Stefan, four years ago…
He was losing his shit over this whole mess.
Several days had passed since Falco Castellano and his men were hunted down and killed by Marcus, not long after, Romano’s son Julian was shot in the head and taken to the hospital.
But late last night, he was woken up by a phone call from one of his informants that the Moroni family had been killed, their estate burned to the ground, and most of their assets seized by an unknown, heavily militarized group.
Were they perhaps some kind of secret black ops group? Mercenaries?
Whatever they were, they must have also been the ones who had organized the bank robbing…
Castellano’s enforcer, Lucas Witiker, was recorded as part of that robbery, and Romano had learned of his history in Afghanistan. Maybe he had organized it all this time.
If they were the ones who had done that, then perhaps they were also involved in taking Castellano down.
But then...if they were involved with that, then they had to have been in contact with Marcus at the time as well.
Or maybe...Maybe Marcus and Lucas have been at this from the very beginning.
Regardless of who was really involved, he was busy getting as many of his men together to mobilize just in case this came after him and his family.
He had gathered up as many weapons and men to aid him, called in favors, reached into as much of his funds as he could to pay for this, and was still looking for Marcus but found nothing.
As he was sitting at his desk, pouring over documents and information, trying to make sense of the chaos, he got a phone call from his wife.
Maria…
She was sulking over the food that had been prepared for her today as she was still processing the fact that Marcus was gone.
In all the years they had spent together, she hadn’t once gotten the chance to make him hers…
She had wanted to feel his bare skin against hers and maybe later, she would give him her virginity. She would look into his beautiful blue eyes and…
Just thinking about it made her shudder with excitement until she had reminded herself that he was no longer there and that feeling passed once again.
Maybe she should have just raped him like she wanted to.
Most men are the same anyways. Not like he would say no, right?
All men tend to want is sex at the end of the day.
She stared down at her plate, fiddling with her fork and pressing it against the freshly cooked steak as if it were a stress ball.
Growing bored and impatient, she dropped the fork and said, “I’m not hungry anymore.”
She then pushed herself out of her seat and dumped the steak in the trash while one of the staff who had served her the food smiled, nodded, and took her plate from her.
“I see. Was it not to your taste or…?” the staff said.
“The food the cooks make is always good. Its not the problem, its just… something else is bothering me. I just don’t feel like eating right now,” she said as she walked out of the dining room and into the hallway in time to see something absolutely baffling.
Dozens of the staff members who worked to maintain the estate and cook their food were carrying packed bags and leaving at the same time.
“W-What is happening?” Maria wondered as she stepped out of the way.
“We are all leaving,” said the staff member who had served her the steak from earlier.
“But why? I thought my father was paying you all very well,” Maria asked.
“He has been, but someone else has paid all us three times as much as what we would have earned in a year to quit, and frankly, I’m glad that you chose not to eat that steak today. Such a high quality of meat is wasted on a piece of filth like you,” he said before putting his arms through a backpack and joining the exodus of workers.
What the hell…?
She slowly made her way to her bedroom, running into her mother on the way while she was on the phone.
“I...I don’t know why dear, all of them just suddenly packed their bags and started leaving! Everyone! Even the doorman!” Josie said, likely talking to Maria’s father.
Not wanting to focus on the chaos any longer, she opened her bedroom door and stepped inside.
She ran her fingers through her hair and let out a deep breath while hearing the foot steps start to quiet down as the last of the staff were leaving.
She then turned around and found Marcus standing in front of her dresser, leaning forward with his head bowed and his back turned towards her.
“M-Marcus! What are you...why are you here?” she asked, shocked to see that he had come back, and even more surprised that he was in her bedroom of all places. The one place he had never set foot in before until now.
He took in a deep, audible breath through his mouth and let it out through his nose.
“Sorry, I just…after moving out without saying a word to anyone, I felt guilty for not saying anything,” he said without turning to look at her.
“Oh…well, you didn’t have to do that,” she said, her tone softening as she took a few steps closer to him.
She looked around for something heavy that she could use to hit him with.
She wouldn’t let him leave without first getting a proper taste of him.
She would NOT let this opportunity pass while he was right here in front of her!
Her bedside lamp caught her attention, but it was too far away and she would never be able to grab it in time before he could react, and there was nothing else in the room heavy enough to use against him.
Before she could try and think of another option, she then heard him say, “I also...just wanted someone to talk to while my sister is away.”
Hearing that caused her heart to flutter in her chest a little as she let out a shuddered breath.
