Chapter 11 - A Mother's Final Recording
Before I could walk out the door to prepare my arsenal, Elena hurried down the cabin hallway, holding a small, tarnished silver USB drive on a chain.
"Alejandro, wait!"
I stopped, turning back.
"Sofia gave this to me the day before she slipped into the coma," Elena said, her voice shaking as she pressed the cold metal into my palm. "She told me that if the day ever came where you found out about the boys... you needed to watch this alone."
I looked at the drive. For five years, I had clung to memories, photographs, and the scent of her perfume lingering on old coats. The prospect of hearing her voice again made my hands tremble.
I went into the cabin's private study, locked the heavy oak door, and plugged the drive into Julian's encrypted laptop.
A single video file appeared.
I clicked play.
The screen flickered, then resolved into a brightly lit hospital room in Mexico. Sofia sat propped up against pillows. Her long, dark hair was gone, replaced by a soft silk scarf, and her once-radiant skin was painfully pale.
Yet, her hazel eyes—the exact same eyes as Mateo, Nico, Lucas, and Leo—burned with an indomitable fire.
"Alejandro," she whispered, looking directly into the camera lens with a faint, sorrowful smile.
My breath caught in my throat.
"If you are watching this, it means my worst fears have come true... or my greatest miracle has happened. It means you know about our sons."
She paused, coughing weakly into a handkerchief before regaining her composure.
"I found out about Silvio's shipments three months before I fell ill. He was moving dirty radioactive isotopes through our shipping lanes, selling them to international buyers behind your back. When I confronted him... he offered me a cut. When I threatened to tell you, he poisoned my tea."
Rage, pure and blinding, flooded my veins until my vision tinted red.
"I couldn't tell you, my love," Sofia continued, a tear slipping down her hollowed cheek. "Because Silvio had already bought half your capos. If you started an internal war back then, they would have butchered you in your sleep. I had to let him think his poison was working naturally. But God gave me one last gift before I went dark... four heartbeats inside me."
She leaned closer to the lens.
"They have your strength, Alejandro. They have your fierce, unyielding pride. Don't let the darkness take them like it took us. Be their father first, their Don second. Protect our boys... and when the time comes, reclaim what is ours."
The screen went black.
I sat in the dark study for ten minutes, listening to the ticking of the wall clock. The sorrow that had weighed down my chest for five long years didn't vanish—it transformed.
May you like
It forged itself into cold, indestructible iron.
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