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“Guest room,” Grayson said, tilting his head toward the door.
I nodded, offering a small smile of appreciation before pushing away from the counter. My footsteps echoed in stark contrast to the silence of the apartment as I padded down the hallway towards the guest room. The door was ajar, a sliver of light escaping through the tiny opening.
With one last deep breath for courage, I pushed it open fully and stepped inside. I found Sam lying on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling like he was trying to piece together a shattered sky.
"Hey," I said, my voice low and tentative.
“I heard you were out there. I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, not looking at me.
A heavy silence filled the room, punctuated only by the distant, melancholic hum of late-night traffic. I moved to join him on the bed, the worn-out springs creaking under my weight.
“Sam,” I began, my voice a whisper in the darkness. “We need to talk about Dad. We need to talk about all of this.”
“No,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
I clenched my fists, struggling to keep my emotions in check. “That worked out well last time.”
He sat up, looking right at me. “I was foolish. I thought I could take him down. I couldn’t.”
“You didn’t know. You were just trying to protect us. You couldn’t do it alone.”
He stared at me, saying nothing. I sighed.
“Okay,” I said. “I take your point.”
“I fucked up. I keep fucking up, Sof. I keep putting people in danger. I can’t lose you too.”
“You won’t,” I replied. "But we have to consider our options now. We can't afford to make any more mistakes." The urgency pressed on me, making my voice shake. I could see the impact of my words on Sam's face; the lines around his eyes deepened, his mouth tightened.
"We need to kill him, Sam," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. My hands clenched around the fabric of my jeans, my knuckles turning white.
"We need to kill him, Sam," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. My hands clenched around the fabric of my jeans, my knuckles turning white.
“The feds can’t know. The Blades can’t know. We need to do this. You and me.”
He looked at me, sighed, then nodded. There was a silent understanding between us then; a pact forged in sorrow and desperation. We would do what had to be done. For ourselves, for our family, for everyone who had ever been hurt by the Viper. The gravity of it all pressed down on us like a vice until we were gasping for breath in the heavy silence.
I cracked a shaky smile that I hoped felt more reassuring than it felt on my face. “Guess we’re in this together, huh?”
He let out a huff that might have been a chuckle in a different life, in a world where our father wasn’t the mastermind of an organized crime syndicate we had to bring down. “Looks like.”
We let silence fill the space between us again. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but heavy with the weight of our decision, the reality of what we were about to do. It was still sinking in for me; the idea of killing our own father. How did we even get to this point?
I glanced over at Sam. Even in the dim light, I could see the worry lines etched around his eyes, his brow furrowed as he stared at the ceiling. He looked older than his years and in that moment, I realized just how much he had shouldered alone.
“This isn’t your fault, Sam. You didn’t know what he was like.”
“I did.” The words were barely more than a breath, but they pierced the quiet night like a bullet. "I did...but I chose not to see it. I never wanted to believe that the man who raised us could be a monster."
Silence fell again. I wrestled with his admission, forced to confront the truth. We had both turned a blind eye to who our father truly was.
“Sam…” My voice wavered, and I reached out instinctively, finding his hand in the darkness. Our fingers intertwined—a lifeline in the swirling chaos of betrayal.
“You don’t have to shoulder it all,” I said softly, squeezing his hand in reassurance. "I'm here with you."
“You’ve always been there,” he replied quietly, turning his head to look at me. His eyes were bright in the dim light, reflecting a depth of sadness that struck me to my core.
“How are you recovering?”