“Julian’s in the hospital, Romano’s busy with work, and your mother...frankly she’s just too boring to talk to,” he said, further drawing out the conversation.
“What about William, your trainer?” she asked and his fist tightened up.
“He...I couldn’t get a hold of him. Besides, he’s no longer contracted to work with your father anyways,” he said with hurt in his voice.
“I...I’m sorry to hear that,” she said as she walked towards him, taking the risk that he might swing at her for getting too close but he did nothing.
He said nothing, but his eyes lazily looked her way through the mirror and then slowly lowered to stare at her chest before looking away from her.
Did he really just...look at me?
“You don’t mind if I bother you for a bit?” he asked.
“N-No! No, not at all! Come on, sit here with me,” she said, offering her bed for him to sit on and he turned around to watch her pat the end of the bed.
He nodded slowly and walked over to it before sitting down and she sat next to him.
Is he really okay with this? He usually hates being around me.
“Do you...uh, need something? All the staff are leaving right now, so…I can’t really get you something to eat but, just let me know,” she said and he turned his attention towards her as he met her eyes for a moment before turning away again.
“Ever since…Japan, I’ve been aching to see her again but, I’m having trouble staying patient,” he said to her in a low voice.
Oh…he misses his girlfriend. That must be it.
She leaned in closer, barely brushing her shoulder against his own as she said, “I guess I can understand that but…you still have needs, right?”
“Y-yeah…I don’t know what to do about it so…I thought I would talk to you,” he said as his shoulders loosened up.
“If you want…I can help you with that,” she said as she tried leaning against him a little more and slid her left hand against the bed comforter and touched his outer thigh.
He looked down at her hand for a moment before looking up at her once again.
Taking another risk, likely the biggest one she’s ever taken with him, she leaned her head closer towards him, to see if he would reciprocate.
To her shock, he did and he brought his lips to hers and kissed her.
As he did, a wave of euphoria passed through her as she finally got what she wanted from him.
After holding it there for a moment, she pulled away from him to look him in the eyes, as if to check that this is really what he wanted, and he looked at her the same way a feral dog did at a slab of meat.
Oh wow...he really wants this.
A heavy breath left her as she felt turned on by the look he was giving her before she pulled him to her for another kiss, closing her eyes as she wanted to enjoy the way he was touching her. She even pressed her hand against his inner thigh, to try and feel more of him only for him to push her down against the bed with his eyes bearing down on her.
Oh...this is...this is what I wanted from him. Come on then…
She smiled up at him, inviting him to come close, and he did as he pressed up against her, kissing her once again.
His left hand then pressed up against the side of her face, caressing it gently while he kissed the right side of her neck.
She leaned into his left hand and let him do what he wanted to while it moved closer to wrapping around her throat.
Is he going to choke me while he-
Oh wow…
Sure enough, his hand wrapped around her throat completely and she let him.
But then his other hand moved towards her throat and did the same just as he stopped kissing her neck and went very still.
He then raised his head to look down at her and something about his expression changed.
Rather than the ravenous hunger that was there before, it was replaced by a cold, unfeeling kind of focus.
His hands, still wrapped around her throat, began to tighten.
She didn’t resist at first as she thought it was just a part of the foreplay.
But then it became hard to breathe.
“Marcus, don’t sque-” she tried to say before her airway was cut off completely.
She started choking and reached for his hands to loosen his grip, but it was like iron and wouldn’t budge an inch.
Realizing that he was genuinely trying to kill her, she tried to shake him off but he had put all of his body weight on her chest to keep her in place.
She then started hitting his arms, hoping it would be enough to break his grip, but it wasn’t enough.
Her vision started to blur and her strength started to leave her arms as her consciousness began to fade.
The last thing she heard before she blacked out was her mother knocking on her bedroom door and calling out to her right before Marcus hopped off of her and answered the door and struck her too.
Marcus, two hours later…
He had just finished setting up Josie and Maria’s vests when the former started to stir awake.
“W-Where…?” she said as she raised her head to look up at him and much to his surprise, she looked at him with a sense of understanding rather than fear.
“Ah...I see what this is,” she said as she turned her head to look at Maria, who was still unconscious and had a piece of duct tape on her mouth.
He had left Josie’s on because he wanted to speak with her to see if she understood what was going to happen to them and why.
“You don’t seem bothered by this at all,” Marcus noted as she looked Josie in the eyes.
“No…I figured this might happen one day, sooner or later. I’m only surprised that it took so long for it to happen,” she replied nonchalantly.
