"Ugh... My head!"
"What is this damned pain?!"
"I can't feel my body... Why can't I move?"
"Come on, move!"
André awoke abruptly to a strange sensation. His head swam with dizziness and pain, his breath came in ragged gasps, and sweat beaded on his forehead despite the coldness of the place. He tried to move his body, but discovered that his feet and hands were bound with iron. Even the slightest movement produced a sharp, suffocating clink of metal in his ears.
"Ah... My leg!"
"Damn it, it feels like it's on fire!"
Each throb... each small movement... was as if the bullet was still lodged there, reminding him of its presence every second. He breathed with difficulty, his body trembling. The blood in his veins surged madly, deafening him with its accelerated pulse. He tried to calm down, but the pain was stronger.
He raised his head with difficulty, his eyes scanning the place... nothing but a dilapidated chair to which he was tied and a yellow lamp hanging on the wall, flickering with a dim light as if it were about to go out. Shadows danced on the rusty walls, as if they were watching him.
The smell of the place... Oh, God.
Blood. Rust. Rot. A suffocating mixture that made his throat dry. He tried to swallow, but couldn't.
Where am I? What is this place, for the love of hell?
Then a fleeting image crossed his mind... the face of his father. That loving look... then the ground, the blood, and the sound of ragged breathing.
"Dad... Dad!!!"
His scream pierced the silence, echoing between the rusty walls, repeated as if it were an echo from within him, not from the place. Everything around him seemed to swallow his voice, swallow him.
I have to help Dad... yes... I can't leave him alone...
But—a sharp sound suddenly cut through his ears, like a stab in his head. The lock on the door turned. The squeal of metal seeped into his bones. His body shrank unconsciously, his eyes widening in instinctive astonishment.
He turned quickly, and the air around him seemed heavier than before.
A man stood at the entrance. His features were strange, harsh... his hair like dark thorns pointing in every direction, and on his neck was a tattoo of a black wolf, gleaming in the dim light as if it were moving on its own.
Who is this? Is he one of them too...?
The footsteps approached. Steady. Confident. Each sound of them crashed in his head like a hammer.
The man stopped in front of him. He looked down at him, and in his voice was an annoying sharpness that made André look away unintentionally: "What's with your damned voice? It almost reached the end of the compound."
The words seeped into him like shards of glass. André swallowed with difficulty, tried to speak... but his voice betrayed him. All he could do was look at the tattoo... that black wolf that seemed to be smiling mockingly at him.
"Where am I? What do you want from me?"
The words came out of him in a hoarse, broken voice, as if he were dragging them from a throat that had been dry for days.
The man came closer, his steps heavy as if they were pressing on his chest. Then... a cold finger touched his lips. André froze. His breathing stopped for a moment.
"Shhh..." the man whispered in a low voice with a hidden sarcasm. "Questions are forbidden here."
The touch alone was enough to ignite everything inside him. A tremor ran through his body, but it wasn't just fear... but anger, disgust, revulsion. André tried to pull back as much as the restraints allowed, and shouted with sharp emotion: "Get your filthy hand off me! Get away from me! Who... who are you?!"
The air became heavy suddenly. The man's face changed... his muscles tightened, the veins in his face bulged, and his eyes filled with anger.
In a fleeting moment, he raised his hand and punched André hard. A sudden blow. Its sound crashed into his skull before he could feel it. A white flash. The shock... then the pain exploding all at once.
"Stop screaming, you brat! Your screaming is annoying!"
At the same moment, the door opened suddenly. The sound of metal crashing against the wall shattered the silence of the room. André recoiled instinctively, his tense body pulling back, his eyes staring inside.
Another person entered... but this time there was something different. The atmosphere changed... completely. The air that had been suffocating a moment before became heavier, but calmer, as if the room itself had begun to breathe with him.
"Oh, oh... Aren't you going to change your filthy style, Enzo?"
His voice was calm... but in his calmness was something strange, a mixture of sarcasm and control. The man with the platinum hair neatly tied back seemed not to belong to this filthy place. The reflection of light on his hair made his features sharp, closer to coldness than to kindness.
