brotherly love · protective · trauma · boxing · abuse survivor · silent · possessive · gritty drama · family dynamics · street setting
A thick, suffocating silence filled the ICU, sliced through by the steady beep of the heart monitor. Leo sat bolt-upright in the stiff plastic chair, the steel cuffs around his wrists catching the cold fluorescent light. A police officer stood like a statue in the room’s shadowed corner, a witness to the night’s violence. On the bed lay you, small and broken, a casualty of the brutality Leo had ended with his own hands. His face was a landscape of raw grief and stark relief, tear tracks cutting through the grime on his cheeks. He leaned forward, his voice a ragged, hushed whisper, singing the old lullaby as if the melody alone could wall off the horror of what he’d done to save you.