The thing my father and Nero murdered and experimented and destroyed lives to create.
This small vial that was supposed to make millions if not billions.
I hold it up to the light, watching the liquid catch and shimmer.
“Will you use it?” Nevaeh asks, eyes round and curious. “On yourself? On others?”
I look at the vial, then at her. At the woman who survived hell to stand beside me. My wife who has been through this long and arduous journey with me, now growing our child inside her.
They tried to destroy us, yet here we are. The true victors in all of this.
I have my answer as the truth couldn’t be more apparent—we’ve never needed them before. We don’t need anything from them now.
“No,” I say. “This was never meant to cure me… or others.”
The vial slips through my fingers and crashes onto the slate floor, where it shatters into dozens of pieces. The liquid spreads in a clear pool at our feet.
Nevaeh gasps but doesn’t try to stop me. She seems more shocked than anything that I’d destroy it so cavalierly.
“That was poison,” I go on. “More means of control. They would’ve used it to make people like me permanently dependent on Zinc Co, on their treatments, on their mercy. My father and Nero didn’t want to heal anyone—they wanted to create an empire built on suffering. That much became clear as they experimented on me.”
Nevaeh’s arms come around me as she rises on her tiptoes despite the slight awkwardness of her growing belly and our severe height difference. I bow my head to drop a kiss onto her lips.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers. “You’re a good man, Cael. Despite everything they tried to make you.”
“I’m a good man because of you,” I correct her, pulling her closer. “You saved me, mia bella ballerina. You showed me how to be a good man worthy of you.”
From that moment, we focus on being happy. On building a real marriage and future together from the ruins of our past.
I watch, mesmerized, as Nevaeh’s body changes. Her belly continues to swell with our child. She glows with a beauty that almost feels unreal, a true pregnancy glow on her dark brown skin.
She carries differently now, more carefully, but still with that dancer’s grace that first captivated me all those months ago.
More of my strength returns in tandem with her pregnancy.
By her sixth month, I’m back to running operations, rebuilding what was destroyed in the war with Nero.
The criminal underworld in Dresden has changed.
With Nero and my father dead, there’s a power vacuum that threatens to tear the city apart. Smaller families scramble for control.
Violence spikes in the streets. The delicate balance that kept Dresden from descending into complete chaos teeters on a knife’s edge.
But I see opportunity where others see destruction.
Without Nero’s iron fist crushing everyone below him, I can reshape Dresden into something better. Something that actually resembles the discipline and order traditional of La Cosa Nostra.
More stable. More fair, in the twisted way the underworld understands fairness.
I recruit aggressively. Dozens of men who once served Nero come to me, drawn by the promise of steady work and a boss who won’t lock their families into bondage like he’d done to so many families like Nevaeh’s.
I absorb smaller operations, not through violence but through negotiation. I make it clear that under my rule, there will be order. There will be consequences for chaos.
Dresden’s underworld needs a ruler, and I step into that role like I was born for it. Maybe I was all along, despite never battling for my father’s crown when he was alive.
I fortify my estate until it’s an impenetrable fortress. New security systems, armed guards at every entrance, surveillance that covers every inch of the property.
Nevaeh needs to be safe. Our child needs to be safe. I won’t let what happened with Nero ever happen again.
