My father used to bring me to this chapel as a boy when there was a lesson to be learned. Lorenzo De La Rosa was not a soft man. He was a direct heir to a founding father of Imperium Valens Invictum. A Sovereign Son. Our society is a well-established organization rooted in powerful dynasties around the world. Some call us thieves in the night. A criminal syndicate. Mafia. The truth is much more intricate than any of those simplistic terms.
Our ancestors learned long ago there was power in secrecy. The legacy handed down to us was much more evolved than that of the criminals waging war on each other in the streets. We have money. We have power. And we are much more sophisticated than your average knee-breaking Italian mob boss.
IVI holds its members in the highest regard. With that power comes expectation. Education. Professionalism. And above all, discretion. By day, we appear as any other well-bred member of society. They don’t and never will know the way our organization operates.
From infancy, my father anointed me with this same great responsibility. He was a well-respected member of the upper echelon in our society, and he was determined that his children would be molded in his image, no matter the cost.
The cost won me many hard lessons over the years. Kneeling on hard marble flooring for hours. The bite of a leather strap against my skin. The sting of a wooden paddle. The repetition of prayers and the smothering guilt of repentance for never being quite…enough.
De La Rosas can’t afford to be soft. My father’s words still echo off the walls as my eyes drift over the photos of him and my brother Leandro hung on opposite sides of the altar. I have no doubt in my mind they would tell me the next steps are imminent and necessary. The only way to right the wrong of their deaths is to punish without mercy. Their blood is on Eli Moreno’s hands, and that motherfucker just had to go and get sick before I could squeeze every last wisp of his soul from his body.
My head dips as the force of my rage rises within me and blackens my vision. For four years, I’ve been waiting for this. Four years of countless surgeries and physical therapy. Endless anguish and grief have been my only companions in the darkness while I searched for answers to the truth.
Eli can’t take this away from me. His illness won’t be the easy way out. While he lays in that hospital bed, shriveling up and withering to nothing, I will destroy everything he ever loved. And if he should wake again, it will be to a horror even worse than death.
Fate has decided for me. Time is a luxury I no longer have, so I must act now. That certainty is vibrating through my bones and rattling the rusted cage around my heart. Every last Moreno will pay in blood and misery so acute, they will know suffering more intimately than I ever could.
The passage door at the side of the chapel crashes open, jarring me from my thoughts as my entire body reacts with a violent shudder. How fucking difficult is it to indulge my one simple request of complete silence in my own home?
The new maid spills into the room, unaware of my presence as she switches on the light. The brightness stings my eyes, and I watch her in disbelief as she begins to dust the pews, humming as she works. She hasn’t noticed me yet because she’s wearing earbuds, and her senses are duller than a mouse heading straight for a trap.
Slowly, I rise to my full height and pivot my head to look at her. She catches the movement from the corner of her eye and glances up at me. In a fraction of a second, her face morphs to horror as she witnesses me without the benefit of dim lighting. The duster she was using clatters to the floor, and she brings a trembling hand to her mouth, but not before a scream erupts from her throat.
Every fiber in my body knits together as I pierce her with an unrelenting gaze. I should be used to the revulsion by now. Yet on the rare occasion someone glimpses me in the light, I am reminded who I am. The monster lurking in the shadows. The scarred remains of the only De La Rosa male to crawl from the ashes of our destruction. This is what I have been reduced to. And this is why those responsible will pay in blood.
“What did I tell you about the lights?” I roar.
The maid shrinks into herself, bursting into a fit of hysterical tears as she shakes her head, scuttling away like I might devour her soul at any moment. In her hasty retreat, she manages to switch off the light and seal me back into the room, as if that would stop me should I decide to give chase. But she is not the prey my soul hungers for, and I doubt after tonight, I will ever see her again.