bags under his grey eyes from staying up so late.

"Your daughter's condition is stable. She'll make it."

I've waited one whole day for those words.

Mom pulled me closer against her as I sobbed. This relief was the most intense feeling that I ever felt before. It was also terrifying. It could've gone wrong as well and that knowledge made me feel not only grateful but also nauseous.

What if Amelia had passed away?

She was my sister. My best friend. My support in a house filled with testosterone. We were a pair.

I don't know what I would've done if that pair got split up.

She meant the world to me.

"We'll keep her in the IC unit for at least a week." Dr. Parker explained to dad as they shook hands.

"Can we go to her?" Dad questioned.

I wanted to see her. I wanted to be by her side.

"Only parents." Dr. Parker nodded.

Only mom and dad were allowed to see her?

I felt my heart break. Mom cupped my face and softly wiped away my tears. I've waited so long to see my sister again and now I couldn't.

"I'll tell you everything, alright. You know that I'll take great care of Amelia."

I know that but I still felt so upset. I watched how my parents were led towards the IC unit while I sat there in the waiting room. Victor got up from his seat and held out his hand for me.

"She's going to fine. Let's prepare to meet her."

In a week, I'd hopefully see my sister again. I'll just have to pray that until then, she'll be safe and healthy.

///////////////

Four days had passed and I was going insane. Mom had reported to me every day that Amelia was doing better but I would only believe it for myself when I see her. The doctors planned to move her to a normal room in three days and then our family would be allowed to visit her.

Until then, I was restless.

I couldn't sleep or eat. I paced around my room or sometimes went to Amelia's. She wasn't gone but my heart felt heavy. I knew where she was and that she was recovering, but I was still panicked that sometime would happen to her.

All my thoughts were irrational. Hector had the hospital secured with his men and he even caught the asshole who did this to Amelia.

What frustrated me was the fact that he didn't share the details with me. All I was allowed to know was that the threat has been dealt with.

"Try to eat a little, bambina." Greta kissed my cheek when she placed down a sandwich in front of me.

I didn't even know why I bothered to come to the kitchen when I didn't eat. I wasn't hungry and everything tasted like stale.

The kitchen was empty except for Ariana and I. Ariana was feeding Fabio while keeping an eye on me. Theo probably asked her to do that. My brothers hovered around me like mother's hen and I snapped. Last night, I cursed Silas out like I've never done before.

I even regretted it. That was how bad it was.

The things I said were foul and I was ashamed.

"If you don't eat, you'll get sick. It's not good to visit Amelia when you're sick, Elle." Ariana spoke when she noticed that I pushed my plate away.

That was true but I just couldn't get myself to eat.

"I'm not hungry." I muttered.

She held Fabio up against her chest and patted his back to help him burp.

"Your mind is full. You're overthinking. I know what that's like and what that does to you. Try to empty your mind."

"And how do you do that, huh?" I snapped harshly.

I can't empty my mind. It's always filled but now even more than usual. Ariana didn't change her expression or get angry with me for being a brat. She just nodded and her eyes softened.

"After Diego would rape me, I wouldn't eat for days. I kept replaying those awful scenes in my head while trying to figure out why I deserved that. Those thoughts made me feel nauseous and scared. It took over my entire life."

I tensed. Ariana was open about what happened to her. We were her family and we'd never do anything to hurt her. She was a victim and came out of that hell stronger than ever.

"Worrying or overthinking is exactly what they want from us. The attacker wanted to hurt our family by hurting Amelia. He wants us to get scared and create tension within our family. But we're strong together. Amelia is going to be fine. She's a strong girl. Don't underestimate your sister."

I couldn't hold back the tears. Ariana handed me a napkin and gave me a soft smile. She was right.

My mind was my biggest strength but also my biggest weakness.

The door to the kitchen opened and Hector walked in with Dahlia. Their wedding had been ruined but they didn't seem to be bothered by it. They were officially married and that was all that mattered to them. Besides, they were more worried about Amelia than their wedding.