His slight smile was not as friendly as it seemed at first glance... but it was a smile that hid something... a mysterious intention, or perhaps a silent threat waiting for the right moment to appear.
Every movement of his was calculated. His steps... straight, confident. Even standing in front of Enzo, he seemed to own the ground he stood on. André didn't know why he suddenly felt that everything was under this man's control. His voice alone was enough to silence anything... even the pain in his leg lessened for a moment, as if his body obeyed him unconsciously.
Enzo turned to him, his face hardening, his eyes narrowing like a wolf feeling threatened: "What do you want, Daniel? Can't you see that I'm enjoying doing my job?"
Daniel didn't turn to Enzo, as if he didn't exist at all. His eyes were steady, and his steps were calm... but each step emanated a hidden authority that could not be resisted. He approached André, until his shadow completely covered him.
"I don't care."
He said it with complete coldness, without changing his tone of voice. "The Don wants to see the boy now."
Before André understood what was happening, he felt a hand gripping his arm. It wasn't harsh, but strange... calm, but as firm as a shackle. He tried to move his leg, and the pain flared again... the bullet, the wound, everything came back all at once. A sharp stab pierced his bones until he felt that his heart itself was beating in his leg. His breaths were ragged, his eyes tearing involuntarily.
Enzo sighed with boredom, twisting his mouth in disdain as he headed towards the door. "Oh, God... you've ruined my fun." His voice faded as he left, leaving behind an air heavier than before.
"Where are you taking me?!" André shouted, his voice trembling between anger and fear, but Daniel didn't answer. He continued walking with steady steps, his hand still holding him gently, not allowing any resistance.
They finally reached a room steeped in smoke. The smell of cigarettes was so thick it suffocated the air itself. Every breath André took burned his chest, as if its smoke was seeping into his blood. The light of the lamp here was weaker, and the shadows danced on the walls like exhausted ghosts.
In the middle of the room, a huge wooden desk dominated the place. Behind it sat a man... massively built, calm, as if everything around him revolved in his orbit alone. A cigarette dangled between his fingers, the smoke rising slowly in front of his face, and his eyes... gleamed with cold threads of light, staring at André from head to toe, as if they were weighing him, searching for something in him.
A small smile formed on his face. Cold. Black. The smile of a man who knows he is in control.
Then everything changed. He slammed the table with his fist suddenly, its sound echoing in the room like thunder. He shouted in a rough, roaring voice: "Enzo, you fool! What have you done?!"
And he pointed at André, his gaze like knives: "Who the hell is this?!"
Enzo was flustered, raising his hands as if trying to justify his mistake: "Huh! He's the boy you ordered me to bring!"
"Damn you!" The Don's scream made the room shake. "Can't you do one damn thing right?! Look at him... for God's sake, is this him?! A blonde kid?!"
André froze. His feet were no longer able to move. His mind was trying to understand, but all he heard was the beating of his heart... fast, painful, disturbed. He didn't know what was happening... would they let him go? Was this a misunderstanding? Or was what awaited him worse than he imagined?
Enzo clenched his hands with obvious nervousness, while Daniel placed his palm on his shoulder, slowly and deliberately, as if he was pressing on the wound not to soothe it... but to make sure of its depth. Daniel muttered in a cold tone devoid of any emotion: "It's okay... this is expected."
Then he turned towards the Don, his eyes narrowing slightly, and his voice lowered as if he were weighing his words: "Don Dante... what do you intend to do with this boy? I think returning him is a better idea."
The Don didn't respond immediately. He rose from behind the desk slowly and deliberately, each step making an annoying creak on the wooden floor. Its sound alone was enough to make André's heart jump in his chest. He came closer... his shadow completely swallowed his small body. He reached out suddenly, gripping the boy's cheeks with excessive force, his fingers rough, heavy, as if they were holding a toy that could be broken at any moment.
He raised his face slightly until he forced him to look directly at him. "Look at me..." The words came out calmly, coldly, to the point that the silence weighed down the place. André froze, his eyes lost, searching for an escape in the emptiness of the room.
