Chapter 7 - "Dante, Natalia means everything to me. I can't lose, I just can't."

All three of them waited.

Charles had cried so much that he couldn't cry anymore. All he did was stare at the wooden floor panels, wishing that this had been a nightmare, that he hadn't listened to Natalia and convinced her to stay home or tell her family.

As for Nate and Dante, they had no idea what to do.

All they could do was wait, which felt as though hours were passing by. Dante had his sweaty palms on his hips, pacing back and forth, while Nate continuously checked the clock, certain that it had been a couple hours even though the clock said it had only been fifteen minutes.

"Maybe..." Nate swallowed hard, eyeing the quivering Charles whose bloodshot eyes were facing down. "Maybe you should head upstairs, Charles."

Dante raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I don't want..." he gulped, biting his bottom lip, "...Lucius to...hurt him."

"I can't go upstairs..." Charles mumbled, slowly shaking his head. "I have to face Lucius, I'm the one who caused this."

"No, you didn't," Dante growled, taking the lead as he reached Charles. He placed his palms on both his shoulders, gripping them firmly and ordered, "Look at me, baby." When Charles slowly lifted his face to meet his gaze, Dante couldn't restrain the tears that overflowed his eyes as he whispered through a shaky breath, "This wasn't your fault, Charles."

Even though he spoke, it didn't change a single thing from Charles' expression. Instead, it only made him shake even more. Dante reached under his arm, forcing him onto his feet—even though Charles did not resist at all—and attempted to walk him towards the stairs. However, Charles wasn't moving his legs, feeling too weakened to even move any limb of his body, and Dante decided to grab him from the waist and carry him over his shoulder, bringing him upstairs.

Nate was glad Dante had done that, because not even a minute later, the door burst open and Nate jumped to his feet. The pounding footsteps resonated across the home as Lucius, without closing the door, stormed through.

"Lucius, before you—"

Lucius marched past Nate without even glancing down at him, searching around the living room. The traces of blood along the wooden panels was causing his heart to race even more, and his eyes frantically looked around before he hissed, "Where is my daughter?"

Jake followed inside shortly after, breathing heavily as he looked around as well. "There's blood all over the front porch; she better be fucking alive."

"Where the fuck is she?" Lucius screamed in Nate's face, which made him flinch. At the same time, that was when Dante returned, glancing between both Lucius and Jake whose shadowed faces made him swallow hard. "Why the fuck aren't either of you saying anything?!"

"Lucy, I want to say something first—"

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say, Nathan. Now tell me where the fuck she is—!"

"She's in the kitchen," Dante exhaled, reaching for Nate and pulling him back. From the broadened shoulders of Lucius, and the way his hands were tightened into rock solid fists, there was no telling how Lucius would react, and if he had thrown a punch, there was no guarantee that he would stop.

It was odd, since the moment Dante stated that, his darkened eyes lowering towards the floor, it took a moment for Lucius to finally move. It was as though he knew what was awaiting him in the kitchen, and he wanted to spend at least one minute not knowing about this fatal outcome. His eyes stared at the doorway entry to the kitchen, his throat clenching on itself as he thought of Natalia's rounded eyes staring up at him curiously when she was younger.

He must be dreaming; there was no way this was real.

Lucius' footsteps had been slower than earlier, as though he didn't want to see what was going to appear next. However, when he felt Jake's hand on his back, it was the only reason he felt courageous enough to enter the kitchen.

And that was when it all became real. The reality of it all came crashing down on their shoulders, bearing such heaviness that Jake couldn't even stay standing, collapsing onto his knees as he bursted into cries.

Lucius stared at the kitchen island table, where the outline of Natalia's body was underneath the white drape they had placed to cover her. She wasn't moving, her body appearing unbelievably still that Lucius knew exactly what this meant.

"She was shot point blank in the face," Dante's gravelly voice was heard from behind, but neither of them turned. "So if you don't want that image in your face, please don't uncover her."

This feeling was one that Lucius hadn't felt in almost twenty years. That gut-wrenching pain through his chest, as though the wound that had formed years ago had been re-opened with another bigger knife through it. He even reached for his chest, gripping the front of his shirt as he struggled to even get air into his lungs. It had only been one other time in his life that he had felt this, and it was when he had to face the love of his life die in his arms amidst the thunderous rainfall, listening to his last words of love that he would never hear again.

Why was he thinking about Raphael in this moment?

Before either of them uncovered her, Jake bolted from the kitchen, stumbling through the home as he hyperventilated, collapsing onto the ground a couple times before finally making it out of the house. Nate followed him, and before Jake could fall onto the ground, Nate caught him, holding him steady as Jake's wails echoed across the streets.

"Dante, I can't do this." Dante's eyes lifted towards Lucius who began to quiver. "Natalia's at home, she has to be at home. I'm headed back home—"

"Lucy..." Dante exhaled, slowly shaking his head. "You're not alone Lucius, we're all here with you through this."

"That's not her, that can't be her," Lucius ignored, lowering his gaze as he stared at his trembling fingers—they were growing blurry. "Dante, Natalia means everything to me. I can't lose, I just can't," he choked.

Dante couldn't hold it in anymore; his eyes flooded with tears as he whimpered, "I can't either."

It took a while for Lucius to have enough courage to reach for the drape. He didn't want to picture Natalia in that way, but he wanted to ensure that it truly was his daughter that he had vowed to protect from the moment she was born. Oddly enough, that drape felt as if it was heavier than a boulder as he gently pulled it away to uncover the face, and the moment he saw, his breathing stopped.

