Difficult choices

Difficult choices

POV: Lorenzo

Elena steps away from us, frightened.

I can see her internal struggle with the truth, which I still don't know how she discovered.

"Elena, it was necessary," Vicente repeats the lie we've been telling ourselves since the day we decided to put Edgar's brother and son in one of our interrogation rooms.

"No, Vicente, that makes you just like them," she replies, her voice choked with emotion.

We know what she's feeling, that's why we didn't want her to know.

Elena has already suffered too much, and being around people who make others suffer what she has already suffered doesn't help at all.

"You told me we're the mafia, that we know the consequences and that you've already accepted them," I repeat her words.

I know this is unfair to her.

"No, Lorenzo, don't do this," she tells me angrily. "You know that's not what I meant."

"No, Lorenzo, don't do this," she tells me angrily. Dante steps forward and she leans against the door.

I see her eyes widen in fear as she realizes she's trapped.

"Dante, back off!" Giorgio warns, knowing it's no use.

"You're not monsters, you can't be," she whispers. "I trusted you."

None of us say anything; we know we made a mistake.

"Who are they?" she asks, afraid. Afraid of us.

"Edgar's brother and son," Nicco replies.

Elena stares at him in shock.

Giorgio notices the moment her legs give way and supports her, but Elena struggles desperately.

"Let her go," I order, and he obeys.

Elena stares at her own clenched hands on the floor, tears soaking her skin.

"Do you realize what you've done?" she asks between sobs.

The penny drops like a punch to the gut.

She stares at me with disgust and hatred. “You tell Edgar what you do to his son? You show him off as a form of torture? To get an answer?” she yells at us.

A silence falls over the room as she recounts exactly what we do. What they did to her and to our father.

“I’m an idiot,” she curses herself and staggers to her feet. “You’re worse than them, at least they don’t pretend to be who they’re not.”

Elena reaches for the door, wanting to get away from us.

“Elena,” I call to her, and she stops, her hand on the doorknob.

“I don’t recognize you anymore,” she says, and leaves the room.

I lean back in my chair, guilt gnawing at me from the inside, and I don’t need to look at the others to know they feel the same.

“She won’t forgive us,” says Vicente, and I stare at him.

Not only did we cross moral boundaries, but we also destroyed any trust we had with Elena.

“How did she find out?” Dante asks.

“Does it matter?” I ask, tired but equally curious.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Giorgio says, and we all stare at him. Well, not all of us.

Vicente obviously already knows.

“Dominic,” he says, and my blood boils.

He withdrew the mafia’s support as soon as we took Edgar’s family to the warehouse; he warned that Elena wouldn’t like this at all.

“I’m going to kill him,” I say, furious.

“And make things worse with Elena? Great idea,” Vicente says ironically.

I put my hand to my head, lost.

What am I going to do?

I need Edgar’s information, and he’s almost bankrupt, but at the same time, I can’t lose my sister.

“Let’s free them,” I say in a grim tone. "But first, we need a few things."

I get up from the table and grab my suit; the boys follow me out of the office, confident that I have a solution.

I'm not going to lose my family because of a war.

POV: Elena

I don't know what to think or do to calm my mind.

I lock my bedroom door and put the bed in front of it, preventing anyone from opening it.

Thick tears stream down my face as I sink to the floor.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have trusted them and this false illusion of family?

Deep down, they're all the same and are just waiting for the opportunity to destroy me.

"Elena," Nonna slams the door.

"Go away, I don't want to see any of you," I say angrily.

"Piccola, I'm sorry," she says, and of course everyone knew, everyone supported her.

"GO AWAY!" I scream, my voice choked with emotion.

A sob cuts through my anger, and I sink back into anguish and hatred.

I don't know how long I stay hugging my knees while I cry, but when I recover, my mind is blank.

I answer the phone without thinking much. "Can you come pick me up?" I ask as soon as Dominic answers.

He says something my brain simply chooses to ignore.

"I'll wait for you at the entrance," I say and hang up.

I move the bed away from the door and wait, sitting by the window, until I see his car's headlights.

When he drives through the front door, I leave my room.

I go downstairs, my mind focused only on opening the door, without hearing or paying attention to anything or anyone.

I only return to reality when I'm standing at the entrance and my father is kneeling in front of me.

I look around and see Dominic leaning against the car with his arms crossed.

"I can't stay here, I need to think," I tell my father, who understands the situation better than anyone.

He looks at me and then at Dominic before answering me.

"Take all the time you need, but know that we're fixing what we did," he admits, with guilt and sadness.

“You, more than anyone, should have been against it,” I say, tears welling in my eyes. “This was wrong, you’ve become monsters, and I don’t want to be a part of it.”

“I’m sorry, princess,” he says sincerely.

But what good is their guilt now?

I move away from him, but he doesn’t stop me as I approach Dominic, who opens the car door for me.

We leave my family’s property without exchanging a word, but I feel it’s unnecessary.