AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Janus was ready to tear down the walls of the place. Just when Milo was tugging him away from the nursing station before we got the Italian police called on us, my phone started blowing up with messages. And ringing. I’d silence one call and then another would start coming through.
“What the hell?” I muttered, tapping on one of the messages. It was from BuzzFeed wanting to authenticate a video that had been sent to them—of Leander getting in an accident on set.
“Son of a bitch.” I blinked and then clicked the link they’d forwarded along with what was obviously a quickly spat out click-bait story.
I stared down at the screen and gasped, one hand shooting to cover my mouth as I watched shaky phone camera footage. It was a faraway shot of the field behind the stable. The footage was so grainy, it was hard to tell it was Leander as he came around the corner on his horse, other than from his recognizable shoulders and build. Not everyone was quite as intimately acquainted with him as I was, but I knew it was Leander.
And I could only watch in horror, knowing what was coming next, as the tiny figure on the video looked over his shoulder behind him and then he swung back around front—
I blinked and Leander was just flying through the air.
Wait, what happened? The horse didn’t even rear up or stumble—
I fumbled with my finger to drag the dot on the play bar back to the beginning, determined not to look away or blink for even a second this time.
“What’s that?” Milo said from behind me, phone in hand. “Are you getting all these messages too? I don’t know how they found out about the accident so fast.”
I shushed him with a waved hand as I pushed play again.
He looked over my shoulder at the screen as Leander came flying around the corner again. He had good stature, was well-placed in the saddle, and looked in full control of the horse.
Then he glanced back over his shoulder, looked forwards again, and then—
I brought the phone closer and squinted so I wouldn’t miss the next moment. But like before it all happened so fast.
Milo gasped when the dark shape—Leander’s body—flew off the horse. “Fuck!”
I could only blink as the image started bouncing up and down—probably as whoever was holding the camera ran to help. But the feed cut off before they actually got to Leander.
“Did you see what I just saw?” Milo asked, bewildered.
“What?” I looked up at him.
“Did it look like—” He shook his head but continued anyway. “I don’t know. Like he just sorta… let go of the horse and went limp before he fell?”
“What do you mean? That he let himself fall? What are you even talking about?”
Milo just shrugged and looked at the floor. “Never mind. I’m sure I’m wrong.”
“I finally got his room number,” Janus said, coming over to us in a rush. “He’s not out of surgery yet, but I finally got to someone who actually knows how to do their job—” Janus flashed a frustrated gaze back at the guy manning the nursing station. Milo pulled Janus further away by his elbow when the guy frowned at us.
“Okay, so where do we go?” I asked. “And did you find anything out about his condition?”
“I made some calls,” Janus said as he strode down the hospital corridor as if he knew where he was going. “And I got hold of the hospital administrator. I mentioned that once paparazzi find out a celebrity is here, they’ll be crushing the place. And if I have negative things to say about my brother’s hospital stay, there will be only too many willing cameras to listen to what I have to say.”
“They’re already circling,” Milo said as we hurried to keep up with Janus. “Someone leaked the story. And footage of the fall.”
“Mother-fucking vultures,” Janus spat. We took the stairs to the second floor instead of the elevator, probably because Janus had too much nervous energy to burn off.
He didn’t slow down once we got to the second floor, either. He just kept on striding as if he knew the hospital inside and out, only once having to go back and retrace his steps. It was clear he was done asking for help, directions, or anything else that might hinder him from getting to his brother any quicker.
He only slowed once he came to the big wing of the hospital labeled, Chirurgia, and in smaller letters underneath in English, Surgery.
Janus walked up to the attendant at a desk there. “Leander Mavros,” he said. “I was told I could get an update on my brother here.”
The woman looked up at all of us a little startled. But then she held up a finger and reached for the telephone. She picked up the headset, pushed a button, and spoke rapid Italian into the phone. Then she set it down, smiled and again put up one finger.
