Julian, four years ago…
Several days had passed since his father sent Marcus to hunt down Falco Castellano and kill him but Julian couldn’t help shake an uneasy feeling about it all.
His family’s bank was just robbed.
Castellano was being taken down.
Marcus was leaving.
And even Thalia was sent away on a vacation that Marcus had supposedly bought a return flight to help Romano deal with the crisis.
Where did he even send her?
He tried to bring it up to his father but he blew it off and chased him away, and so he let it go for a few days.
But after a while, his uneasiness returned and he couldn’t push it away.
He let out a breath of smoke from his cigarette while he thought it over and tried to make sense of things.
He was lying naked in bed with an ashtray on his right, and a prostitute on his left, passed out from their session from earlier. They were both situated in a room in the far side of Harlem, Castellano’s territory.
Or perhaps...prostitute wasn’t the right word for a woman like her.
Castellano had long been involved in all kinds of smuggling, including human sex trafficking. He usually brought women into the building Julian was in now, put on drugs to get them addicted, and then force them into sex work for more drugs.
This woman was probably brought in from Guatemala or some other country in south America.
He didn’t really give a shit where she came from, only that she was able to give him a good time.
In fact...she might be a little on the younger side too…
Whatever…
She didn’t speak any English, so he wouldn’t be able to find out her age even if he cared to.
Of course, he never told his father that he was one of Falco’s regular customers. If he ever found out, he would probably beat the shit out of him for it, or disown him.
Most importantly, Marcus didn’t know about it either.
If he ever found out…
Julian visibly shuddered at the thought of what he would do to him if he ever knew that he had helped Castellano with smuggling jobs every now and then.
When he first heard about what he did to that priest at thirteen years old, jamming a shard of glass into his throat…
There was no doubt he would be dead before he could cross over state lines.
He let out a stress induced sigh, put out his cigarette, got himself dressed, and paid for his time before he left and made his way back home.
When he came back, he asked his father if Marcus had come back yet, to which he shook his head nervously.
“He’ll give me a call when the job is done. I’m sure of it,” he said while drinking a glass of whiskey, no doubt to calm his nerves.
“How do you know if he is even still alive? For all we know, he could be-”
“No! No, he’s alive… Many years ago, he set up some kind of program for his sister in case he ever died on a job. He said it would track his heart rate and if it ever stopped, I would get a sudden notification and funds would get transferred into a bank account to take care of her. I can’t track his location, but I know he is still alive at the very least.”
Julian blinked in surprise as it was the first time he had ever heard about that.
He really thought about everything didn’t he…?
“Well whatever. I’m gonna go get some shut eye,” Julian said as he turned towards the doorway, keeping his eye on his father as he opened the door.
His father hadn’t moved an inch and just held his glass of whiskey in silence.
That sense of uneasiness washed over him once again, but this time, it was for another reason. One that he had kept buried for a long time because he was too scared to speak about it.
If there was ever a time to bring it up, now would be the time.
He took a deep breath and closed the door, to which his father turned to look up at him in confusion.
“Can I...ask you a question dad?”
His father raised his eyebrows and answered, “Of course...is something wrong?”
“I’ve just been...thinking about our future. The future of our family. With Marcus leaving us soon, assuming he does succeed, everything will change right?”
His father tilted his head ever so slightly as he listened intently to what Julian was saying.
“Yes, it will. Everything will change drastically without him, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Why do you ask?”
“Well, ever since you brought him in, or no...even before you brought him and his sister into the family, you raised me to be part of this business. I had assumed for the longest time that you wanted me to take your place one day as the head of the family and this business but…I don’t know anymore.”
He turned to look at his father, expecting him to offer a rebuttal, or a confirmation of Julian’s expectations of his future, but much to his disappointment, his father said nothing.
And so Julian continued, “I mean, you bought me nice suits, introduced me to important people at a young age, even had me taught by the same people that tutored Marcus. I figured you were building something grand for my future, but what is it you have waiting for me now? In the last few years, even before Marcus left, I’ve just been going through the motions. Just recycling the same lessons and training regiments and anything else I could learn about the business, with nothing being expected of me. Even though I’m your son, your blood, I feel like more of a guest in this house than Marcus.”
“What do you want me to say Julian?” his father asked him.
“I just want to know this. With Marcus gone, what will you expect from me? I know I can never take his place, but I was never meant to to begin with. Will anything change for me?”
His father’s expression changed as it became serious and all business.
“Julian, how old are you?” he asked, not as if he didn’t know the answer, but as if to open up into a further discussion.
“Twenty two sir,” he answered.
“Right. You are four years older than Marcus...before you had even turned into a legal adult, he was disposing of our enemies, helping build up our empire, and keeping the trash from trying to invade the place that we call home. In all that time, what did you really contribute?”
Julian shifted his feet nervously as he was wondering where his father was going with this.
“Sir…?”