I have ignored Hector for the past few days after trying to force me to leave the hospital. Our eyes met as I tried to wipe my tears away.

"Give it to her." Dahlia handed him a bag.

From Starbucks.

Hector sighed but sat down next to me and placed the bag in front of me. My eyes whelmed up with tears and I couldn't stop them anymore.

"I'm sorry, Elena, for forcing you to leave. That was wrong from me. I shouldn't have done that." He apologised.

I held my hands up to my eyes.

"I'm worried about you. I don't want you to get sick or be upset. Amelia is going to be fine. She's doing better everyday. I won't ever allow anything like that to happen again. You have my word."

They got my cake pops. I don't know why that made me cry even harder. Perhaps it was because I haven't had one in almost a week.

"Just hug her already, idiot!" Dahlia urged him impatiently.

He pulled me on his lap and hugged me. I laid my arms around his broad shoulders and held onto him. Even though I'm still angry with him for trying to force me to leave the hospital, nothing has changed between us. He was still the person I turned to when I was terrified, he was still my safety.

"You know how much I love you, little one. It breaks my heart to see you cry." He whispered in my ear.

When I first met him, I couldn't stand him. I did everything I could to make his life difficult. He ruined mine so I had to ruin his.

It was odd to see how much that has changed.

I still bother him of course but I'd never want to intentionally hurt him like I used to want. Hector doesn't need protection, he can fend for himself, but I'd take a bullet for him.

I'd take one for this entire family.

"I love you too." I whispered back.

He pressed a kiss to my temple and handed me a cake pop. For the first time in a week, the food didn't taste like stale.

I met his worried eyes.

Silas used to joke around that I had Hector all wrapped around my finger. That I was his favourite out of all my siblings. Maybe I've known it for a while but today it hit me like a truck.

I was his favourite.

Hector and I were alike. We shared a lot of physical features but it was more than that.

In the nearby future, it will only become clearer how much we're alike and he may not like it when it comes to a point when I'm not his little Elena anymore.

////////////

Omniscient teller:

They caught the shooter two hours after the shooting. Daniel Choi was found in his apartment by Theo and Hector. He'd been busy packing a bag and collecting all of his valuables to leave the money. Theo found a fake ID and ticket to Japan.

"W-what are you doing here?" Daniel stuttered after they kicked in his door.

The apartment was small. His bedroom was right next to the kitchen and he had a very tiny bathroom. The boy had attended the same private high school as the Cassano's. That school doesn't accept any scholarship students. Daniel Choi was the son of a well-renowned surgeon and a professor at Yale.

It was odd for him to live in a tiny apartment in a bad neighbourhood.

"You know why we're here." Hector muttered as he scanned the apartment.

Almost a year ago, he had threatened the boy to never come near Elena again after he cheated on her. He made sure that no university of prestige would accept him. He couldn't simply kill the boy: he was an outsider and was seventeen at the time.

Now, he won't hesitate to kill him.

"You told me to stay away from Elena. I did." Daniel protested.

Theo picked up the fake ID and looked at Daniel with his brows raised. Daniel squirmed in his spot and turned pale. He wasn't a good liar which was enough to indicate that he didn't do this on his own.

The church had several security checks before the ceremony. Hector had made sure that it was safe. It was his wedding and he didn't want it to he ruined. Daniel wasn't the type to organise such an attack. He was a dumb coward whose never held a gun before probably.

"Heading off towards Japan?" Theo asked him.

"I got into Tokyo University." Daniel admitted.

That wasn't a lie.

"Why'd you need a fake ID?" Theo demanded.

Hector could tell that Daniel wasn't lying about getting into Tokyo University but it was suspicious that he needed a fake ID.

"Because your family ruined my name. I had to get a fake one so that I could go to college." Daniel snapped.

The anger and resentment was clear in his voice. That was the motive Hector was looking for. Daniel was angry with him for ruining his life so he took it out on Amelia.

But that was still odd.

"Why'd you shoot Amelia?" Hector asked.

