The phone call couldn't have come at a worse time for Julian. The light above the emergency room hadn't gone off and no one had come out. There wasn't even any way to go about opening the door to ask unless they wanted to break it down. That wouldn't exactly add to the positive feelings the staff already had about them.

Julian checked to call, a silly thing since he already knew there was no way for it to have been Lena. She had dropped her phone when she'd passed out. Gabrielle was, in fact, holding on to it.

One look to see that it was Richard made him turn it off immediately. He returned to bouncing his knees as his eyes remained fixed on the door, silently willing it to open. Surely by now, they would have some kind of answers or Lena would've been able to come out and tell them herself what was going on.

A tiny part of him wanted to go back to Zane's room. He hadn't been back to check on his brother with the commotion. A small part urged him to go, check on the older Scarlett sibling, and tell him what had happened. Yet, he couldn't move.

A deep sigh forced itself from his chest as he lowered his head once more. His eyes closed as he struggled with the internal conflict as to what he should do. Couldn't there have been an easy answer to this problem? "Why don't you just go off and do whatever it is that is bothering you? Sitting there isn't going to change the waiting time. If anything, you're just going to go about dampening everyone else's mood with the huffing and puffing." Dino's foot squeaked against the tiled floor as he shifted position to stand more upright. Lifting his shoulders above his head caused his back to crack as a small groan of contentment escaped his mouth.

"Shut up. I don't want to hear one more word coming out of your mouth." The younger mafioso seemed surprised by the sharp words. Since when was Julian the mean brother? Wasn't that Zane's job?

"Sit down and don't think that for one second this unexpected development leaves you out of the woods. There will still be retribution." Dino couldn't help rolling his eyes if it earned him a rough cuff to the back of his head from Gabrielle.

"Dino. You are walking on very thin ice right now. I would be very careful about what you do considering the one person keeping you safe isn't here right now." Dino almost wanted to laugh at the Italian woman's comment. Keeping himself? Ha! More like the princess wanted a chance to sink her teeth into him first before anyone else could.

With a huff, he flopped back in the chair. Couldn't there at least be one thing that he was able to do? Something slightly more exciting than sitting and staring at white walls while waiting for a door to open that he knew wouldn't happen any time soon.

"I may enjoy flirting with danger but that doesn't mean I have a death wish. Besides, It isn't like I'm doing anything out of turn that requires either of you to be so hostile towards me." Dino leaned his head back as he stared at the ceiling that was an identical white to the walls and tile floor. God. Why did hospitals think that everything should be white? Surely there were better color choices that people would actually enjoy seeing. Red for example. Red was Lena's favorite color, wasn't it now? Dino found his gaze sliding down to look at the emergency room doors. Things had been so much easier years ago, hadn't they? Back before he made dumb decisions. Greedy was probably the better word choice. Promises of money and power were enough to make anyone swap sides.

Was he like Jenson? Surely not." Dino eyes narrowed at this thought. Certainly, both of them were after the quick cash and ate threw more alliance ties than they could keep alive. Unlike that asshole of a swindler though, Dino still had a certain amount of self-respect and a bit of a conscience. If he didn't, he wouldn't have bothered showing back up here in the first place.

"You are thinking much too hard about something. If you are planning no doing anything foolish. I would suggest that you reconsider now." Julain's words cut through his thoughts causing a small chuckle to erupt from the younger mafioso.

"I am not thinking about doing anything foolish in the sense that you're thinking about. Just simply pondering back to how much better times used to be around here. I think that I preferred them to how they are now." These remarks earned Dino a derisive snort from Gabrielle.

"You only have yourself to blame for the fact that anything changed." The mafioso rolled his eyes. Partly only. Had everyone else been more willing to come up to speed with his vision, everything would have been fine.

"You should really be more careful about the thin ice that you're treading on. It certainly took a great amount of nerve for you to show up here in the first place. I'll give you that. I don't know what you had hoped to accomplish through your stupidity." The tall Italian woman could hope that the answer would've been death, but she knew better. Dino loved himself too much to do anything that would put his life on the chopping block.

Dino looked as though he were giving some hard thought to this question. He didn't get a chance to answer, however as the light above the emergency room door shut off. The almost inaudible sound caused all eyes to turn in that direction despite the fact that the door had yet to open.

The thirty seconds that passed before anything happened felt like the longest eternity in the universe to two of the room's occupants while the third was simply curious to know what the prognosis would be.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.action