“In the time since Marcus took his first life, you spent your time fucking whores, smoking crack, and throwing your weight around as if your name was worth a damn. Even though Marcus had disappeared for two years, his name alone had more worth to me than anything you might have thought you could add. To add to that, you’ve kept about your business with Castellano for years, falsely assuming that I knew nothing of it. All the while, I’ve had to bust my ass to keep that information away from Marcus’s nigh all-seeing eyes. I invite you to contemplate just how insignificant your plausible contributions would be even after a decade were to pass from his absence,” he said plainly, with little to no emotion in his eyes.
He expected his father to look sad, or disappointed.
Maybe to shout at him in anger for working with his enemy, or maybe laugh in his face in a mocking tone.
But this…?
To look upon his face with no emotion, as if the idea of him taking his place one day had long been abandoned…
That his place in the family and the business was barely more than meaningless…
It was far more terrifying.
“You and your elder sister both have been the greatest of disappointments to me as neither of you have contributed anything of worth. You, who acts the part of a gangster, but knows not what that kind of life really means; and your sister, an ever ravenous pedophile who I’ve had to keep in check constantly to keep her from pouncing on Marcus since she first laid eyes on him. Be grateful that the both of you are my blood, otherwise I would have long cast you off into the street.”
Julian took a step back and reached for the door handle behind him, leaning on it for support, and his hand slipped, causing him to fall to the floor while his father continued to look at him with little to no emotion.
His father then looked at his glass of whiskey and said, “Hmm… perhaps I’ve had too much to drink.”
He then shrugged and drank what was left in it before looking Julian in the eyes and said, “It will be a shame to see Marcus go, as he has been a far better son than you have. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.”
When those words reached his ears, Julian blood rush to his head, drowning out everything as the realization that his own father had viewed Marcus as Romano’s own son, to take the place in the family that was rightfully his own.
Julian then forced himself to stand, struggling to grip the bookshelf behind him for support as the weight of his father’s words were too much for him to handle all at once.
But before he could leave the room with any shred of dignity intact, the door opened and Marcus walked inside carrying a box wrapped in gift paper and a tied with a ribbon.
As soon as he walked inside, his father’s expression changed in an instant as he was practically beaming to see him.
But then he saw the box in Marcus’s arms and he held his face in his hands exasperated.
“Oh God...please tell me that isn’t what I think it is…,” he said with a slight smile on his face as he tried to hide it behind his hands.
“I asked if you wanted me to wrap his head and tie it with a bow. You didn’t exactly say no so…,” Marcus said as he dropped the box on his father’s desk with a loud thud and the sound of a somewhat spherical object rolling inside it from the impact turned Julian’s stomach.
He had really cut off Castellano’s head and presented it as a present to his father like some kind of sick joke.
Seeing this, his father actually started to chuckle until it escalated into full blown laughter, with the man holding his stomach he was laughing so hard.
“With that, our business is finished, correct?” Marcus asked, not so much as smiling at all despite seeing Romano laughing almost hysterically.
His father started to calm down as he nodded and said, “Yes, sorry. Yes...our business is finished… It’ll be rough to see you gone but, I understand.”
“Good luck Stefan. I’m sure the years to come will be rough, so you’ll be in need of a lot of it,” he said before he turned around and started to leave.
He looked at Julian for barely a second, not bothering to stop and ask what was wrong or why he was there at all, before he looked away and walked out the door.
He didn’t even see him as worth talking to…
As Julian listened to Marcus’s footsteps quiet as he walked through the hallway, he was reminded of their first interaction ten years ago.
At twelve years old, he had reached out his arm to shake Marcus’s hand, who had been eight years old at the time and carrying his baby sister in his arms.
Realizing that it was probably not wise to try and shake his hand in that moment, he awkwardly pulled it back as he said, “Uh...well I hope you and I can be friends.”
Marcus just stared at him with a cold, harsh expression of mistrust and indifference as he said, “I doubt it.”
He had meant it.
Even at such a young age, he really meant every word.
In the ten years they had known each other, he hadn’t given a damn about him in the slightest.
Julian stumbled out of his father’s office as he tried to make his way to Marcus’s room before he could leave, to try and get a word in.
He pushed past the staff and anyone else in his way as he ran towards his room and opened the door only to find it completely barren.
Everything from the beds, to the picture frames, the TV, and anything else that would have suggested that someone had once lived there, was completely absent.
So too, was Marcus.
The stress of everything he had heard, and the inevitability that Marcus was leaving them, started to weigh on him heavily. It felt like an anvil was bearing down on his chest as he struggled to breath and he fell to his knees in the center of Marcus’s old room. He started hyperventilating and soon collapsed unconscious on the floor.
As he blacked out, he found himself in a dream that was so vivid and realistic, it almost felt like it was really happening.
The sound of bullets firing rang in his ears and the smell of gunpowder and blood filled his nostrils.
He found himself standing in the center of a familiar warehouse where had had been many times in dealings with Falco Castellano.
Though now, it looked more like a war zone as there were bullet holes all over the walls, smoke was still being funneled out from the windows, and breach entrances could be spotted from all sides.