Lucius thought his mind had been sent into space from all the mixture of emotions making him go haywire. As his eyes widened in horror, Dante could practically see in Lucius' eyes all the memories of Natalia rushing through his mind. Celebrating her birthdays, her martial arts tournament, the adventures throughout the forest, helping Sarah cook, begging Jake to read novels to her, her bothering Lucius by jumping on his bed in the morning, or her first day of elementary school where Lucius bawled as though she would leave for days.

He couldn't take it.

One second, he was staring at his daughter, and the next, he fell onto the ground, unconscious.

***

"Where's Lucius?"

Dante pointed to the guest bedroom.

Both Bronsted and Jules barged in the bedroom, seeing the unconscious Lucius with a wet cold rag on his forehead. He was definitely having some form of nightmare since he kept squirming and his jaw kept tightening every so often.

All of them couldn't believe what they heard; of course they knew the situation with Natalia was bad, but they hadn't expected her to be shot and killed point blank in the face. Everyone in the city, even nearby cities, knew not to cross paths with Natalia Hercules because it would unleash a series of monsters behind her. Which was why this was mind blowing that someone would have been bold enough to not only hurt her, but to kill her and send her body back as a threat.

"You strapped him to the bed?" Bronsted noticed, reaching for Lucius's wrists, seeing how tightly they were strapped to them. That was when he noticed the ankles strapped as well. "Why would you do that?"

"He will be insane when he wakes up," Dante sighed, folding his arms. "I don't want him to hurt anyone." From everything they could have anticipated, this was definitely not one of them.

"Where's Nat?" Jules asked, swallowing hard as he followed Dante's motion to the kitchen. When they reached the kitchen, Cesar was already there, eyeing the wound on her forehead without a single tear drop across his cheeks.

It was a surprise that dramatic and over-the-top Cesar, was unbelievably focused that his eyes had never appeared that cold and murderous in front of them before. In all the years they had spent as an unrelated family, Cesar never even spoke in such a serious tone. But this entire time, there was no dramatized character, but an enraged troop leader who was determined to find out who did this to his family and make them pay.

Only her face was uncovered, and instantly, Bronsted placed a palm over his mouth and turned away. "I can't do this, I can't have that imagine in my mind." There was no way he thought he would ever witness his niece in this state; he couldn't bear to look at her this way. "Where's Nate?"

"Upstairs with Charles." Bronsted nodded his head, eluding the kitchen and heading up towards the staircase.

As Jules examined the execution shot, Jules was surprised by how wide the wound had been. This man that killed her was definitely not playing around, and that wasn't a cheap gun that he used. It was evident that they had tried to clean off the blood as much as they could, but it was still a gruesome sight.

"Do we know who did this?"

"Charles hasn't spoken yet," Dante explained to Jules who finally turned away.

Jules eyes widened when he realized there was another person involved in this that wasn't present. "Please tell me you've all told Sarah." Dante paused before slowly shaking his head. "This is going to kill her. Where is she?"

"At their base in the forest."

"Fuck, this is the worst thing that could've possibly happened," Jules sighed, shaking his head. They all had wonderful memories with Natalia, too many to count, and this loss was going to affect every single one of them, and one thing they were all terrible in dealing with was grief. "How's Charles?"

All Dante had been doing was sigh. "Not good, I think he saw the entire thing."

Jules' eyes widened in horror as he repeated, "He watched his childhood best friend get killed?" When Dante slowly nodded his head, Jules thought his mind would explode; this was way too much to handle. "You need to put him in therapy right away, he needs to talk to someone."

Dante hadn't really thought that far ahead. All he was thinking was to find out which bastard had done this and to make them pay in the worst way possible.

However, his attention was averted when he heard Cesar mumble to himself, still in the same position he was an hour ago. He had been examining the wound very closely, leaning his eye close enough to look inside, as though there was something extremely odd that he couldn't pinpoint.

The only reason he turned away was when Dante caught his attention and asked, "You okay, Cee?"

The next line spoken by Cesar shocked all of them that were present.

"That's one of my guns."

The silence was unbelievably heavy that one could hear a pin drop. Dante had started to sweat from that line, his folding arms unhooked right away as he approached Cesar who was attempted to measure the radius of the wound by putting a gloved finger over it and closing one eye.

"What do you mean it's one of your guns?" Jules repeated in disbelief.

Cesar finally met their gazes, and it was the first time they saw Cesar genuinely nervous. It was almost as if his age had finally caught up to him, because the series of wrinkles from his furrowed eyebrows and puckered lips, had never been like that before.

"Cesar, what the fuck do you mean?"

"You're both not going to like this, so I will ask you to keep this quiet until I do a bit more research," he sighed, shaking his head.

"Dad, tell us what the fuck it is already before I go nuts," Jules snapped, gritting his teeth.

Cesar exhaled a long breath, clearing his throat before he explained, "All my troopers receive one of my guns, which were shipped from Australia for many reasons, the important purpose being that we're able to identify the wounds. And this one was done by one of my guns. So that means," Cesar had to clear his throat again, his lips quivering when he admitted, "one of my men killed her."

Both of them felt as though they were about to faint. But what made it worse was when they heard from the bedroom, "The moment I'm out of these straps, I'm strangling all of you, and you're the first one to die, Cesar."