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21: A Month After

Author: Fallenwild
last update Last Updated: 2024-11-30 07:53:03

It’s been a month since the shooting.

Alejandro insisted we move to his penthouse while he recovered, a sprawling glass-and-steel fortress perched in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. The place screamed wealth—floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the skyline. A view that would’ve made a poet cry.

And yet, I couldn’t enjoy it.

Every time I saw him shirtless—his shoulder bandaged, the bruising still fading—I felt the phantom stickiness of his blood on my hands. Every time he winced, I heard the echo of that gunshot.

I was losing sleep over it

The news didn’t break until two days after the shooting outside the Wellington Club.

Carl Whitman, the Texas oil tycoon, had been the sniper’s primary target. The bullet meant for him struck true, ending his life in an instant. It all made sense in hindsight—the chaos, the way the attack seemed planned down to the second. Carl Whitman was the prize. But if that was true, what the hell had Alejandro and I been caught in? Collateral damage?

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