Chapter 32 Disaster Bleeds, Breaks, but Stays
“If I had known what waited for me after that decision,” Carol began, her voice low and unsteady, “I would’ve begged to follow my parents back to the soil they came from. Instead, I stayed. And I stepped straight into a world built on pain—blood, guilt, torture, sorrow. A world I could never claw my way out of.”
Her eyes hardened, but Mia reached out anyway, slipping her hand into Carol’s.
“I’m so sorry you had to live through that.”
Carol gave her a brittle smile, the kind that cracked under the weight of memory.
“Sorry doesn’t erase it. This life is shadows and secrets. And the Beast—he’s the heart of it.”
“The Beast?” Mia whispered.
Carol nodded. “Leader of the organization. Ruthless. Cunny. He doesn’t just run a gang. He runs a machine. A network that stretches across continents. Guns, drugs, even politicians in his pocket. He pulls strings no one dares to cut.”
Mia swallowed hard, her chest tight. “That’s… too big. Too powerful.”
“And that’s the point,” Carol said flatly. “He’s untouchable.”
She drew a sharp breath, her voice dipping into something more fragile.
Mia understood that displeasure that was born out of an unfulfilled mission.
“You couldn’t get your revenge.”
“How could I with someone like that? I tried to…on several occasions, but I failed. Even after I completed my kills, I stayed behind, hoping I’d get my chance. Then I realized, the more I stay, the more I get caught up in his web. And it wasn’t just me caught in his web.
“Claus! That’s how you met Claus.” Mia added, her voice above a whisper.
He was just a boy then. An orphan.”
Mia’s eyes widened.
Carol’s stare went distant, her words dropping like stones.
“It was a night painted in fire. We raided a house. His parents weren’t even targets—they were staff, working the wrong shift at the wrong time. Orders were clear: no survivors. They died on the floor of a home that wasn’t even theirs. By my hands.”
Mia’s hand trembled against Carol’s arm.
“What did you say?”
“You heard right.”
“You mean, you killed his parents?”
Carol’s gaze didn’t waver, though her eyes glistened with a storm she kept locked inside.
“Yes.”
Mia recoiled, her mind spinning. “Does Claus…I mean, Claus, does he know?”
A long silence stretched before Carol finally nodded. “He knows.”
Mia’s mouth fell open. “And he… he still…”
“Yes.” Carol’s brittle laugh scraped the air.
“I was scared at first. I thought he was going to hate me. I was worried it’d become a burden he’d carry like a stone in his chest. But…”
She pressed a hand to her heart, her voice dropping. “He saw who I became, not who I was. He saw a mother in me rather than a trained hitman.”
Mia shook her head in disbelief.
“Why? How could anyone let something like that slide? How do you forgive the person who shattered your entire world?”
Carol leaned forward, her tone sharper now, edged with something that was neither pride nor regret. Something more complicated.
“Because intention matters, Mia. More than the action itself. I didn’t set out to murder his parents. They were not my target. And even if they were, they were caught in orders larger than me, swallowed by a machine I couldn’t fight. Claus understood that. He understood that I never meant for their blood to stain my hands. It was just something I had to do.”
Her voice softened, almost breaking. “He chose to see me for the mother I tried to be, not the killer I once was.”
Mia’s eyes burned with tears she hadn’t realized she’d been holding back.
“But still… How do you live with that? How do you live knowing?”
“You don’t. You carry it. Every day. Some nights it crushes you. Other nights you fight to convince yourself that love redeems the crime. But it never leaves. Never.”
“But you know I’m not him.”
There was a brief silence. Carol knew exactly what she was talking about. She sighed.
“I am sorry,” Mia added, sympathetically.
“Don't be sorry.” Carol said.
“What happened to you was unfair, but Claus isn’t the man you should hold responsible for that. You should hold the people who killed his parents responsible, the people who killed my parents. It isn’t fair. To me, you, Claus, and every other child – we have fatherless and motherless out there.”
Mia wipes the tears away from her face. She understood what Carol was trying to explain.
“I know. I know. But knowing that he pulled the trigger on my parents…”
“Did he tell you that?” Carol cuts her.
“When I found out and I confronted him…”
“That was what he told you?” Carol interrupted again, persistent on Claus’ narration of the event.
“Is there something I don’t know about my parents?” Mia asked suspecting Carol do not agree with her narrative.
“See, if there’s anything you need to know, it’s not in my place to change the narrative now.”
“I want to hear it. I want to hear your narrative.” Mia said affirmatively. She wasn’t going to give up.
Carol searched her eyes. She could tell she was curious and determined to know, but Carol wasn’t going to say anything about that anymore.
“Here is what I have to tell you. Don’t lose out on the kind of life you wish you had because you are holding the wrong person responsible for what happened to you. Don’t let your guilt or grudge ruin that for you. I know this isn’t about your husband; you do not want him. It is written all over you; you are not happy in your marriage.”
“You don’t know about my marriage.” She replied defensively.
“And I don’t want to know. But what I do know is that you’re leaving here tonight.”
“Who’s leaving?” Claus’s voice cut through the tense air. He had caught just enough to sense the tension simmering.
“Mia.” Carol didn’t flinch.
Mia stood, wiping the remnants of tears from her cheeks, her spine straight as steel.
“I’m not leaving.”
Carol’s expression hardened, but she kept her tone deceptively calm.
“We had an agreement.”
“The agreement was to convince me. You tried. You failed. I’m still here.”
The corner of Carol’s lip curled into something between amusement and warning.
“You think you can survive? You won’t last, girl. You’ll be chewed up and spat out before you even realize you’re in the lion’s mouth.”
“Then let me be chewed.” Mia’s gaze locked with hers.
“I’m not running. Not this time.”
“Okay. What’s going on? Who’s getting chewed? Who’s running?” Claus asked, his gaze shifting between the two women.
Neither respended. Carol’s eyes narrowed, a flash of danger glinting in their depths.
“You mistake defiance for strength. It’s not the same. I’m telling you now—you stay, you bleed. You stay, you break.”
“Then I’ll bleed. Then I’ll break. But I’ll do it on my own terms. Not yours.”