“Do you know why I’m doing this?” he asked.
“No, actually. Please, enlighten me,” she said, with genuine interest in her voice.
His eyes narrowed as her manner and outlook on her current situation bothered him.
“Stefan killed my mother back before I started working for him,” he answered and she nodded as if it made perfect sense to her.
“That’s understandable. You’ve likely killed so many people who also wanted revenge on my husband for doing the very same in the past. To think that you would be the one to do it...it feels poetic,” she said with a smile on her face.
Before he could say anything, Maria roused awake and started looking around in a panic, shaking her arms that were tied to a chair, and screaming through her duct tape.
“SHUT UP!” Marcus shouted as he backhanded her and she went silent but was still moving.
She raised her head once again, disoriented, and started crying with a look of betrayal in her eyes.
Marcus then turned to look at Josie as she showed almost no emotional reaction at all to what he just did.
He reached out his hand, grabbed her by lower jaw, and forced her to look at him as he said, “There’s something wrong with you… I strike your daughter, your own flesh and blood, and yet...you don’t care.”
Without trying to break his grip, she said, “Yes, that’s right. What of it?”
Hearing that angered him, but confused him even more as he pulled away and said, “You don’t even seem to care that you’re tied up with a bomb vest strapped to your chest. You never cared about what I did working for Romano, or that your sister tried to rape me as a child…, you don’t even seem to care about what’s going to happen to you later today, do you?”
She didn’t say anything and just stared at him blankly.
He then pulled out a knife, got in her face, and pressed it up against her neck as he asked, “Do you even care that you are going to die today?”
She did not break eye contact as she said, “Not really.”
Disgusted with her response, he pulled the knife away from her and said, “Its no wonder you were so calm and willing to enable everything that Romano did. With a woman like you at their side, a man could get away with anything and you wouldn’t blink an eye.”
He then turned his attention to Maria as he raised her head and gripped it tight so that he could lock eyes with her and said, “Both you and your mother are going to die today. I will tear down everything your father built, and then some. There will be nothing left of your family’s legacy after today, I’ll make sure of that.”
The terror in her eyes made it clear that she understood his words and was too afraid to say anything more.
He then pulled out two pairs of handcuffs as he looked at Josie and asked, “You aren’t going to resist, are you?”
She looked at him with a barely annoyed expression as she asked, “Would it matter if I did?”
“No. You’re going to die either way, no matter what you do,” he replied as he cuffed them both and moved them into a van for transport.
Stefan…
Nearly an hour had passed since he last heard from his wife when she told him about all their staff leaving, but she hadn’t sent a single text or call since then.
He was standing outside his warehouse office, looking down at his phone, waiting for it to light up with a notification of some kind.
It was bothering him since she usually kept him up to date on what was happening very quickly and would let him know if she had found an alternative or not, but its been nothing but silence since then.
“Is something wrong sir?” one of his men asked him as he was watching Stefan stare at his phone for over an hour.
“My wife…she hasn’t gotten back to me since she called earlier. Its not like her. I’m worried something happened to her,” he said.
“You won’t have to worry about her much longer,” said Marcus as his voice filled the warehouse.
A feeling of relief passed through him upon hearing his voice only for it to be replaced by shock and disbelief upon seeing him holding a gun to his wife and daughter’s heads.
“Marcus, what are you-?!” he exclaimed and his men started pointing their guns at him at once.
“AH AH AH! NO! Put em down!” Marcus said as he held a detonator in his hand and Stefan finally noticed the vests with an unusual metal contraption strapped to their chests.
“Marcus! What are you doing! Explain yourself!” Stefan demanded.
“First, tell your men to lower their guns. Even if they kill me, I have a dead man’s switch hooked up to this detonator. If I let go of this or I die, it goes off and all of you die with me in a giant fiery explosion. Do it. Now,” he ordered.
Gritting his teeth, Stefan looked at his men and shouted, “Do as he says! Lower em! Now! Lower your fuckin guns now!”
After shouting at them multiple times, they finally relented and lowered their aim.
“Now...Marcus. Please. Explain why you’re doing this. Why are you...what are you doing really?” Stefan pleaded in a calm, but fearful voice.
“Hestia Wright. My mother. You gunned her down ten years ago, and then you took me in and put me to work, killing more people for you. Does that clear things up enough?” he said, to which some of Romano’s men voiced their shock at his statement.
Marcus then looked at one of his men and said, “Get these ladies some chairs to sit on, my arm is getting tired.”
