The mansion's great hall echoed with the distant ticking of an antique clock, the only sound in a room filled with growing rage.
Luca stood in front of his father, his body rigid, fists clenched by his sides, jaw tightened like stone. His eyes—dark, sunken, and red from sleepless nights—burned with pain and fury.
Dubious, as always, stood calm. Cold. Unshaken. Dressed in his usual tailored black, he looked like a king in mourning. But there was no sadness in his eyes. Only disappointment.
"You knew," Luca said, his voice hoarse, thick with heartbreak. "You knew she was in that building."
Dubious didn't reply.
"You placed the bomb," Luca pressed. "You had the power to save her—but you didn't."
"I did what I had to."
Luca's face twisted. "What you had to?" His voice rose like thunder. "She was bleeding in my arms! And you—you pulled me away, let them detonate the whole place like her life meant nothing!"
Dubious narrowed his eyes. "You were losing yourself. That girl was a weakness. She made you vulnerable. She got in the way of everything we built."
Luca took a slow step forward.
"All my life…" he whispered, "you've been controlling me. You made me cruel. Taught me to kill without blinking. You trained me to become the kind of monster that you needed. I obeyed. I fought your wars. I silenced your enemies. I earned your respect the only way I knew how."
His voice cracked.
"And now… the one thing—the one thing—that ever made me feel human again… you took her from me."
Dubious's jaw twitched. "She could have gotten you killed. That girl turned your focus soft. She stripped your instincts. I saw it happening, Luca. You weren't the man I raised."
Luca laughed bitterly, a hollow, broken sound.
"No… I wasn't. I was becoming better than the man you raised."
A tense silence followed. Only the fire from the hearth crackled in the background, casting flickers of light between father and son.
"You killed her," Luca whispered, his voice trembling now. "You killed the only good thing left in me. And for what? Power? Control? Your obsession with building an empire from blood and silence?"
"She was a liability," Dubious said coldly.
"She was mine!" Luca shouted. His voice thundered through the room like a storm. "And you let her die!"
Dubious stepped forward now, towering over his son.
"You were born into this world with enemies, Luca. Love is a weakness we can't afford. I trained you to survive."
Luca met his father's gaze, no longer afraid, no longer obedient.
"I don't want to survive," he growled. "Not in your shadow. Not in your rules."
Dubious studied him for a moment. Then turned away, walking toward the exit like the conversation no longer concerned him.
"You're wasting time blaming me, Luca," he said over his shoulder. "The war is still on. Moga hasn't been silenced. Either mourn, or move."
He stopped at the door.
"But don't expect my sympathy. You chose to love her. You chose your pain."
The door shut behind him with finality.
---
Later that Night…
Luca sat alone in Rose's room again, the same place where everything still smelled of her—lavender and honey and life. He clutched her photo in one hand, his gun in the other.
Tears rolled silently down his cheeks. For the first time in years, the monster cried.
"I'm sorry, Rose," he whispered. "I should've protected you from him too…"
He looked into the night sky beyond the window, where the stars were too bright, too cruel.
"Now I'll burn the world to make it right."
******
Somewhere in a hidden location.
The room was too quiet.
Not peaceful—unnerving.
White walls. White sheets. A white door that clicked shut like clockwork every night at 9 p.m.
In the far corner of the locked psychiatric ward, a woman in her early fifties sat still on the edge of her bed. Her once-lustrous black hair had thinned, streaked with gray and wild from too many forgotten years. But her eyes—those ice-blue eyes—still burned with something fierce. Something alive.
A tray slid in. Two pills. Half a glass of water.
"Your bedtime dose, ma'am," the nurse said without looking at her. No one ever looked at her.
She nodded gently, obedient. Took the cup. Tilted it back. Swallowed.
Or so it seemed.
As the door sealed shut with a soft click, she turned.
Her hands shook as she bent down, spat the pills into a scrap of torn fabric hidden beneath the mattress, and tucked it away like contraband. She breathed fast, shallow—like a woman stealing her own freedom back one night at a time.
And then… she pulled out something fragile.
A photograph. Faded, cracked. A little boy with wild curls and dirt on his knees, grinning at the camera like the world belonged to him.
Luca.
She touched his face with trembling fingers.
Tears filled her eyes, hot and blinding.
"I should've protected you…" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I should've fought harder,
Hold on my baby boy, mama will find a way to get out of here."
Her lips pressed against the photo as if it were still warm, still alive.
Then—footsteps. Coming closer.
Panic flashed in her chest.
She stuffed the photo into the seam of her gown, wiped her face, straightened her back, and turned blank-eyed just as the door began to creak open again.
But inside her?
She was already burning.
Twenty-three years of silence. Lies. Isolation.
And now, something had changed.
She wasn't waiting anymore.
Mama was getting out.
Some secrets can't stay hidden, no matter what.
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