The Seizure

The Seizure
Logan's POV

I peered down the window in time to watch the cops slowly zip up the body bag on Briella's corpse.
Her face was paper-white, blood caked in patches on it to mar the whiteness. Her lips were dry and cold, her eyes glassy and lifeless, just like Mother when she died, just like my first kill.
Every dead body reminded me of Mother's and my first kill. They were the first dead people I saw. One I had to kill just to prove to Father that I was a worthy Biancardi. The other—mother—had died because of my negligence and selfishness. But both had always lived with me, like ghosts, haunting my dreams, haunting my mind—my life.
The cops lifted her in the body bag into the ambulance, like she was nothing but an ordinary piece of luggage. My lips twisted with disgust. My lips parted to rebuke the cops—tell them to treat her with more care. Briella wasn't my favorite person, but she was a person, and every life, to me, was sacred.
Sure. I have made more kills after my first kill and seen more deaths. Except for my first kill, which Father had forced me to do, I don't take a life except when mine or the lives of anyone I hold dear are being threatened. Anyone I hold dear—being my brothers, Mariah, Rachel, and my nephew…
Speaking of my nephew… I pulled my eyes away from the window. Just as the ambulance was sailing down the driveway.
Cole sat on a sofa in the guest room where Briella had been killed. Rachel took the bed, staring blankly around the room like it held answers to everything that was happening.
Draco sat with Mariah's head slumped on his chest. Her eyes were swollen, heavy, yet still dripping with tears, with dark rings around her eyes. Of everyone in the room, Mariah was the only one crying. She and Briella did some woman-to-woman bonding during the eight months they were both Luca's captives.
I narrowed my gaze back on Cole. His hands shook as they spread on his thin laps. His eyes stared blankly into space like he was reliving the moment he’d watched her die, while he murmured to himself.
Mariah might be the one crying, but Cole was the most shaken. Yeah, he was witnessing someone being killed for the first time, but why was he so shaken that he kept muttering strings of unintelligible nonsense under his breath to himself? 
Safe for that and Mariah's sobbing, the whole room was held down by a loud, unnerving silence. That was about to be fixed.
“The guards said you were the one who brought the boy in, Cole. How did this happen?” I asked. I leaned my arm on the window frame to rest my weight.
I had to make sense of all that had happened. How Luca's boy could have easily entered the house when the house was heavily guarded and then killed Briella and the men in the basement and gotten out alive—alive.
Cole steered his eyes to me, his lips frozen on another low muttering he had been about to make. His chin shook, and his lips shook even harder. Yet, nothing came out of his lips.
I snorted out a grunt, my face tightening into a frown, just watching him struggle to speak. 
I would never agree with Father's methods. But now, I wished the bastard had still been alive to toughen Cole up. Draco was making him more of a simpleton with his overprotection. “Who brought in the boy, Cole?” I snapped at him.
“I did,” he finally yelled the answer, and as he did, his whole body shook more, and tears brimmed in his eyes.
Tears. I scoffed. My frown deepened. I clenched my teeth as I fixed a hard stare on Draco.
I didn't have to say it. The words were boldly written in the air for him to pick up. “Officially, he’d let us raise a fool.”
Draco held my stare, and he grunted. He sat up, displacing Mariah's head on his chest a little. Mariah had to rise back up to rest her head on the sofa’s rest instead.
“Clean your tears, Cole.” He snapped at him. “A Biancardi doesn't cry.”
There was always a chilling ring to Draco's voice when he spoke. The problem was—he rarely uses it on Cole. I watched that chill run through Cole as he snapped up in his seat, cleaning his tears immediately with the back of his hands.
I grunted as my eyes followed his movement. He looked like a kid—pathetic.
“Now, you will answer your uncle’s questions with a clear voice. Don't sound teary. Answer like the man that you are, like a Biancardi,” he said.
“Yes, Uncle Draco,” Cole answered. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, just to force the teariness from his voice.
I shook my head grimly. I’d remember to make my own voice chilling too. That seemed to be the way to get people to fear you.
“Look here, Cole,” I forced more strength into my own voice now. I couldn't tell if the hardness of my voice was what made him turn sharply to me again or if it was because of Draco's penetrating stare at him.
I scoffed mentally at myself. Seems like the latter. The boy was sharing his gaze between me and Draco.
“Why did you bring the boy home, Cole?” How and when did you know him?” I demanded.