A moment later, one of Romano’s men pulled up some chairs for Josie and Maria to sit in before backing away again.
“You...you found the file didn’t you?” Stefan asked.
“I did. It took a little bit of searching, but I found it,” he answered.
“W-What do you want then, huh? An apology? It was just business!” Stefan said.
“I don’t care,” Marcus said before looking at a random part of the warehouse.
He then let out a deep sigh as he said, “You know…if I never would have learned about my mother’s death at your hands, then maybe none of this would have happened. Then again, its because of you that I was given a job to kill Hiroshi Kaneko. I had lost my memories for nearly two years because of that explosion and spent enough time with him to see him like a father. Then your son, Julian, found out where I lived and sent William, Thalia’s father, to kill me. He’s dead now.”
William is Thalia’s father-? No wait, Julian sent him to kill Marcus? Is that why-?
“And now I stand here, preparing to kill yet another man I thought to be a father,” he said as a broken expression flashed across his face
“W-what…?” Stefan stammered as he took a frightened step back.
Marcus then started laughing as he said, “If you think my aim is to blow up everyone in this building to kingdom come, then you’re wrong.”
What is he talking about? If he pulls that trigger, then everyone is going to die!
He smiled as he stared Stefan dead in the eyes while he said, “The only one who’s going to live through this, is ME!”
He then pressed the detonator and on reflex, everyone in the warehouse flinched, expecting an explosion but there was nothing but silence.
Until the anti fire sprinkler system activated.
“What the hell…?” one of his men said as they looked up but then quickly winced in pain as some of it got in their eyes.
“Fuck! Is it acid?!” another panicked.
Then Stefan sniffed their air and a familiar scent filled his nostrils.
Gasoline.
Marcus had replaced the water in the sprinklers with gasoline.
He locked eyes with Romano and had an insane smile on his face as he said, “NOW BURN!”
He pressed the detonator a second time, and a metal sliding door on the vests attached to Josie and Maria’s chests fell down, revealing two spark grinders.
Marcus then spread his arms out wide, laughing, while sparks started flying from his wife and daughter’s chests.
Fearing for his life, Stefan made a dash for his office just as flames started to erupt behind him. Not wanting to waste time with the door, he dove through the window, shattering it, and landed inside.
His fingers were cut on the glass shards as he hit the carpet of his office and his pant leg started burning.
He quickly pulled off his blazer which was wet with gasoline as well and smothered his legs even as it too caught fire, but managed to snuff it out in time.
Then he heard the screams.
He could hear from within the office, his wife and daughter screaming in agony as they were being burned alive.
He heard the panicking rushed footsteps of his men as they tried and failed to get away but the flames had engulfed everything in sight.
The one person’s screams that he could not seem to hear however, was Marcus’s.
Of course, he had never heard him scream before, so perhaps his were just blending along with the rest.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
Stefan was alive.
He alone had survived.
He pulled out his phone and started to dial 911 when he heard a pair of footsteps walking towards his office in perfect, slow rhythm with one another.
Then, his heart sunk in his chest as he watched his office door slowly open and he was met with a scene like that from Hell itself.
Marcus stood, with all of his clothes burnt to ashes, wreathed in flames, yet unbothered by the heat, looked down at Stefan with a rage so profound that it looked inhuman.
His blue eyes seemed to glow as they stared at him.
“Where do you think you’re going? You will join your wife and daughter in the flames,” he said as he reached down and grabbed Stefan by the ankle.
Adrenaline took a hold of his mind as he frantically started kicking at him to fight him off, hoping to break his grip, but he held him firm and started dragging him into the flaming tempest.
The screams of his wife and daughter, and of his men, had already ceased by now, and only his own would fill the warehouse.
Marcus used both hands to pull Stefan as he tossed him into the flames and his clothes started to burn.
He then stood above him and knelt down with his knee on Stefan’s chest before he pulled back his right arm and slammed it into Stefan’s face.
With one punch, he could feel his nose broken, his jaw dislocated, and some of his front teeth knocked out as they fell into the back of his throat, choking him.
Marcus then brought his fist up once more before slamming it down on him.
He then did it again, and again, and again, and again, and again…
And again and again and again, until Romano’s skull had been crushed into pasty scorched flesh and shattered bone to the point that Marcus started hitting the concrete beneath it.
After he felt his knuckles crack from the impact of hitting the floor, he looked down at his hands that were so heavily stained in blood, stood up from the ground, and roared up into the sky.
