Flames POV
She blinks, taken aback, as if she was expecting me to collapse. Cry. Scream.
"Dead, Don. He was gone before the ambulance even got there. Collapsed in his office."
I almost laugh. Almost.
My father had many enemies, don't get me wrong. But to think his own body betrayed him?
A heart attack?
That's rich.
The strongest man I knew, struck down by a muscle spasm in the chest.
Damn!!
I return to the window, place my hand on the glass. It's cold. Colder than I expected.
"I see," I whisper. My face glares back at me—perfect, unscathed, undisturbed. But behind the mirror, something shifts. A splinter, buried deep.
"He was Don Mantio Perez, your Father." Mara whispers behind me, as if I'd forgotten.
I know who he was. The man who constructed empires with blood-dyed fingers and presented them to me, smiling with mystery-filled eyes. The man whom I could never grow up from, regardless of the height of my heels.
Something wells up inside me. Not sorrow. No… It is… It's sorrow—so much sorrow. The kind of anger that constructs empires and burns cities to the ground when finished.
"Leave."
My voice cut through the room like an ice-coated sword. Mara did not argue. She knew better. She slipped out, as quiet as sin, and closed the door behind her with the delicacy of someone treading tiptoes on a minefield.
Then silence surrounded everything.
I stood there, staring at nothing. Just glass. My face. The city lights below.
Unlike him.
Don Mantio Perez. My father... My crown…
Gone…
Gone?
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, and it cracked—snapped like a bone that had been snapped in half. My knees weakened? No. I wouldn't give the floor that satisfaction. But something inside me. snapped.
I unwound the pin from my perfectly coiled bun. My hair spilled down like I was dropping my war mask.
I laughed.
A gutted, hateful sound that hit off the walls and came back to me, its emptiness intensified.
A heart attack? Seriously? That was it? The man who survived every plot, every assassination attempt, brought to his knees by cholesterol?
I am unprepared.
Not now!
Damn! I curse again…
Not because I did not deserve the right to sit upon the throne. I was meant to do that.
I have trained for it all my fucking life.
I'm the best amongst the rest.
But… not like this.
I walked over to the bar, grabbed a crystal glass, filled it with whiskey like it was in my debt. No ice. Just burn. Burn.
I sipped and flinched. Not from the taste. From the memories. Cigar smoke in his study. The grip of his hand on my shoulder as he said, "If you ever cry for me, I'll come back just to slap the weakness out of you."
Well, congratulations, old man. I'm not crying.
But it f**king hurts.
I gripped the bar's edge, nails digging into the wood like claws. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Loud. Loud enough to silence the scream building in my throat. But I wouldn't let it out.
I never scream.
I make other people scream.
I stumbled back, knocked into the wall, slid down. My silk robe spread out on the floor like blood splattered on the ground. My breath halted. My chest rose up. Fell. Shuddered...
I buried my face in my hands and whispered, "Why now?"
Not because I didn't know. But because I had to listen for the silence to answer.
And it did.
Because now there was no one to stand between me and the wolves.
Goddamn! I will miss the devil who raised me...
----
The hospital reeks of bleach and lost hope.
I push the glass doors open like I own them—and maybe, in a sense, I do. People move out of my way unbidden, uninterested in hearing my name. My heels hit the polished floor with the rhythm of a funeral march. Appropriate.
Then I see her.
Isadora,
My stepmother.
The one who's taken so much from me and left nothing but chaff in my soul. The woman who made me into something I never should've been.
Her eyes are swollen, fake tears smudging mascara down her high-cheekbones face. She sees me and sits up straight like a snake about to strike, but I don't react. I don't even blink. I walk by her like the air between us isn't vibrating with history. Like she isn't the ghost of all my worst nights.
"You're late," she says, lips pursed, voice too loud for a room so fragile.
I don't stop. I don't even glance back. "You're still breathing. That's the real tragedy."
I hear her scoff behind me, a sharp, bitter, bruised ego type of sound. But she doesn't come after. She never follows where she can't be in control.
The doctor is waiting at the end of the hallway, his face prepackaged sorrow. "Miss Perez"
"Don," I correct him.
"Don," he says again, softer now. "He. he didn't make it. It was sudden. A heart attack. We tried."
"Take me to him."
He nods quickly, no more words. Just motion.
The hallway seems longer than it should be. Time folds, stretches, chokes.
Then we reach the door.
Cold steel. Too final.
Inside, it's quiet.
I see him.
My father.
Don Mantio Perez. The lion, the empire, the kingmaker.
Too still.
I move slowly, as if I'll break the moment if I breathe too hard. As if he'll vanish if I blink. I stop at the foot of the bed. The sheet's drawn to his chest. His hands are clasped. So neat. So undignified.
He would've hated this.
The last time I spoke to him, he said, "If I ever die unexpectedly, bury me as soon as possible. Don't give my enemies the satisfaction of watching my ashes cool."
Now he's here. Already cold.
I step closer, heart pounding against my chest like it's trying to escape. I have to touch him, but I don't. I won't. The man in this bed is not my father. He was gone hours ago, most likely mid-sentence, most likely furious he didn't get to finish.
Behind me, I feel the weight of her stare.
That woman.
The one who stood by and watched me burn and handed me gasoline.
The woman whose touch was so gentle it destroyed everything she touched, including me.
And yet, here she is, mourning him as well.
I clench my teeth.
She gets to be here. Breathe this air. Pretend her tears aren't toxic.
She gets to mourn a man who was never truly hers.
But me…
I don't get to cry.
He wouldn't approve.
So, I stand up straight.
I turned to leave. While I approached the hallway,
"Don! Please wait!" I heard from someone. I paused and halted. It was the doctor.
When he approached me, he held out a folded sheet of thick parchment, aged and faintly scented with sandalwood.
"He gave this to me," the doctor said quietly. "Said it was for your eyes only. Told me not to open it… and I didn't."
I snatched it without a word. His handwriting screamed at me the moment I unfolded it. Sharp, proud, unmistakably him.
"Flames,.
Go to my office. There's something you will need there."
I locked the door behind me, fingers brushing over the cool steel panel. The soft click was a sound only I ever heard. No one had access to this room but me. That was his rule. His unspoken admission of trust.
Funny how trust can feel like a curse when the person who gave it to you is no longer breathing.
The letter sat in my palm like it belonged there.
I hadn't even noticed myself walking back to his office. The only space that didn't feel suffocating. I hadn't cried, hadn't screamed. I'd only opened the drawer, stared at the note lying perfectly centered on the thick black paper, and something in me flinched.
**Flames,
By the time you read this, I'll be gone. Not because I didn't fight. But because even devils need rest eventually.
I know you hate me. You should. I made you hard where you should've been soft. I made you hunt when you should've been held. But don't let them tame you now. Not when the war is just beginning.
There's someone coming. A man.
Not someone you'll like. God knows you don't like anyone. But you'll need him.
He was made for the dar
kness you command. He won't bow. He won't break. He'll protect you even when you deserve the bullet yourself.
So, when he knocks—let him in. Or kill him. Either way, he belongs to you now.
D.M.P**
I scoffed.