What is happening here…?
There were men in tactical gear running around carrying corpses, hauling away weapons, money, and documents while two of the men stood in Castellano’s office having a discussion.
One of them appeared to be Lucas Witiker, Falco’s enforcer who had robbed his father, while the other was-
Marcus?!
What the hell? What kind of fucked up dream is this?
“How sure can you be that this is just a dream?” a feminine voice said to him from behind and Julian turned around as he came face to face with a woman in a dark red dress and hat, with long black hair that hid most of her face save for her eyes.
Eyes that glowed with golden light and seemed to bore deep into his soul.
The strange woman smiled at him with a touch of insanity in her eyes as she said, “Turn around. What do you see Julian? What do you hear?”
He did as she said and looked at the sight of Lucas and Marcus talking to each other and listened in.
“...hit Moroni’s estate soon after I deliver Castellano’s head to Romano and make my departure official,” Marcus said.
Lucas nodded and replied, “We already have a large portion of the city’s police chiefs under control to keep out of our way as well as the governor. Soon as Moroni’s dead, we can start picking off the stragglers and then finally move onto Romano himself.”
“Soon as he dies, it’ll leave behind a power vacuum that everyone will be desperate to fill. The Triad, Cartels, Bratva, even the lowest street thugs will think that they can take the throne. We’ll have to kill all of them to solidify that nobody will replace them,” Marcus said as he fidgeted with an empty bullet casing in his gloved fingers.
“Yep… Are you sure you’re up for this? I know its a little late for me to be asking this, but...are you really prepared for this? This will be a full blown war Marcus. You’ve never seen what a real war is like.”
“True…but I’m just about finished with my armor. With that on my side, nothing short of a 50 Cal AP round would be able to get through that armor, and even then, they would still have to land a direct shot,” Marcus said confidently, but Lucas shook his head.
“That’s not what I mean. I’m thinking about how it will affect you mentally. War is not something to take lightly. Are you sure you’re up for what that will bring?”
Taking a deep breath, Marcus looked up at Lucas and said, “I’m prepared to take on anything. I’ll just have to deal with whatever comes my way after everything is said and done. Neither you, nor I have the luxury right now to vent about how we feel about this, we just have to do it.”
A hint of guilt flashed across Lucas’s face but with it, came a sense of duty and understanding as he grunted in agreement as the two of them readied to move out before they set fire to the warehouse.
Julian, who watched this vision play out in front of him, was lost for words on how to process what he had seen.
W-What is...going on here? Is this real?
“It is.”
What does it mean? Did...did Marcus betray us? Did he plan all of this? Did he rob us? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Why would he do this to us?
“Does it really matter why? The fact of the matter is that he has betrayed your family. Why do you think he sent his sister away? Do you really believe that they were just going to go on a simple vacation and everything was going to be just fine, but then, not even a day after he had left, everything goes to shit? Does that really seem like a coincidence?”
No…
No it doesn’t.
I...I knew that something wasn’t adding up but...to think that he would do this?
Why?
He then felt two hands grip both sides of his head as he was pulled close to the mysterious woman’s face as she locked eyes with him.
“What does it matter the reason why? You just watched him dismiss the entire lifetime you had spent together as if it was worthless to him, and now you have seen his true intentions for what they are. What do you intend to do about it?”
I...I need to warn my father…!
No. No, he wouldn’t believe me.
Tell him that I learned about it in a dream?
He’d think that I was insane...maybe I am going insane!
“Think about it very carefully Julian. What do you think would be the best way for you to regain your father’s good graces and reclaim your rightful place in the family?”
I…I don’t know.
I don’t know what to do!
“Julian…,” the woman said to him with a sickly sweet voice, one that was so heavenly and reassuring that he felt he could listen to it forever.
She pushed away a strand of hair that fell across his face and smiled gently as she continued, “You need to kill him Julian. You need to kill the traitorous snake that wormed its way into your family, leeching off of your father’s good graces, and cull him like the invasive bastard he is.”
But...how? I’m not nearly as good of a shot as he is, I can’t fight well, and I’m...I’m scared of him.
“But you know his greatest weakness. You alone know the answer to how to take him down for good!”
What is it?! Tell me!
“You know that William is Thalia’s father, but William doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know that it was he who had taught Marcus how to fight, and that his teachings have been used to kill so so many people…”
I just...I just have to tell William. If I tell him that he has had a daughter all this time that was being hidden from him...surely he would want to see her.
He taught Marcus everything he knows, and he’s a UFC legend to boot! He would be skilled enough to take him down!
“Yes...that’s right. On top of that, Marcus is still reeling from having to commit one act of patricide already. Even if he were to kill William, another father dead at his hands would rip him apart for certain. You could finish him off when he’s weakest, with his hands drenched in the blood of his own kin. Do this, and you will prove to your father that you have what it takes to be the son he could be proud of.”
With those last few words resonating in his mind, Julian’s eyes opened as he woke from the dream.
He grit his teeth in anger and got on his feet with a new mission in mind.