NOVEL NEXT Chapter 293: Change.
It hit him once again hard that he didn't listen to anybody, didn't listen to those who had experience in the field, he didn't even listen to his mother… but how easy would that be?
Just listen, just once in your fucking life, listen to yourself, and leave behind all the bullshit you're carrying. Just walk away from it. Say goodbye to it… that would have been the best step, the best decision to make, when Marcello died… when the first person close to him died because of him, but he kept going, acted out, pretended to be this boss, this someone who controlled the underworld… yeah, if he had just walked away, just dropped the act, everything could have stopped… he could have saved lives.
Save Rafael, save his mother from grief, save everybody that died… but no he went on with all of it.
But he already knew all of this, always knew all of this… that he is not the best boss, that he never was even boss, because everybody just feared him, everybody just respect him, and it was Hector and the others who did everything, he never went to Dennus, never saw the drug in person, never looked over it, never even questioned what is happening… he never controlled nothing, he was just the face of all of it.
Yeah, he never showed them what would happen when someone betrayed him, when someone became a rat. No, he saw all of it as an opportunity for them, as if he were the hope reaching out to their desperate lives, the one who helps them… and they, in return, would give their lives for him, give their loyalty to him.
Lucian was right about it… James… he became almost like a homeless shelter for desperate, poor people rather than becoming the light… he let everybody into the family, gave out money while they worked… but it turned into the exact opposite of what he had hoped for, what he wanted it to be.
He wanted to be a mafia, a gangster that people would remember, that when he dies, the streets would be filled with people, with cries, with tears, remembering how he had been there for them. That he was the light, the hope for them, the supporter for the people the government had left behind.
But he fucked up, fucked up by thinking it was actually possible in their time, that it could still be done in the twenty-first century. He never stopped, never even asked himself why the others, Isabelle, Sophia, Victor, Marco, even Silas or Lucian, why they didn't make it work.
They had fewer people, fewer hands, but in Lucian's words, quality ones, not hundreds or thousands. Why? Because it was impossible to contain them.
Back then it was simple, the fifties, the sixties, hell, even the eighties, a different world, a different mentality. People obeyed differently, believed differently. Technology was different. Justice itself was a different beast, slower, easier to bend, easier to twist. And people, people were wired another way.
But now? Every movement leaves a mark, every lie gets replayed, cut, spread. He didn't see it. He didn't understand the weight of the century pressing down. And in that blindness, he thought he could be what the old names were. Thought he could play their game with new rules.
Lucian said it himself, better a few strong ones than a thousand weak. A thousand weak will only burn you, only make noise, only bring eyes.
The fifties, the sixties, the eighties, different years, different minds. People trusted more, feared more. They did not question, the system was slower, the world was smaller. You could control it with fewer chains. But this age? This age does not forget. This age does not close its eyes.
He thought he could do it, he can be like Russo was, to command respect in the street, walk down with a cane, a coat, a hat on, and people look at you with respect, but… it is not a movie, nor is it the old times.
The amount of mistakes he made would have already crushed someone else, but maybe that's his power, that he doesn't bend… somehow everything still plays out well for him at least it did back then.
He didn't give a fuck about anything at the beginning, he didn't even knew what is what, how to do it… but now and in the few months as everything happened, the only one person who feel it all… is him.
The doubt, the question whispers, the screams, the faces, the laugh he doesn't remember, all of it just crashing down, all of it changing his personality into something far more dangerous than what he is now… because there is a breaking point for everyone.
For Lucian it was his paranoia, that his power was going to slip from his hands, that his own will backstab him… and he realized if it kept going, he was going to die alone.
For Silas that old motherfucker… his breaking point of course was his fuckass son, a breaking point that is your own blood, how sad that is, building up something for decades and all of it crumbling because a dumb motherfucker who is your own blood.
And there was Isabella, and Marco, who feared James would get too powerful and would push them down… so they backstabbed him… though they met their end the most brutal way… and of course Victor… the one that was almost a friend to James, at least he seemed like one… and he got gunned down… with his whole family.
It was all betrayal. All of it. Lucian's mind betrayed him… Silas was betrayed by his own son, Marco and Isabella by their greed, by their fear.
Then there was Rafael, betrayed by James, his own big brother, and Victor… he died because of James.
All of them died because of him… like a circle that just goes around and around again and again, always the same thing happening… and he finally realized it. He realized that change was needed, that he had to do something to end it all.
Thousands in the family, then the government, and many others… and he hadn't even sold a single gram of drugs.
That's why he smiled. What else could he do?
Twice, he felt Death's hand on his shoulder, guiding him through a dance that wouldn't end… and he enjoyed it, every step, every tiny movement. He enjoyed it pretty much… and now it would become even more intense than before.
Someone wants to betray him? Can he stop them? Should he strike first? Who can he trust? What will happen next? How far will it go? What—
"A mass grave huh…"