Julian, now…
He thought that vision of seeing his mother, his father, and his sister die in those flames was the end of it, but then he was shown something just as haunting.
Brief flashes passed by of Marcus wearing his usual black tactical gear as he started breaking into houses and slaughtering people in their homes.
It had to have happened dozens, no, maybe a hundred times until it started to loop and the sight of his family, and the others he killed began repeating faster and faster.
It kept going like that as Julian screamed in horror at what Marcus was showing him until-
Until the world returned to normal and he was staring up at Marcus’s murderous eyes once again.
“So you see? You’re family is all dead. All of them.”
“B-b-but I-” he stammered, but Marcus shouted even louder.
“ALL OF THEM!” Marcus roared, with his left eye flashing red as three voices began to lap over one another.
He heard Marcus’s normal voice, the one he had grown up with, another colder and more murderous voice, and then finally a voice that seemed to be made of millions of other voices speaking as one. Like a cacophony of thunder speaking through the mouth of a man...or perhaps...a monster.
Then, Marcus spoke once more, and it was just his voice.
“You know…I was fine with just killing you, your mother, your father, and your sister. I was more than okay with just them being dead. But for Ender?”
Then the colder voice spoke as Marcus’s left eye glowed red, “It just didn’t feel like enough for me. I wouldn’t be satisfied until everyone in your family was dead, and I mean EVERYONE!”
The strange voice named Ender continued to speak as he said, “Your aunts, your uncles, your grandparents, your cousins, your nephews, your nieces, everyone who was ever remotely related to you. All of them, dead. Every single one of them.”
Then the three voices spoke in unison once more, “Your entire bloodline is dead. The only one left...is you.”
Marcus then pulled back his arm and the three voices said, “With this, I make sure that you’re finished. Once and for all.”
He then plunged his fist into Julian’s chest and he expected it to rip a hole inside of him but there was nothing.
Then, he felt a strange mass inside of himself being felt around by five fingers before it closed around it.
“Ah...there it is,” he said as he gripped the mass tight and a wave of agony filled Julian’s entire being as it was being ripped from him.
The instant that Marcus’s hand exited his chest, he took with it a glowing orb of light.
As Julian stared at it, he started to feel all of the spiritual energy in his body leave him along with his sense of self and his emotions.
“Hm…and here I half expected it to be corroded black like your shriveled heart,” Marcus said as he stared at it.
Julian gathered what strength remained as he managed to ask, “W-What is…that thing?”
“Oh this…? This is your soul. This is everything that makes up who you are. Your thoughts, your emotions, your very life itself. You NEED your soul to exist as yourself,” he said as he was holding it between his fingers before he clasped his entire hand around it and red lightning started to spark along his fingers as he formed a fist.
As he did, he could sense his emotions, his memories, himself, being brought to ruin as Marcus squeezed his soul so hard to the point it shattered.
In that moment, Julian’s soul was obliterated.
When he finished, he shook his hand before rubbing it on his clothes as he returned his attention to Julian and said, “Oh...but don’t you worry. If you think that’s the end of you, you’re wrong. There are ways to keep you alive without the need of a soul.”
He then pressed his fingers against Julian’s forehead and started engraving a curse as he felt spiritual energy flooding back into his body and worked to keep together what little remained of his sense of self along with his memories.
“There...with that, you’ll stay alive, but only if I alone allow you to do so. You will only live because of me, and you will wander this earth, immortal, forever, a soulless pitiful husk of your former self, unable to die, yet unable to truly live either. As a bonus, I’ve made you sterile. You will never be able to procreate and pass on your genes to any children. Your bloodline will well and truly die with you, while you alone remain alive,” Marcus explained before he took his hand from his forehead and wrapped it back around Julian’s head as he started to squeeze.
“Now…say my name Julian,” Marcus said as the pressure on his skull became even greater.
Julian couldn’t bring himself to speak as he was in shock from what had just been done to him.
“SAY IT!” he shouted as he continued to squeeze even tighter.
Julian started to scream in agony as the bones in his skull began to crack.
But then, with one of his eyes glowing blue and the other red, Marcus’s three voices spoke as one as he roared, “SAY MY NAME YOU SOULLESS SACK OF SHIT!”
“MARCUS WRIGHT-”, and with that, his skull was crushed to pieces.
Marcus…
Looking down at Julian’s corpse which would soon be reanimated, the spatial battlefield unfolded around them.
His skull had already started repairing itself as Marcus turned around before saying, “And don’t you fucking forget it.”