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[2 Broke Girls] Ch: 193 [Aftermath of the explosion]
🕑 Added 2025-09-27 23:45:26 +0000 UTC[A few hours later]
The hospital smelled of disinfectant. Alex sat on the edge of the bed, his ribs wrapped in fresh bandages, his arms still raw from the burns. The doctor applied some medicine and patched him up. He looked like hell, but compared to what happened on the street, he knew he was lucky. Too lucky.
His guards had done their part, carrying kids and parents into waiting SUVs, rushing them to the hospital. Most of them fainted from the shockwave and sound of the explosions. But there were a few who were within the blast radius who didn't make it. The screams still echoed in his head.
The doctor had shaken his head in disbelief while stitching him up. “You should be in pieces after that. Bruised ribs, burns, and some cuts, but that’s it. Honestly, I don’t know how you’re alive. No one within the radius made it out alive. Two died on the table. Haaa... What a mess.”
Alex had just given him a tired half smile. “Good genetics.”
"Yeah, well..." The doctor patted his back. "You are one lucky man."
Now he sat waiting, replaying the moment over and over. Not just the explosions, but the feeling that something bigger was at play. The instincts he trusted weren’t wrong. This wasn’t random.
His phone vibrated. Angelina.
“Alex? Oh my God, are you alright? We heard from your guard, he was saying—”
“I’m fine. The doc patched me up.” He replied calmly. “Don’t come here, it’s crowded with press and cops.”
“Too late,” Angelina said. “We’re already on our way.”
Halle’s voice cut in from the background. “We’ll be there soon. Sit tight.”
Alex exhaled and ended the call.
Not long after, the door swung open. Rachel entered like a storm in heels. Security guards tried to follow, but she turned with an angry expression.
“Stay here and control the crowd. Not a single camera gets through this door. No cops either, unless they have a warrant signed by God himself. Anyone who tries to sneak in, I will bury them in lawsuits. Clear?”
The murmurs outside fell silent. Rachel pulled the door shut, locked it, and turned to him.
Her eyes softened the moment she saw him. She crossed the room fast, dropped her bag on the chair, and wrapped her arms around him. It was careful, because of his ribs, but firm enough to show she was shaking inside.
“God, Alex… I should have been there,” she whispered. “I should have been with you.”
He leaned into her hug, letting it steady him more than he wanted to admit. “Rachel… there was nothing you could have done.”
She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes searching his face. “If I had been riding with you...”
“You’d be dead.” His voice cut through her guilt before it could take root. “That car exploded right beside mine, and I barely got out. The passenger side got completely destroyed. You wouldn’t have walked away from that. I’m glad you weren’t there.”
Her breath hitched, her lips pressing into a tight line. “You saved kids, Alex. Do you know what the press is calling you right now? A damn hero. And all I can think about is how close I came to losing you.”
Alex lifted his hand, brushing the side of Rachel’s cheek with his thumb. She leaned into the touch, her eyes glossy with emotion. He drew her closer, ignoring the ache in his ribs, and pressed his lips against hers. It wasn’t rushed, wasn’t desperate—it was grounding. For both of them.
When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers and spoke low. “I’m not going anywhere, Rachel. You can’t carry this guilt. It wasn’t your fault.”
She closed her eyes, trying to calm the storm in her chest. He could feel her trembling even though she fought to hide it.
“What you can do,” Alex continued, his tone hardening, “is help me figure out if this was aimed at me. Was it some random terrorist attack, or did someone want me dead and used chaos as cover? That’s where I need you.”
Rachel swallowed and slowly nodded. She stepped back and reached into her bag for her phone. She tapped fast, pulling up a news feed.
“Alex,” she said in a low voice, “this isn’t just about the bombing. You made headlines twenty-four hours ago. You’re officially at the top of the list.”
He frowned. “Top of what list?”
She turned the screen toward him. On the page, bold letters read: World’s Richest Man. Beneath it, his name. Estimated net worth: 250 billion dollars.
