NOVEL NEXT Chapter 298: Not a Gangster.
Sophia once again didn't know what to say, how to react to it… because yeah, it was what she wanted… to kill everybody who is against them and finally live in peace, like have the monopoly not just on the drug market but as a mafia… but when she said it she was relying on the information she gathered. The dossier with all the little dots, connections in the city, and even countrywide about the people who can be very dangerous to them.
But Hector was speaking about something else… he wasn't speaking about what she had… he was speaking about something different.
"Death list?" She asked as she looked at him, and he still just had that smile on his face as he was tapping his finger on the wooden desk.
"Exactly, a death list. We are going to thoroughly clean the family."
"The family?" She asked back, still staring at him. "What do you mean by that?"
SIlince for a bit as Hector looked to Ramizer who just nodded to him.
"You know, Sophia, this family was the most intact family in the country, a mafia that was like a fine watch, ever slowing down, never late, and it was because of the people, the people who were very loyal to the core thing… and that core thing was James himself, that he offered them what they had never got… but this has changed as we took a step to become the greatest mafia ever lived in this country… and with it came the doubts." He looked deep into Sophia's eyes. "I hoped that doubt would never rise, but it did, first when Rafael died, and James got shot, and most importantly, the biggest one is when we sided with the government."
It was just too obvious… too obvious that some people's doubts, uncertainty, will turn into hate, into anger and frustration… that the mafia, the family that saved them, turned toward the same government that had abused the people… that let them suffer. The same government that did nothing to help the people… and James Bellini sided with them… how disappointed was that, their hope, their savior is… tricked them.
Yeah, a lot of people thought and still think the same, that they are tricked, that they have been used, that all of it was just an act to get so many people in the family… and all of it just fueled even more their hatred, their doubts… and it became a spark that can burn everything down.
How sad it is… they don't think about what James had done for them, how much money he had paid for them… no, their hate toward the government is just so big that they can't just forget it, can't just forgive them.
"People can never forget something that hurt them, something that made them live their life in despair." Ramizer spoke now. "They remember every aspect of that, remember the trauma it caused."
She didn't understand it… or more like she did and got really suspicious about all of it… if it's really happening that some people in the family are turning against James… why would he act on it? Why wouldn't he do something, anything, to keep the family intact? It's just something that could have been fixed in the beginning when he took the deal with the government.
But then she understood it… yeah she got it.
"You lied to… James?" She asked, as it was the only thing that could be the answer… why he didn't do anything about it.
"I did." Hector's answer was straight, without a shadow of doubt, without any worry.
"W-what?!" Now she was just… truly lost about everything she thought she knew… like what is happening…
"I could have done nothing but lie, to protect him from completely losing himself."
"You just said he is a fucking inhuman, said that even death is—"
"He is not a gangster!" Hector raised his voice as he slammed his wrists into the table so hard his knuckles split open, blood splattering everywhere. "He's not a gangster anymore, he's far greater than that, everything is built on him! He is the hope for this rotten country, what do you not fucking understand about that?!"
It was strange to see Hector like this… he wasn't the same as he was always… his voice was firm but it had a hint of… worry in it, a hint of something that was just not him..
"He's the one who changed the whole system, changed the country, changed the government! He's the man who forced the government to declare a national emergency! This isn't mafia level, this isn't gangster level… it's beyond that. He's the one who can finally bring this country to a place where nobody is suffering, where nobody is dying day to day! A country where a child can actually get medicine and not die in his parent's arms! That's who he is!"
"Hector, you—"
"What?!" He slammed his bleeding fist into the desk again. "I try to protect him with everything I have, every lie, every sacrifice… just to keep him from being swallowed by the darkness! He is a living miracle in this rotten world! Do you understand that? In just four years he changed everything, changed this country! Even if it comes through death, through suffering, through despair, he still forces it forward! That's why I stand by him! That's why I protect him, because without him, there is nothing. Nothing!" He took a deep breath, still looking at her. "I will not let him fall, I will not let him turn into what Lucian became, a paranoid motherfucker who can't even tell right from wrong anymore! He is the future of this fucking country!"
He hit the table once again as he finished, and the room was silent except for the drip of blood onto the wood… and his ragged breaths as he stared into Sophia's eyes… but now rage came from her as she eyed Hector…
The same Hector whose eyes were teared up… the same Hector who she never saw like this, to be this furious, to be this… vulnerable.
"And if you can't see it… you are just a weight for him."