Chapter 56 Chapter 56

Chapter 56 Chapter 56
The hospital remained quiet long after the gun disappeared back beneath Arthur's coat. The older man had stopped trying to back in after that. He had finally silenced him completely. Outside the window the city had sucked deeper, sunk deeper into the night, while the machine beside him continued with a soft mechanical rhythm through the suffocating stillness.
Arthur, eventually sat there in that chair beside the bed. The anger was gone and somehow they felt far worse. Because Arthur Romero's angry was dangerous. Arthur Romero silent was deadly.
Time seemed to have lost shape after that and minutes blurred into hours, while the conversation between them stopped sounding like a negotiation and slowly became something close to a confession.
Most of the room remained filled with the old man's restrained voice, uneven breathing at the same time the subject shifted and Arthur noticed it immediately.
The moment Lydia's mother entered the conversation, something changed visibly in the old man's face. And this was something Arthur wanted to know and he brought this up, wanting to know about what Lydia's father was lying to Lydia about all these years.
The guilt there was very deep, and going deeper into something more, ugly, older and more terrifying. 
"She wasn't supposed to die." The old man admitted, very weakly staring down at his trembling hands.
"That wasn't what was meant to happen." Arthur's eyes became very sharp, the old man swallowed hard before continuing
"Lydia thinks she knows what happened to her mother, but she does not." He said, breathing unevenly again, silence filled the room instantly and Arthur did not move.
"She was finding out things about me, about the debt the." The old man said.
"She wanted to know the people I was involved with." He continued as shame faintly flickered across his face before disappearing again. 
"She wanted to leave and she wanted to take Lydia away from me." He said and Arthur's expression went very dark, but he listened patiently.
"I thought she was bluffing with me. She could not leave.... not me." The old man almost laughed once under his breath, but there was nothing seen in the sound.
"She was not lying." He said. 
The hospital shrinking around the silence Arthur felt something cold, settling inside of his chest. But it wasn't sounding like a tragedy anymore. It was the beginning of guilt.
"She left the house that night, crying." Lydia's father admitted. His voice coming off weak. 
"I...I followed her. We argued. I said things that I shouldn't have."
"What things?" Arthur asked without blinking interrupting him and the old man's eyes lowered down immediately.
"I told her nobody would believe her over me........ I told her.... Lydia would stay with me, no matter what and I told her she would lose everything and if a day comes.... She ...she would have to lose Lydia right in front of her eyes." He said and Arthur went completely still.
He set the room some, and how far down the hallway faint footsteps echoed briefly before disappearing again.
 "She wasn't weak.." The old man continued.
"That's what Lydia never understood. Her mother was never weak. She was trapped and ... I...I had trapped her." He confessed, truly confessed.
"She did not kill herself." The word shattered the room quickly andArthur stared at him. And for the first time since entering the hospital something unreadable moved across his face. The older man looked broken.
"She crashed the car, because she was crying too hard to see the road. And .... and one of my men.... he made sure she died. She was still breathing, she did not do any of that on purpose." He whispered.
"And I let Lydia believe that it was something else. Because it was easier than telling her the truth." Arthur said nothing but something inside of him shifted.
Lydia has spent years believing that her mother chose to leave her behind and Arthur understood the truth that her mother died, trying to escape. The entire room was slow now. 
Arthur stood up from the chair without another word, after the man said that.  He did not move or answer him back, but he had something to say to him.
"You had a opportunity to keep a family together. And you chose to destroy it. You could have saved Lydia's mother. You took that away, you gave up on Lydia. You couldn't even keep yourself safe. You the most pathetic human to ever exist. Llife would be much better for a lot of people, if you weren't involved with them." He whispered, his voice still rough.
"There is nothing about you that is worth in this life. You will not a good husband and were never a good father. You are just a small being and nothing more." He said and the light, whatever small light that was left in the old man's eyes completely died.
He just sat there like that.
Arthur, on the other hand, simply walked towards the door.
Marcus straightened immediately the moment Arthur stepped out of the hallway, into the hallway.One look at his face told him enough not to speak right away.
Arthur walked silently down the corridor, while the pale hospital lights reflected. The guards stationed lower their eyes instantly. There was no words spoken at all and Marcus stayed right beside him the entire time.
Being very careful, watching Arthur through out of the reflection of the metal walls of the elevator. There was something wrong and he could immediately read it. It was not entirely anger.
It is not entirely fury, and either it was so much worse than that.
Arthur looked like he was deep in the back, but whatever happened inside of the room, took some thing from him.  The elevator descended quietly through the sleeping hospital while the outside slowly approached the dawn, plain blue sky doing beginning to bleed faintly across the skyline. By the time we reach the lobby Marcus family spoke once they stepped outside into the cold morning air.
"Arthur." He called out by his first name or it was just a scenario of the situation. But this made Arthur stop right beside the car for a moment he said nothing and then quietly he spoke up.
"She can never know about any of this. Do you understand me? We were never here." He said to Marcus and Marcus frowned slightly. The Mafia King's eyes remained fixing this far, as the cold wind moved faintly through his dark hair.
"All of this will destroy her." He said, for the first time in years Marcus saw something very unfamiliar in Arthur's eyes.
It was hopelessness and Arthur got into the car, while Marcus stood right outside. Thinking how he had made Lydia a family member already. She had all the right to know about this, but Marcus did not want to kill her on the inside anymore.
And so he got into the car as well, with the rest of the guards. Getting into their vehicles as well, and all of their cars disappear silently into the waking city.