Alex’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the numbers. Beneath his profile was Bill Gates, second place, sitting at a mere 90 billion. The gap was almost laughable.
“Congratulations,” Rachel said, though her tone was icy. “You’re number one. And I don’t believe in coincidences. This attack happened hours after the news broke. You think that’s a coincidence? No. This wasn’t random. Someone wanted you out of the picture before the dust could settle.”
Alex leaned back slightly, wincing at the pain in his ribs. His lips tightened, and for a moment he didn’t answer. His mind replayed the explosion, the heat, the ringing in his ears, the screams.
Rachel’s voice cut through his thoughts. “This was an assassination attempt dressed up as terrorism. I don’t care who planned it, I don’t care how deep they are buried. I will find them. And when I do, I’ll skin them alive.”
Her words were not a metaphor. Her eyes were cold as ice, and she wasn't joking. She was talking as someone who had dedicated her life to Alex and just when everything was going smoothly, some bastard dared to hurt her love... Well, whoever it was, they are as good as dead.
Alex reached for her hand, squeezing it. “I trust you. But be careful. Whoever’s behind this isn’t playing small. They came at me in broad daylight in a school zone. That means they’re either desperate or they think they’re untouchable and don't care who gets caught in their attack."
Rachel’s jaw clenched. “Then I’ll remind them just how wrong they are.”
Before either could say more, a knock rapped against the door. Rachel straightened instantly, her expression snapping back into the sharp professionalism she used with the outside world. She walked over and cracked it open.
Angelina and Halle stood at the door. Both looked relieved the moment they saw Rachel’s face.
Rachel opened the door wider. “He’s inside. Keep your voices down. Press and cops are swarming the hallway.”
The two women slipped inside quickly, shutting the door behind them.
Angelina didn’t waste time. She rushed across the room and sat on the edge of Alex’s bed, scanning him like she expected him to fall apart. “Jesus, Alex." She took a deep breath. "God! I'm glad that you are alright." She took another look at his stitches. "You are okay, right?"
“Yep! I'm freakin' invincible,” he said with a faint smirk.
“Don’t joke,” Halle cut in, moving to stand near the foot of the bed. Her eyes swept over the bandages on his arms, the bruises at his temple. “We heard it was chaos. Kids, families… They said the street was a war zone. I'm just relieved to see you are... okay. It must be hurting, right? God!”
“It was,” Alex admitted. He leaned back against the pillow, letting his voice go flat. “Cars exploding one after the other. Smoke everywhere. I was lucky. Too lucky. But I am alright. Please, don't make gloomy faces. It doesn't look good on you girls.”
For a moment, they sighed in relief...
Angelina’s brow furrowed. “The people are already calling you a hero. Saving kids, pulling people out before the ambulances arrived. Do you realize how fast that’s spreading? Social media’s flooding with footage. You’re trending worldwide.”
Rachel was about to reveal that it was an attack on Alex, but Alex gave her a little nod. So, she decided to keep it to herself. "If only those holding the phones had helped, more could've been saved. No one wants to get a little blood on their clothes."
The knock at the door came again. Rachel walked over and opened the door only an inch, and raised an eyebrow.
On the other side stood Chloe Decker. Her blazer was buttoned up, her badge clipped at her hip, but her eyes betrayed the hard mask she was trying to wear. She was tense, controlled, but the kind of controlled that came from forcing herself to stay in role.
“Detective,” Rachel said smoothly, her voice cool. “Are you here for LAPD duty, or to see him as his girlfriend?”
Chloe’s jaw flexed. “I’m here as both.”
Rachel’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. She was about to close the gap with a polite but firm refusal, when Alex’s voice cut across the room.
“Let her in.”
Rachel opened the door wider and gestured Chloe inside.
Chloe walked past her, her gaze snapping to Alex. Her steps quickened almost despite herself, though she forced them into measured strides by the time she reached the bed.
