Dante's Weakness

Chapter 2

My world fell, shattered before my eyes like a cracked egg, it's content spilling out unto a muddy floor with no hopes of redemption. I laid numb on the hospital bed as the doctor spilled out my condition to me but I wasn't listening, I couldn't listen. My ears felt blocked with the trauma, my hands vibrated every now and then with the tiny squeeze I felt from my father just before he died.

He died

My body rocked with his weight as he tried to protect me, the gunshots loud and daring in my ears.

He's dead.

My father died and it was the trending topic on mainstream media, and apparently my father was a notorious drug lord. That was why he was killed and I was supposed to die too but he saved me. I refused to learn the details, it was heartbreaking enough that he had a whole secret life away from me and even more so that he died because of it. Was that why he needed me to go away to boarding school? Did my mother know? Did she die as a result from this too? I had so many questions but there was no one to answer them except my Uncle Colin who stared pitiful at me on my hospital bed.

"You have to eat something" he pleaded but I pretended not to hear, closing my eyes and turning away from him. I preferred not to talk, I had nothing to say, except questions that no one had the answers to.

"I won't let anything happen to you. I promise"

 I spent the rest of my summer hiding in a small town in Texas, where the fields were vast and wide, the air fresh with the smell of wheat and dry grass. It was supposed to be beautiful if my life was beautiful but it wasn't, it was a chaotic mess, deeply embroidered by sadness. During that whole time, I changed my name from Velvet Harris to Velvet De Luca which was my mother's surname. He did all my paper work for my transfer to Alabaster, because after all I made a promise to my dad, and also I needed to hide there from my father's killers.

DANTE

I stuck the keychain into the keyhole of the iron vault in a hidden crypt expecting to hear the mechanic click of acceptance, but only the dull refusal echoed back at me while my elder brother stood behind me, watching expectantly. I tried again and multiple times after but nothing and immediately, my brother Xavier pushed me out of the way and grabbing the key from my hands.

"Give me that" he said but I truly wished he had gotten a different result, then he wouldn't be glaring at me like it was my fault the key wasn't working "Are you sure this is the right key?"

I gave him an odd look "How am I supposed to know, you said snatch the key off his neck, dead or alive, which I did and which you're holding right in your hand so if that isn't the right key, I know nothing about that"

"Father would not hear that" Xavier thundered, gripping the key chain tightly in his hands "What if the girl had it, did you search her, are you sure they were both dead. I would rather her being dead and buried with the knowledge of the key for it to be with someone else entirely"

I froze, but only so slightly at the mention of the girl in the car, she wasn't dead but I wasn't going to kill a girl about my age, it had nothing to do with empathy I did not possess that more like a passing decision I didn't need to think about, I just chose not to.

"They were both dead" I answered stiffly.

"Are you sure?"

"Damnit Xavier, you could've confirmed yourself" his persistence felt quite irritating but he was elder brother and quite stronger than me. Xavier was bold, strong with the eyes of a tiger. He had been working for our father since he turned 18 and now he was almost 25, earning his rightful place as the first son of the Mafia and second in command, but I didn't care much for it, but I had watchful eyes and a good ear. It stayed like until last most when I barely turned 17, sleepy eyes and an awful bed hair my father told me it was time to prove my allegiance to him. My first task was to kill the rival drug lord's daughter and steal the key chain to a vault, as a warning to him.

I didn't want to do, I could've run away right there and then but I had to prove myself, I was a bastard son and I didn't seem worthy of anything.

Except, I seemed to be failing. I killed the mafia lord instead and stole the wrong key.

"So what happens now?" I asked Xavier "Do we tell father?"

"I will, you focus on going back to school" he told me, a finality in his eyes but I was defiant.

"I'm not going back to –" I couldn't finish my statement when Xavier grabbed by the neck, eyeballs drilling into mine

"This is not what I want for you Theo" I knew it was serious when he called me by my real name. "You have an opportunity to escape father and get a better life for yourself, is this what you want? Killing people for father's mere approval"

I stayed silent

"You go back to Alabaster, you stay there and there's just one rule you have to follow, because it could be your greatest weakness"

"What?" I asked

"Don't fall in love!"