NOVEL NEXT Chapter 299: What is he...?
Silence, silence that was just too deep, too long, and too real, something that needed to be said by someone, and that someone was Hector himself, the right-hand man of James, the underboss of the family, who finally said it all.
That James is no longer just a gangster in their world, in their country, in their city, but much more than that… he is the one that created a change not for the underworld but for the people, for the civilians, for the country to finally take a step.
Is it bad, is it wrong?
Maybe…. maybe it is wrong that he has grown so much that the government fears him, maybe he has grown out of the shoes of a gangster too much, so much that even the biggest people know him, that if his fall, it would be too obvious what caused it… but he did it.
He climbed the peak… no, he discovered new heights of the game, discovered something that has never even been reached before. He is more than a criminal… a creator of peace…
What a hypocrite statement it is… but from many perspectives, that is what he did, through blood, through killing, through ending lives with drugs… he achieved a peace that is brought to the country, a type of peace that is dangerous even to himself… word for word he invented something, he created something that is working against him.
Who the fuck would have done something like this?
Nobody, nobody can even achieve a greatness like this… that from one fucking family, one fucking gangster, a Don… he is the one that has his hand on everything, that everything is working because of him.
What Darvik said was right to some extent… the government is copying Maraci with their national emergency, with their labor camps, with their newly made rules… but at the same time no… because it was all done by one single man, all of it started because of him, because of James Bellini.
A criminal who destroyed countless lives… a leader of a family whose name is feared in every corner… and yet, it is that very man who manages to bring a twisted kind of peace to a country that has long since abandoned its people. A country that treats its citizens like stray dogs. A country where men and women starve, where children die not from war, but from hunger and poverty.
Is he a hero?
No, he was never a hero, and he never will be, because there are no heroes in this world. Heroes exist only in books, in stories, in the desperate illusions of those who can't face reality.
Is he villain?
That word doesn't fit him either. It's far too small, far too simple…. he is everything at once.
Once, he was just a boy… a boy who wanted so little, and yet so much. He wanted to protect his family, to become the one who would earn enough money to give them a better life, maybe even study, get a degree, become a doctor or something great… all he wanted was a chance. He wanted to grow into a man who could carry their burdens, a man who could be respected, a man who could finally do more.
His dreams weren't grand, no, they were simple, human… yet, in the end, he became something else entirely.
He became the man who kills, the man who deals in drugs, in violence. The man whose name carries power, fear, and control.
But even now, even when he was swallowed by the darkness, by the thought, by the laugh he does not remember, by the fury, by the despair… that boy still exists. A boy who never asked for power, who never wanted blood on his hands… a boy who wanted is just… make it.
And maybe, just maybe, that boy inside is the most dangerous part of him, because he is still alive.
Yeah, men like him are not supposed to last. They are supposed to be shot down in an alley, betrayed by their own, locked in a cage until their name fades into nothing.
And yet, in some kind of fucking miracle way, life just played the biggest fucking joke on him… many times. Every bullet that should have ended him did nothing. Every loss that should have fucked him up… well, it did, but it did it in a way where he became something else entirely.
He has outlived friends, family, enemies… made history and that makes him not a man, at least not anymore, but a symbol.
Some whisper his name like a curse, as if he is a demon, "The Angel of Death" while others speak it like a prayer, as if he is a messiah. Because to the poor, he is proof that the powerless can rise, and to the rich, he is a reminder… that a motherfucker boy can fuck everyone up… with a bit of luck… a bit of miracle… misunderstanding… maybe with a lot, actually.
And there is one thing, one that many don't get, a little tiny thing that people don't even think about… he is tired. His empire, his power, none of it was what he wanted when he was just a boy dreaming of a better life. Every night, the memories, the faces, the screams they all come back… and deep down, that little boy is the one fighting it all back.
Nah, to the people, as long as he still breathes, as long as his heart still beats, the world will remember his name, not as a hero, not as a villain, not as somebody who fights demons all the time, no… but as something far more terrifying.
A man who refused to die… and became something on his own… an anomaly, as Hector said it, as Darvik, as Ramirez, as everybody else around him said and thinks.
And he is its king, the king of his own annd so on the question remains, what is he?
If he were a true villain, he would have let the streets rot, let the poor starve, let the weak remain weak. Yet he did not. In his own way, violent, merciless, he built order. He gave work to those who were desperate, protected families who lived in fear. For every life he destroyed, there were others he kept alive. For every man he killed, there were children who ate because of him.
But if he were a hero, he would not have blood on his hands. He would not command killers, nor sell drugs. Heroes are meant to save without corruption, to fight without compromise.
He does neither.
And that is why neither word… hero nor villain can contain him.
The underworld itself shapes him into something else… a walking paradox. To some, he is the villain who turns their brothers into corpses and their sisters into addicts. To others, he is the hero who feeds people, who changes life for the better.
A man who carries both… and all of this bullshit started because of a fucking misunderstanding… that a fucking boy worked in a coffee shop… and suddenly he becomes an anomaly to the world… a jackpot and, at the same time, a curse. Yeah, whoever the fuck it was, a god, a demon, Satan himself, or a fucking fairy… truly cursed the fuck out of him.
Or maybe it was intended as a blessing… yeah, he could have become the greatest infamy of the fucking world, just sticking and ratting on everybody, the greatest infamous… well, he chose the other way.
"Then… what are we doing?" Sophia asked, as tears streamed down her face, she wiped them off, sehe wanted them to disappear, but no… it hit her hard that what she said was clearly a sin. She can't say things like that out loud, what if he dies… no, she can't even think about it… because if he dies… there will be nothing that remains.
"We wait." Hector said again, staring at his phone. "They will call."
"Who?"
"The government."
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I'm terribly sorry for the long wait. Chapters are coming.