When We Met

CH 10 Logan

The next morning felt thick with unresolved tension blanketing the family dining room. Father sat stoically at the head of the table, jaw clenched tightly as he methodically worked his way through a plate of eggs and toast. The hard, penetrating glare he levelled my way made it abundantly clear that our heated confrontation from the previous evening still weighed heavily on his mind.

Mother fidgeted nervously beside him, casting furtive looks between the two of us as if mentally preparing to throw herself between a brewing tempest at any moment. For once, even the ordinarily raucous Noah and Maria remained unnaturally subdued, stabbing at their food in silence.

Finally, Father cleared his throat in that unmistakable way that effortlessly commanded every ounce of attention and focus. I felt myself tensing involuntarily, steeling my nerves for whatever withering storm of verbal punishment was about to be unleashed over my "insubordination."

"Logan," he began in that low rumbling tone that could peel the varnish off wood. "What you demonstrated last night was...unacceptable, to put it mildly. Your utter lack of deference and respect towards me as the head of this family outfit was frankly appalling."

I opened my mouth to respond, to reiterate my disgust at the moral depravities he seemed so willing to unleash and drag us all through. But the barest flickering of his steely eyes stopped the words in my throat before they could escape.

"However," Father continued after a weighty pause. "I will grant that the...passion and conviction behind your outburst illustrated a newfound willingness to exert the necessary strength of character required from a leader."

The words hung heavy in the air, their underlying meaning not lost on anyone at the table. My stomach twisted into a nauseating knot as I realised he was not, in fact, rebuking me as expected - but rather offering a backhanded commendation of sorts that I had finally found my sociopathic voice and embraced my ruthless birthright.

"You are my heir, Logan," he stated with cold finality. "The mantle and all it entails - oversight of both the legitimate and illegitimate operations we have so painstakingly constructed - is yours to bear once I am gone, like it or not. It always has been."

Leaning forward slightly, the muscles in Father's jaw tensed and flexed in that telltale sign that he was mere moments from erupting like a detonating munition. I braced myself for whatever salvo was about to come.

"But make no mistake - any further breaches of respect or overt defiance such as last night, and you shall face...corrective consequences far beyond what you can possibly imagine," he hissed, each syllable dripping with lethal menace. "I do not care whether your misguided intentions are rooted in nobility or cowardice - you will submit to the family code and embrace your legacy fully."

Father paused, letting the weight of his words crash over me in a suffocating tidal wave. At the other end of the table, Noah and Maria watched the exchange with matching expressions of thinly veiled fear - for me or themselves, I couldn't tell. Mother, for her part, had gone utterly rigid and still as a statue carved from the finest marble, all colour drained from her delicate features.

"So make your choice now, arrogant boy," Father sneered, leaning back and allowing his words to ring with ceremonial pronouncement. "Dedicate your entirety to me, to this organisation, this legacy - with the full understanding that the path forward will be profoundly merciless and seeped in utter darkness. Or...forfeit your birthright entirely and shuffle off into mediocrity to take your chances with the lambs of the world."

My heart thundered painfully in my chest as those awful choices stretched out before me like twin oblivion pits, each one daring me to hurl myself into their voracious, inescapable clutches. Did I have the fortitude, the willingness to completely sacrifice what tattered shreds of principled humanity still clung to my soul, in order to claim my destined crown of criminal sovereignty?

Father held my gaze, unflinching and utterly unyielding. It was the hardest, most punishing stare I'd ever encountered from him in all my years of brutal conditioning under his domineering oversight. I felt the weight of the Familia's vast legacy crushing down upon me mercilessly.

Just as my throat opened - though whether to submit or insolently defy him, I truly did not know - Father abruptly rose from his seat with a thunderous scrape of wood on wood. He smoothed his hands over the front of his impeccably tailored blazer and levelled me one final, contemptuous look that made my blood freeze in its vessels.

"You have one day to reflect on the eminent truth of your station," he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. "We shall reconvene tomorrow morning for your answer. And it had better be the right one, boy - if you know what's best for you."

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked from the dining room, leaving a sickly vapour trail of domineering menace in his wake. One could have heard a pin drop for the few heartbeats that followed before Mother wordlessly excused herself to rush off after him, no doubt already in damage control mode.

That left just Noah, Maria and I trapped in that unbearable, suffocating silence. Noah finally found the nerve to meet my gaze, his expression one of deep unease and even a flicker of something resembling fearful sympathy. He knew perhaps better than anyone how utterly unforgiving Father's wrath and expectations could be when not met.

"I...you didn't deserve an ultimatum like that, bro," he said at last, the words seeming to have escaped like gas from a fractured pipe. "Not from him, the self-righteous prick."

Beside him, Maria remained uncharacteristically subdued, though her expression mirrored the same disconcerted alarm and emotional whiplash the rest of us felt.

Sighing raggedly, I braced my elbows on the table and cradled my face in my hands, mentally and physically exhausted beyond measure. Only a few short days ago, I had still harboured at least some vestigial hopes of finding another path - one that might permit me to steer our family's affairs back towards the light, in defiance of Father's corroded, dystopian vision.

But now that dream felt as distant and futile as our sister Maria ever finding true love or happiness instead of suffering the same brutally circumscribed destiny looming over the rest of us. I knew with absolute certainty that come the next morning, I would be forced to officially and irrevocably choose - submit utterly, or be utterly destroyed.

And at that moment, staring into the abyss of that impossible choice, I felt as if I was already damned no matter which path I ultimately chose to walk.