“You look like hell,” Chloe said bluntly, trying for a professional tone. But her voice cracked at the edges.
“Thank you, detective. I was hoping to impress you with my rugged new look,” Alex replied, leaning on the pillow behind his back.
Chloe shook her head, lips pressing into a line. She pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down, her notepad already in hand. The move was automatic, mechanical, the detective in her taking the reins. “I have to ask you a few questions for the record. You understand.”
“Of course. Shoot.”
“Time of the incident,” Chloe began, her pen poised.
“Around 2:30 PM. I was driving to meet Angelina and Halle for lunch. Stopped at a school zone when it hit.”
Her pen scratched quickly across the paper. “Did you see anyone suspicious before the blast? Vehicles, individuals, anything unusual?”
Alex paused. He replayed the image in his mind again. Crowds of kids, parents, cars lined up bumper to bumper. The sudden gut punch of his instincts screaming at him. Then the fire. The shockwave.
“Too many people. Too much noise. The traffic signal was like 10 minutes longer than usual. Like, I pass by that road almost every noon, but today it was 10 minutes longer. I felt something was wrong, but couldn’t place it. Then the car next to me went up. I somehow broke the windshield and climbed out, then another explosion. It was like a chain explosion. That’s all I’ve got.”
Chloe nodded tightly, jotting it down. “Your guards confirmed you helped carry kids to the hospital. Can you describe what you saw?”
Alex’s smirk faded. His gaze went distant. “Smoke. Screaming. People on fire. Kids on the ground. Shockwave threw me back after the second car exploded. My guards got me up, but I told them to grab the kids. We put them into SUVs and drove straight here.”
Chloe’s pen slowed, her throat tightening as she wrote. The clinical routine faltered when her eyes flicked back up to him, and she couldn’t help blurting out the thing she had been holding in since she walked through the door.
“And you… why the hell did you run into that?”
“Because there were kids lying unconscious on the street... Bleeding and screaming,” Alex said simply. His eyes locked on hers. “I wasn’t going to sit in an armored SUV while they burned.”
Her breath caught. The answer was so blunt, so absolute, that it silenced the professional part of her brain for a moment. The girlfriend won. She put the notepad down, her hand trembling against her thigh.
“You could have died, Alex. You almost did.”
“I’m still here.”
“That’s not the point,” Chloe shot back, her voice rising. “You’re not invincible. You think just because you’ve survived so far that nothing can touch you? I saw the footage. You were dragging kids out with blood running down your face. You were coughing smoke. What if—” She stopped herself, biting the words back.
Alex reached out slowly, wincing with the movement, and placed his hand over hers. His touch steadied her, even if he was the one covered in burns and stitches.
“What if I didn’t?” he finished for her. “Then at least they would have made it. I can live with scars. I couldn’t live with myself if I’d sat still and done nothing. What would you have done if you were in my place?”
Chloe’s eyes glistened. She turned her face slightly, trying to mask the crack in her composure, but Alex caught it anyway.
Angelina cleared her throat softly from the side, her glance bouncing between them. “Maybe we should give them some space.”
Halle nodded. She tugged on Angelina’s wrist, and together they walked toward the far side of the room, murmuring quietly to each other. Rachel, however, remained rooted where she was, her arms folded, sharp eyes watching the entire exchange like a hawk.
Chloe finally forced her voice steady again, slipping the mask back on. She picked up her notepad as if it could anchor her. “Do you think this was random? Or do you believe you were the target?”
Alex hesitated, then shook his head slightly. “Too early to say. Could have been terrorism, could have been someone aiming at me. But I'm sure you'll figure that out. Won't you, Detective?"
Comments
Daniel
Attacking Alex is like attacking the President.
ya_smerti
Stupid thing to do. Not only is it really rare. But everyone gets involved looking into who is dumb enough to try. Gov bc they are cash cows. Private contractors for big pay outs, even the underworld bc they don't want it coming back on them.
Xcalibur Xc
I sense a Rachel exclusive ch coming soon.
