At the beginning, the Bellinis felt like our family’s saviors.
Enzo took pity on our mother, giving her a full-time, live-inposition. Stability. Food. A roof over our heads. For the first time in a long time, we weren’t fighting just to make it through the day.
And with that came Enzo’s son, Marco.
He was older than us by several years, and at first, we admired him. Silas and I followed him around like shadows, eager for his attention and approval. He let us, keeping us close enough to feel chosen.
For a while, it felt like belonging.
But Marco’s charm didn’t last. It wore thin the longer we stayed, slipping in small ways at first, then all at once. What we had mistaken for confidence and charm was really selfishness, greed, and a lack of empathy. It became clear there was something wrong with him, something no one ever corrected because no one ever told him "no."
Marco took what he wanted. It didn’t matter if it was objects, attention, or people. There were no consequences, no boundaries, no lines he wouldn’t cross, because none had ever been drawn.
If he wanted something, it was already his.
We didn’t understand how far that went until the girl.
She was an omega. It was obvious how young, nervous, and clearly out of place she was, the moment she stepped inside his house. I remember the way she lingered in the foyer, slipping off her shoes, looking around in awe.
Marco came down the grand staircase to meet her with that same easy charm and sharp smile that had fooled us once too.
She followed him willingly, upstairs, down the hall, to his bedroom.
But what came wasn't willing.
We never saw what happened.
But we heard it.
A struggle. A crash. A muffled cry. Silence until… Our mother screamed.
Then silence again.
Silas and I rushed upstairs when we heard our mother's frightened cry, but by the time we reached Marco’s door and forced it open, it was already over.
The omega girl was on the floor, still and lifeless.
Our mother lay next to the girl, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes open and unblinking.
I have always assumed she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That our mother had walked in on something Marco never meant her to see. Whatever had happened to the omega girl, whether it was an accident or something that spiraled too far, didn’t matter in the end. What mattered was that our mother saw it.
And we had spent enough time around the Bellinis to understand exactly what happened to witnesses.
Now we too had become witnesses. Loose ends who saw Marco’s first killing spree. In the Bellini Crime Syndicate, loose ends didn’t get mercy. They got erased.
Marco stared at us as he stood over the corpse of our mother. The chilling way he looked at us wasn't remorseful or even panicked, but calm in an eerie way. Calculating and cold.
He looked at us like we were next.
There was nothing uncertain about what he planned to do to us.
So we turned and ran right out of the house, not even stopping to mourn our mother. She was gone, and there was nothing wecould have done to help her.
Enzo and Marco put a hit out on us within days, just like we knew they would. After that, it was survival. Hiding. Running. Learning how to stay just out of the Bellini Crime Syndicate’s reach.
When we turned sixteen, we enlisted early with Arca, working our way through the system and the ranks until we landed in AIED, close enough to see how everything operated and, more importantly, ranked high enough to pull strings.
Command didn’t sanction Enzo Bellini’s death. Silas and I secretly carried out the hit. We knew Enzo had to die for Marco to unravel. Using our position, our access, and everything we had learned, it was easy to orchestrate it from the inside, pulling strings until the outcome was inevitable.