He was silent for a moment. He looked to Draco and met his hard, penetrating stare again, and his lips came loose. “I met him in a cafe at school some days ago. He befriended me. I thought he was a fellow student like me, so I agreed to be friends with him.” He rambled.
My gaze furrowed on him as he spoke. I couldn't help but think that story came too loosely from his mouth, like he was reciting a speech he’d prepared in his head. I let my eyes roam over him—his hands, his legs, his face, and his eyes. They were all trembling—either from the shock of having seen someone being shot, or he was lying. I couldn't tell if he was lying or not. The shaking hid all the clues.
“So you brought home a guy you know absolutely nothing about. A guy you just met some days ago.” I quoted my last phrase by enunciating it.
His eyes moved from Draco to me. “I didn't know he was a killer. I honestly didn't know.”
I leaned away from the window, strolling into the room, my eyes narrowed on him. Now, I had his whole attention. I hoped now I would be able to see past his trembling and pick out his lies. “So what happened when you both came in? How did you lose him, and he was able to kill Briella, shooting her at the back of her skull?”
He swallowed as if to clear his throat, his Adam's apple bulging uneasily. “When we came in, he pointed the gun to my back and asked me to show him which room was Briella's. I didn't know what to do, so I led him upstairs to the top floor. But at a point, I didn't hear him behind me again. That was when I heard gunshots. I think that was when he killed the men you and Uncle had in the basements—”
I stopped him there, fixing him with a long, penetrating stare. “Did you just say the basement?” I asked again, just for clarification. There was no way he could have mistakenly said that.
But he nodded, throwing his head up and down in confirmation. I grinned to myself, leaning back to my full height. He was lying. I’d picked up my first hole in his narration.
“Continue,” I urged him with a throw of my hand.
He swallowed again, his eyes jittering in their sockets. “When I heard the gunshots, I ran down to Briella's room to go warn her. That was when he jumped in through the window and shot her in the back of her head.” His voice kept breaking through his narration as he kept shaking.
I paused in my pacing, halting my strides abruptly so that our eyes met. He turned his eyes from mine quickly, and they shook harder. Another clue that he was lying. “So all that you have said is the truth, right? Cole.” I demanded.
He nodded his head, letting it bobble in the air for longer. I resumed my pacing. “Who told you we had some men kept in the basement who were also killed in the boy’s attack? Because we didn't tell you about the men before today, and Draco and I never told the police about them either when they came to carry the corpse. We only told them about Briella. So…” I turned just in time to watch his eyes jump high in their sockets, his fingers sprawled on his lap trembling harder, just like the whole of him. “How did you know about them?”
Our eyes met, his shaking terribly under my stare, his teeth clenched tight, gritting as if he was suppressing something inside of him—the truth, maybe.
In one sudden, violent movement, he threw himself to the floor. He twitched like a fish just out of water, holding his chest tight, his mouth opened wide, gasping for air.
“He’s having a seizure,” Mariah screamed. She jumped from the sofa to him. So did Draco, who ran to him also, kneeling beside him.
“Cole! Cole!” He screamed, shaking Cole vigorously, while Cole kept twitching and gasping for air on the floor.
Draco withdrew his hands from Cole. He snatched his phone from his pocket, his hands quivering a bit as he punched the screen, dialing for an ambulance.
Rachel and I were the only ones who remained where we were. She remained on the bed while I stood behind Draco and Mariah as they fawned around Cole's squirming body on the floor. Rachel and I didn't move but watched the scene quietly like spectators—knowing this was all a drama.
I slipped her a sad smile. She shook her head, forcing me an absent smile. Her eyes dank and heavy as if she had the whole world on her mind—she kind of did, especially since Mariah's return and Draco's neglect.
I turned back to watching the drama before me. I have to give Cole the credit. He obviously did the job well enough to fool Draco and Mariah. But not me. I could see right through his act.
The convulsions were too rhythmic—almost like a practiced stutter of movement. His eyes didn’t roll back. He kept them squeezed shut, but not too tightly. He was good, but not too good.
I threw my hands into my pockets. “When you are done, Cole. We'll continue our discussion.” I said, strolling for a couch in the room.
Draco whipped his face to me. “That's the end of the questioning,” he snarled. “How could you think Cole would betray his family to a Tinirello? He is a Biancardi, just like you.”
I pray he truly isn't betraying the family.
I made Draco a stiff smile. I grunted, gritting my teeth against each other as I stood up. I’d always known he would protect Cole. I’d just have to find out the truth by myself.