He calmly leaned against the wall. Daniel was not in a right state of mind right now. Getting angry with him was not going to do them any good. They needed answers. That's why they decided to not bring Silas. He was good at torturing but he didn't have the patience for interrogating.

"I-I didn't. I-I-" Theo cut off a stuttering Daniel.

"We found this at the scene." He held up a batch.

Daniel was apparently working at a McDonalds. It was his employee card. He managed to drop it at the scene which only confirmed to Hector that he was not the mastermind behind this attack.

The guy was a fucking idiot.

"I didn't mean to shoot Amelia. I was aiming at Elena but I missed." Daniel got out.

His chest was moving up and down rapidly. He was panicking because he got caught. He probably thought that he'd have more time so he could successfully flee the country. He would've if he wasn't so dumb to leave his batch behind.

"I don't have the time for your lies. You'll tell me who organised this attack." Hector rolled his eyes.

"I did this on my own."

Again lies.

"You shot at our sister and then randomly started to shoot around to cause more chaos. If you were that panicked that you mistakenly hit the wrong person, you'd stop shooting or at least try to shoot again with a better aim. You did neither. You just shot at the ceiling. This was an organised attack. Now you will tell us who gave you orders." Theo snapped.

Daniel leaned down against the wall and dropped to the floor. Theo and Hector collectively rolled their eyes when he started to cry. He wasn't crying from remorse but because he got caught.

Because he knows what they'll do to him.

"If you tell us who gave you the orders, I won't kill you. I'll let you get on that plane to Tokyo but if you ever come back to this country again, then I'll kill you." Hector spoke.

Daniel looked at him with wide eyes. They always got desperate in these types of situations. Hector liked to tap into that desperation. Exploit it and use it against them.

He knew when people were lying because he was a master liar himself.

If Daniel was thinking rationally, he'd figure out that this was a trap. Hector will never let him leave the country. But Daniel wasn't thinking rationally, he was thinking desperately.

"He gave me this place after picking me up from the streets. My parents kicked me out after I didn't get into any college. So I was homeless for a couple of weeks." He rubbed his eyes with his hands.

Hector was mainly responsible for that but that was his intention. He wanted to ruin the guy's life after what he did to his little sister. It would be a lie to say that he felt sorry.

"He helped me get a job at McDonalds. I felt so indebted to him that I'd do anything he asked. At first he asked for information about Amelia. He knew that we were friends in high school. I didn't ask any questions why until last week when he approached me with a plan. He asked me to shoot Amelia in her stomach. It wasn't supposed to he a lethal shot, he wanted her to survive."

Hector hasn't had to deal with threats directed towards Amelia. She grew up with them and the family made it very clear since the beginning that no one was allowed to approach or bother her. The only thing he ever had to do was chase away some dumb idiots who thought they were good enough for her.

"Who's this man?" Theo demanded.

Daniel reached for something in his pocket. Theo rested his hand on his gun in case he had to pull it out. Daniel took out his phone and held it up. It was a number and a name.

"Tristan Walker." Theo read.

The name was unfamiliar and didn't make any bells ring. Hector stepped closer to Daniel and yanked him off the floor.

"You're going to call him right now."

"But-" he cut Daniel off.

"You want to go to Tokyo, don't you?"

Daniel nodded quickly and Hector held out his hand for the phone. Theo handed it to him.

"You're going to call him and tell him that Amelia has passed away." Hector instructed him.

"She's dead?!" Daniel panicked.

He shot her himself and now he feels remorse for what he did.

"No, but I need Tristan Walker to think that she is." Hector dialled the number.

It rang three times before a man picked up. His voice was deep and he had a horrible cough.

"Daniel, how'd it go?" He sounded sickly amused.

Hector gave Daniel a warning glare.

"I killed her. I'm sorry- I didn't know-"

"WHAT?!" Tristan screamed.

Daniel flinched. He tried to speak again but Tristan cut him to it.

"YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER!"

