Mali, left alone in pondering silence, shifted and laid on her side, replaying everything that led to her miscarriage, and the miscarriage. Her eyes welled with tears. A strangled noise clawed its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down, her body rejecting the sound of grief.
The door swung open to admit a smug-looking Lei. Mali immediately knew her best friend had been up to something mischievous. She sat up, blinked away her the tears in her eyes and straightened her shoulders, trying to be tough.
"What did you do?" she asked, looking at Lei suspiciously.
"Nothing." Lei shrugged sheepishly. "Do you need something? Anything."
"Mmh-mmh."
"Maliah," Lei breathed out and took a seat on the stool beside Mali's bed. She was just about to get on with her mission on making Mali cry when they heard a commotion just outside the room.
Mali's eyes narrowed warily. "Lei. Did you call Warren?"
"Nope. I called Napo." As if that made a difference. "And also Peter."
Mali cursed Lei as she struggled to get up. Lei hurriedly grabbed a wheelchair from the other side of the room, pushed it towards Mali's bed and helped her sit.
When they made it outside her hospital room, Lei smiled upon seeing the scene in front of her.
A few nurses, doctors, and even two security officers had gathered, and not one of them tried to stop Warren as he strangled Peter. They knew better. Everyone knew who he was; a cruel mob boss, Dr. Maliah Manghini's brother. Even the most sane criminals - and a few law enforcers - made sure not to get in the way of a Manghini, but Warren had a way of making people cross the street just by looking at them. Of course, his reputation as a complete sociopath didn't help matters much.
Lei pushed Mali towards them and stopped a small distance away from the small crowd.
"Please stop." Amanda cried, trying to pull Warren away from her fiancé, but Warren was unyielding. "You're going to kill him, please."
Peter continued to choke, finding it difficult to get air in his lungs. His face started to turn blue, his eyes bulging.
"Warren..." Mali called out softly, and Warren finally took notice of her. He stared at her with intensity, his jaws tight, his shoulders stiff. He looked back at Peter and then let go of him.
Peter slumped down onto the floor like a heavy sack of sand, wheezing and to draw in a breath, looking panicked. Amanda knelt beside him as he coughed dryly, massaging his throat.
Warren walked over to Mali until he was standing right in front of her, his eyes roaming her body, concerned etched in his features. He knelt before her, caressing her cheek with the same hand that had just been squeezing Peter's throat. Warren was no longer a mob boss, only Mali's loving, ever-dependable older brother.
In his life, Warren had evolved into two flawless versions of the same person, both dark and light. Two distinct halves of the same coin. And only Maliah ever saw the 'light' version. Only she was allowed to it, and only where she was concerned did the two sides happen to see eye to eye. Especially when someone caused her any type of harm.
"Are you okay, girlie?" he asked softly.
"Mmmh," she moaned and nodded at the same time.
The crowd started to disperse as Lei supported Mali to a standing position. The show was over. Warren got to his feet. And Napo and Led approached.
Napo cupped her sister's face and kissed her forehead, then Led her pulled her into a tight hug.
"I was so worried," Led whimpered.
"You're suffocating me, Led," Mali whispered back, and Led immediately pulled back.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
Mali looked from Warren to Napo to Led. And they all wore the same expressions; sympathy, worry, self-chastisement, and anger.
"I'm fine, you guys, really," she assured them. "Stop looking at me like that"
Mali sighed when the looks on their faces didn't change. She tried to move forward, towards Peter and Amanda, but stumbled because she was still drowsy from the sedative. Lei supported her, and her brothers watched as she walked towards Peter weakly.
She stopped in front of him. "What are you doing here, Peter?"
"I- I heard- Leilani said-" he fumbled for an excuse, and settled with, "why didn't you tell me you were pregnant, Mali?"
"When?"
"Huh?"
"When was I supposed to tell you about my pregnancy? Before your skunk came and interrupted our dinner or after?"
Peter was bold enough to answer the trick question, "Before."
Mali scoffed in disbelief, and Led moved forward to whack some sense into Peter, but Napo held him back. Warren fisted his hands, silent. He wasn't fooling Lei though; she smiled wryly as she watched him, knowing no pure thoughts were running in his mind.
The idiot went on, "You had plenty of time to tell me about the pregnancy, Mali. I deserved to know from the moment you found out. He was my child too."
"No, he was my son! Mine! And you killed him, do you get that?" Mali huffed, trying to rein in her rage. She breathed deeply. "You killed my son."
"I didn't even know you were pregnant, Mali, so how can you blame me for-"
In a split second, Mali pulled from Lei's gentle hold, grabbed a vase of flowers on a decorative trigonal table by the wall and threw it at Peter, who ducked instinctively.
She yelled at the same time the vase shattered against the wall, "You were the reason! You killed my son! If it wasn't for you and your damn side piece, my son wouldn't have died, you little piece of shit!"
"Yeah, they are gonn' get it," Napo whispered to Warren and Led, who only smirked.
"The both of you killed my child, so don't think you will get away with it. This pain you gave me, this humiliation, I will return it tenfold. I will pull you into the same fire you pushed me into, and I will watch with nothing less than a smile on my face as we all burn." A tear rolled down Mali's cheek and she wiped it, sniffling. "Just wait and watch, you're going to get killed by this monster you awakened."
It went eerily silent for a while, no one saying anything, no one moving. But then Amanda hooked her arm with Peter's and they stared at each other for a fleeting moment, then looked back at Mali and her brothers. Peter then just turned and left, dragging Amanda along.
"What do you think she meant by what she said? What's she going to do to us?" Asked Amanda as she trotted alongside Peter, unaware that they weren't out of earshot.
"Nothing," Peter's receding voice replied, "don't worry about it. Mali's all wind and no rain."
Tears pooled in Mali's reddish eyes but never fell. A sharp, poignant pain zigged across her chest and she doubled over, wincing.
Her brothers were by her side in seconds, but she could barely notice them or her surroundings. Her breaths started coming in unevenly, and her vision blurred. And in her turmoil, Mali screamed. Right in the hallway of the hospital. She shook, pushing every last ounce of air she had out of her lungs until they begged for her to take another breath. And despite her desire to fight it, she gave in to the instinct and took a breath. And the moment the did, she collapsed.