A slow smile cracked the Don's face, seeping in slowly as if it were growing from the darkness itself. He hummed softly, his voice hoarse as if he were savoring an idea: "Hmm... you have a killer look."
Then he turned his gaze towards Daniel, a strange spark flashing in his eyes as he continued in a tantalizing tone: "No, we won't return him..." He paused for a moment, exhaling his cigarette smoke slowly near André's face before smiling broadly. "I like him."
"Be happy to be in my headquarters..." The Don's voice came out low, deep, as if he were testing the impact of his words on him. Then he leaned in a little, a strange smile twisting on his lips. "Are you happy?"
Happy? André looked at him in astonishment. What was this man saying? What happiness was that when he could barely stand?
"Just get your filthy hand off me." His voice came out trembling, mixed with anger more than fear, trying to seem brave, even for a moment. But the Don didn't move back. He raised his cigarette slowly, the smoke wrapped around his fingers like a lazy snake, then... he placed its burning tip on his cheek.
A slight, faint sound, like the whisper of burning. And the smell of burnt skin mixed with the heavy smell of tobacco. The pain... wasn't just pain. But an internal explosion, as if the fire had penetrated his skin to his heart. A sharp scream escaped from his mouth against his will.
The Don smiled, as if the sound was music to his ears. "I am Don Dante Damian..." He said it slowly, with diabolical confidence. "And I don't like the sound of children... you must weigh your words carefully when you speak before me." Then he exhaled the last of his cigarette smoke, and let it fade into the thick air of the room. "Remember this, boy."
The Don stared at him for a moment, then noticed the clotted blood on his leg. He turned slowly towards Enzo, and his voice lowered, but it was dripping with sharpness: "Did you shoot him?"
Enzo froze in place, and a tense smile formed on his face. "No, not me... I found him like this. It was said that his father was killed... and that he's being hunted." A short silence.
Then the Don smiled... a cold, slow smile, as if the idea had suddenly appealed to him. "Oh... that's better." He exhaled his cigarette smoke slowly, his eyes contemplating the boy with morbid curiosity. "That way, no one will look for him."
Then he waved his hand carelessly, as if André's presence had become a burden on the air itself. "Take him away from me. Put him in the special cell... and make sure to teach him everything."
The word everything came out heavy, laced with threat, as if it carried something beyond education itself. André froze, the blood boiling in his veins, fear creeping slowly into his heart until it almost suffocated him.
Damn... what is this place?
He raised his gaze towards the Don, tried to speak, but before his hand could rise, he felt Enzo's fingers gripping his neck cruelly. He pulled him forward as if he were pulling a doll that had lost its soul. "Your order, sir." His voice was full of elation, as if he had been waiting for this order since the beginning.
While Daniel remained standing in his place, he didn't move, his eyes watching the Don with mysterious silence. His looks weren't ordinary... there was something of annoyance, of caution, and perhaps... of regret. "The special cell, Don Dante?" His voice came out steady, balanced as usual. "Don't you think it's too small for him?"
The Don turned towards him, a slow laugh cracking his face, and his eyes gleaming with cold cunning. "You have to look into his eyes, Daniel..." He came closer a little, and pointed his finger in the air as if he was explaining a lesson. "He's not an ordinary child. My instincts don't make mistakes... I can feel his desire to fight."
He cackled afterwards—a short, but crazy laugh. Its echo reverberated in the dim walls of the room, then he picked up a new cigarette, lit it slowly, and the smoke rose around him thick, suffocating the smell of the place. Daniel remained standing at the table, his eyes following the Don's movements with deliberate calmness. His face didn't change, but inside him was boiling—not fear, but a disgust he had known for a long time.
After a few moments, he took a deep breath, then turned with balanced steps, and closed the door behind him deliberately. He stood for a moment at the threshold, his head tilted slightly, his features tense, between annoyance and anticipation of what would happen. He reached out and hit the wall lightly, as if he was trying to silence the chaos that had begun to form in his head.