They turned silent. Hector and Theo shared a glance. Either this Tristan was a psycho who believed Amelia was his daughter for some reason or they just discovered who Diana had Amelia with. It'd always been a mystery in the family.

There had been speculation that it been Dimitri Petrov, the Russian mob boss, who organised Elena's kidnapping. But after taking a bit of his DNA, they discover that it wasn't him.

"I'm coming over right now! I'm going to kill you!"

The line went dead. Daniel started to panic but Hector slapped him hard across the face.

"He's not going to hurt you." He snapped.

No, the Cassano's were going to tear him apart and they wouldn't allow anyone else to hurt him. He was theirs to deal with.

"My plane leaves-"

"We'll fly you over in our private jet as soon as we're done here." Theo promised him.

Lies. They were all lies.

//////////////

It took Tristan Walker five minutes to arrive at Daniel's apartment. He ran inside the apartment with a knife reading to tear him apart but he walked in on Theo who quickly disarmed him.

Tristan Walker was in his mid forties' and had Amelia's brown eyes. It was hard to confess that the man resembled their little sister a lot. They never looked at Amelia like she was their cousin, no she was their sister. No matter what the blood said.

Now the men were sitting in the warehouse. The cells were mostly occupied but they had some vacant ones left for Daniel and Tristan. Daniel soon understood what his fate was when he walked down the basement and saw the blooded people.

Hector locked him up in a cell before he walked to Tristan's cell. Silas had cuffed him to a chair and they were ready to interrogate him.

"Ah, Hector Cassano comes to interrogate me himself." Tristan smirked widely.

Theo handed his older brother a file. He'd asked his men to find more information about Tristan but they didn't find a lot. He worked as an engineer for a tech company and seemed to be a regular outsider. His only encounter with law enforcement was for a few speeding tickets but nothing more.

His record was clean. Too clean.

"How did you know to contact Daniel Choi?" Hector asked.

He sat down in front of the man. Tristan looked amused even when he got caught by the Cassano's.

"I've been keeping tabs on my daughter."

Silas slapped him hard across his face. His little sister was now in surgery and this crazy man kept referring to him as his daughter.

"She isn't yours." Silas snapped.

Hector noticed how his smirk fell for a split second. Tristan was sensitive about Amelia, about the fact that no one even knows that she's his.

"I was the only one who was fucking Diana. Amelia is mine." He sounded smug.

"How do you know that? Did she ever tell you that you got her pregnant?" Theo questioned.

Diana never spoke about what had happened. She took the torture she was put under like a hardened felon and never opened up about it. Soon after Elena discovered her in Italy, she passed away from her injuries.

It was for the better that she was gone out of their lives.

"She loved my dick too much to be getting it from another man." Tristan laughed.

Hector took a deep breath. The man was clearly insane and all he wanted to do was tear him to pieces, but he couldn't. Not yet. He had to extract all the information out first so that he knew for certain that there was no longer a threat against Amelia.

"The only thing we learned from that is that the bitch was into small dicks." Silas rolled his eyes.

Tristan glared at him. Hector usually kept a tight grip on Silas during interrogations. It was easy for Silas to get overwhelmed by his emotions and act upon them. But now Hector let him taunt the man, because it showed him a lot.

"Did you know how desperate she was to get pregnant? She probably came to you because you were willing. And then she disappeared, didn't she?" Silas smirked.

Hector noticed how Tristan was fisting his hands. He was angry and shaking. He tried to be in control but he wasn't. And that drove him to be angry.

"Is this your twisted way of revenge on Diana? Shooting the child you made together. Were you angry when she gave Amelia to our family? Were you angry that Amelia became a Cassano and called another man dad?"

Tristan tried to throw a punch but Silas easily dodge it. He only laughed at the pathetic man who was now moving wildly in his seat.

"If I don't get to have her, no one can!"

They watched how he lost his mind. First he started to cry. His face turned red as he wept but then it shifted into a smile. He started to laugh so hard that Silas had to punch him a few times to make him shut up.

"But she's already dead and so will I soon. I'll take her with me." He laughed manically.