Pretending to Be an Untouchable Crime Boss

There was silence once again. A long one. Nobody said anything, but James… James just kept flipping that coin… flipping it over and over, just watching what it landed on.

Heads. Heads. Tails. Heads. Tails. Tails.

He didn't care about the outcome, he didn't make decisions based on it. No… he just loved the motion, loved the sound, loved the way it danced through the air. He loved playing with it, seeing what the coin would decide when he couldn't decide himself.

It wasn't weighted. It wasn't a trick coin. Just a coin… one that happened to be in his pocket, and yet, in that moment, it was like a window into life, a tiny glimpse of what the world was offering him, as if the coin itself held a little magic.

He flipped it again. Heads. Tails. Heads. Each time it spun, it felt like the world slowed down a little, like everything else… noise, people, problems… all was gone.

Just him, the coin, and the moment.

The spin, the catch, the feeling as it hit his palm. That tiny chaos, that randomness… it was beautiful.

It was alive.

And for a second, just a second, he could pretend life wasn't heavy, that he didn't have to think about choices, about consequences. That he could let something else, something as simple and meaningless as a coin, take the weight off his shoulders.

But the moment passed, as moments always do. The coin landed, he opened his palm… heads and still… he smiled, because it wasn't about what it chose… it was how he explained it before… you know exactly which side of the coin you want… you know, and you wish for the side you chose to land on, even before flipping the coin. At least that worked before with the trickster coin.

It always landed the way he wanted it to.

He used it to manipulate others… but when the coin is real… it's not going to work the way you want, to trick yourself or trick others with it… it's just odds you can't beat.

It's either heads or tails, nothing in between… you can flip it as many times as you want, but in the end, the coin means shit… just a possibility, a toll that you can use it in situations when you can't think clearly to make a good choice.

But is flipping a coin really a good decision? To leave it to odds?

No, of course it's not… James knew that too. Back then he flipped it to help make a decision… but a lot had happened, too much… so flipping the coin was about nothing, just for the excitement of it.

The coin didn't make the choice for him, didn't solve anything. Just the feeling of something moving, something deciding for him, even if it's only a piece of metal in the air.

But reality… reality doesn't care about anything… reality lands where it lands. You can't trick it. You can't cheat it. You can only flip it, and then watch it fall, and then live with what comes.

And maybe that's the lesson. Maybe the coin isn't about what it chooses… maybe it's about learning some things… some choices… aren't meant to be controlled.

You can only decide what you do after it lands.

James stared at the coin longer than he should have, feeling the weight of it in his hand, cold and smooth, like it knew everything he was thinking… and well for a moment… he wanted it to lie to him, to tell him what he wanted to hear.

But it didn't. It couldn't.

He tossed it again, watching it spin, and land back in his palm. Heads. It didn't fee like relief. It didn't feel like anything and yet… he flipped it again. Maybe not for the coin. Maybe for the sound, the motion, the little thrill of leaving it to chance, knowing it didn't matter. It was all a lie, all of it… but lying, even just a little, sometimes felt better than facing the truth head-on.

And every flip, reminded him of everything he'd lost… everything he couldn't control. People, moments, chances… all gone, all out of his hands. The coin didn't care. The world didn't care.

Nothing cared… and to be honest he wanted to scream at it, to throw it across the room, shattering the small illusion it gave him. But he didn't. He just kept flipping it… maybe because in that tiny, meaningless motion, there was… freedom.

A little freedom. For a second, he didn't have to decide. The coin decided, and he could pretend the outcome wasn't his fault.

But the truth hit him every time it landed. It didn't matter. He was still the one who had to live with it. Still the one who had to act, to choose, to face what came next. No coin, no trick, no chance could take that away from him.

And maybe that was the cruelest part. That even when you leave it to luck… even when you let fate decide… you're still the one who has to answer for it.

Answer for everything you have done, answer for your mistakes.

Pussy? A bitch? A whore mentally? Trauma breaking a man…how weak can he be? Breaking in a world that he knew was dangerous? Breaking because some people around him died, because his family is in danger? Fighting with inner demons?

That's all what makes him who he is. Just like Darvik said. Just like Lucian projected him to become. Every failure, every trembling, every coin flip that meant nothing, those weren't weaknesses… they were lessons… they were the darkness shaping him.

Each scar, each sleepless night, each shadow of doubt, each smile, voice he can't remember… they stack inside him, building something stronger… something no one else could understand.

That chaos, that pain, the suffering, all of it… it's his power.

It's what makes him James Bellini, the Don, the drug lord… the one who takes it all.

That's what turns him into what Lucian might have been, what Silas spent his whole life trying to become, what Victor only ever dreamed of… what Marcello warned him would happen.

James Bellini… the one who changed the criminal underworld, the one who didn't just walk over the peak… but conquered it. And he would do anything to keep it together, to keep himself and his family safe… let it be a mass grave, a car bomb, or a mass shooting.

He changed… no, he finally became what they all feared him to become.

There are no more final lines, no more borders… nothing stands in his way, because… he shattered it all and finally became what everyone feared… and he would do whatever it took to keep it, to protect what mattered, no matter the cost, no matter the chaos left behind.