Lily sits slowly, carefully, perching on the edge of the cushion like she might need to flee at any moment. Her posture is rigid, defensive.
Erion clears his throat, the sound loud in the tense silence. "Do you want something to eat? Or drink? Coffee? Water?"
Then he laughs, the sound self-mocking and slightly bitter. "I'm doing what you always do. Trying to fix things with food. Trying to make people comfortable by feeding them."
Lily's mouth curves slightly, a ghost of a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. Small but genuine. She opens her mouth to speak, probably to say something kind, something that will ease the tension.
I interrupt. I need to. Need to get the truth out before she can dismiss us with gentle words and careful distance.
"You know who we are now. What we do for a living. We've told you almost everything about our world, about the crime and the violence and the gray morality we operate in." My voice is steady, factual, offering information without defense. "We left out one thing. One big, terrible thing. The fact that I killed my father."
Lily's eyes widen, blue irises expanding with shock, but she doesn't speak. Doesn't move. Just stares at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"It's a terrible truth to admit," I continue, forcing myself to hold her gaze even though every instinct wants to look away. "But I also kept it from you because I thought knowing would put you in danger. That if you knew, you'd become a target. A liability. Someone who could be used against me. I was wrong. Not telling you hurt you worse than the truth ever could. And I never want to hurt you again."
I take a breath that feels like inhaling broken glass. This is it. The moment where everything either breaks or begins to heal.
"I always had a difficult relationship with my father. Since I was a child, since before I have coherent memories, he would beatme. Not discipline. Not punishment. Just violence for the sake of violence. Savagely. Without restraint or mercy. It got worse after my mother died when I was twelve. Like he blamed me for her death somehow."
"I was there," Artan adds quietly from where he's leaning against the wall, his eyes haunted by old memories. "I saw it happen. The beatings. The cruelty. But I couldn't do anything about it. No one could. He was the head of the family. Untouchable."
I nod acknowledgement of Artan's witness. Continue pushing through the story like walking through fire. "The only person who tried to interfere, who would step between us when she could, was my sister. Mira. She was ten years older than me. She'd look after me after the beatings. Clean the blood. Bandage what needed bandaging. Tell me stories to distract me from the pain."
Lily's eyes are already wet, tears gathering but not yet falling.
"My father was a dark, twisted man. Evil in ways that have nothing to do with the mafia or organized crime. He had no scruples when it came to making money. No lines he wouldn't cross. No atrocity he wouldn't commit if it was profitable. That didn't sit well with me. I was supposed to inherit the clan, to take over when he stepped down or died. For years, I thought once I took over, I'd change things. Make the business cleaner. More ethical, if such a thing is possible in this world."
I pause, gathering strength for what comes next. This is the hard part. The part I've never said out loud to anyone.
"Then I found out two things, just a few months ago, that changed everything. First, that my father was involved in human trafficking. Moving women and girls across borders. Selling them. Some of the victims were underage, children, some as young as twelve or thirteen. That alone was enough for me. I decided right then to stop him. By any means necessary. Even if it meant killing him myself."
The room is heavy with the weight of that admission. With the reality of what I'm capable of.
"And I found my sister's journal," I continue, my voice getting quieter, more strained. "My father told me she'd abandoned us. Abandoned me. Said she wanted nothing to do with this life, that she'd started fresh somewhere else and didn't want contact. I believed him. I was angry at her for years for leaving me alone with him."
My throat tightens with emotion I thought I'd buried.
"The journal started as an agenda. Appointments. But the later entries became personal. More like a diary. Private thoughts she never meant anyone to read."
I can see the pages in my mind, her handwriting getting more frantic with each entry, the words becoming messier as panic set in.
"In one of the last entries, she wrote that she was afraid she might be pregnant. Which shocked me because I didn't even know she had a boyfriend. She'd never mentioned anyone. The very last entry was chaotic. Conflicting thoughts writtenin fragments. Sentences that started and stopped. She was terrified. She wrote that our father had found out about the pregnancy. That he was taking her to have an abortion. He threatened her. Told her that if she didn't agree, if she tried to keep the baby, he'd kill everyone she loved. Her lover. Me."
Lily's hand moves to cover her mouth, her fingers pressing against her lips like she can physically hold back sound.
"So she agreed. She went with him. She had the procedure." My voice breaks slightly on the last word. "Something went wrong. Both Mira and the baby died. And he just told everyone that she'd left. That she'd chosen to abandon the family. I believed that lie for years."
The room goes completely, utterly silent. The kind that presses against skin like physical pressure.
Lily is crying now, not bothering to hide it or wipe the tears away. Silent streams down her cheeks, her face twisted with grief for people she never met. For tragedies that happened before she entered our world.
Erion looks stricken, his face pale, his usual sardonic expression completely gone.
Suddenly there's a crushing sound that makes us all flinch.
Artan's fist connects with the floor-to-ceiling window with devastating force. Once. Twice. Again and again, each impact accompanied by a roar that sounds barely human.
Pure fury. Pure anguish.
