Chapter 25 #2
"But Gio had the mind of a poet. The heart of a protector. He used to write in this little journal he kept hidden under his mattress. Wrote about his little sister back home. About how he was doing this for her. So she could have a better life."
I paused, the memory sharp and cutting.
"When he died, something in me changed. Broke, maybe. Or woke up. I don't know."
I met Mila's eyes.
"But it also brought me my new family. Eight other boys who felt the same way I did. Who were tired of pretending everything was fine. Who wanted out but didn't know how to get there."
I described the late-night meetings. The whispered conversations after curfew. The way we'd cover for each other, protect each other, hold each other together when the weight got too heavy.
"They became my confidants," I said. "My brothers. The only people who understood what it was like to live in that hell every day."
I paused, checking her face.
She was still with me. Tears on her cheeks, but present. Listening. Holding my hand like it was the only thing keeping me tethered.
"They were there when my parents died," I said quietly. "House fire. Middle of my junior year. I was seventeen."
Mila's breath caught.
"Faulty wiring, they said. Ironic, considering my dad was an electrician. The whole building went up. Four families. All dead. No one made it out."
My voice was flat now, emotionless. The only way I could get through it.
"My brothers held me together when I couldn't hold myself. Sat with me through the funeral. Made sure I ate. Made sure I didn't do something stupid."
I swallowed hard.
"Without them, I don't know if I would've survived that year."
Mila's hand tightened on mine, and I drew strength from it.
"With my friends, we didn't just protect each other," I continued.
"We started comparing notes. Gathering intel, even though we didn't really know what that meant at the time.
We paid attention to who came and went. What the coaches said when they thought we weren't listening. Where the money was going."
I met her eyes.
"And we figured it out."
I let the words hang there for a moment.
"St. Paul's wasn't just an athletic academy," I said. "It was a grooming school. A place where boys with skill and potential were turned into soldiers for organized crime. Made men. Like in the mafia movies, if you can believe that."
Her eyes went wide, but she didn't pull away.
"They were training us to be enforcers and leaders," I said. "Muscle and brain. People who could blend in, who looked clean, who had the discipline and skills to do what needed to be done without asking questions."
This was the hard part.
The part I'd never told anyone outside the nine.
"They made me kill a man on my sixteenth birthday," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Mila didn't flinch. Didn't let go.
"They called it a present. A rite of passage. Brought me to a warehouse outside the city. There was a man tied to a chair. Beaten. Bloodied. Crying."
My jaw clenched.
"I don't know who he was. Never asked. But I think about him. Pray for his soul sometimes."
I paused.
"Maybe I'm praying for my own. I don't know."
I forced myself to keep going.
"That was the beginning of the darkest chapter. After that, they knew I'd crossed a line I couldn't uncross. And it only got worse from there."
I described the missions. The violence. The way they'd slowly eroded any sense of morality we had left until all that remained was survival and loyalty.
Silence stretched between us. I waited for her to say something. To let go of my hand. To tell me she couldn't do this.
Instead, she surprised me.
"How did you get out?" she asked, her voice steady.
A grim smile tugged at my mouth.
"The nine of us used what we'd learned against them," I said. "Turned their own training back on the people who'd created us."
I described the planning. The way we'd spent our senior year gathering evidence, mapping every iteration of staff comings and goings, coordinating with the one cop in town who wasn't on their payroll.
"There was supposed to be a big celebration after graduation," I said. "An initiation ceremony. But one of our brothers found out what it really was."
I met her eyes.
"It was going to be permanent. Once you were in, you were in for life. No walking away. No second chances."
I described graduation night. The precision. The violence.
"We killed the headmaster," I said bluntly. "The sadistic prick behind it all. Burned the files we could find in his office. Saved some—the ones that implicated other people—and gave them anonymously to the FBI."
Mila's expression didn't change.
"There were other things we did that don't matter now," I continued. "But when we left St. Paul's and enlisted—Army, Marines, Navy—we did it to serve our country. To prove we were good men. To put distance between who we'd been forced to become and who we wanted to be."
I paused.
"Our minds were clear. Our hearts were full. We were looking toward the future. Finally."
My voice dropped.
"Only, I know now that there was never really closure. Not the good kind. I never dealt with the debris that trauma left in me. The spikes and thorns. The rage. Probably the same for the others."
I met her eyes, seeing my reflection in them.
"And now it turns out the powers from St. Paul's are very much still in business. Maybe even more powerful than before. Someone took over after the headmaster died. Rebuilt. Expanded."
Understanding dawned on her face.
"It was them," I said. "Who ransacked your apartment. Who got me arrested. Merrick—the guy who found me on the street—he's one of them. Always was. He's testing me. Trying to pull me back in. Or punish me for leaving."
She was quiet for a moment, processing. Then she asked the question I'd been dreading.
"What are you going to do?" she said. "About them? About your friends?"
I went cold. Serious.
The weight that had been lifting settled back onto my shoulders, but this time it felt different. Lighter. Like I'd finally shared the burden instead of carrying it alone.
"I'm going to find the assholes," I said, my voice flat and certain. "And I'm going to do what I should've done a long time ago. Finish it. Properly this time."
I watched her face, waiting for fear. For hesitation. For her to realize what being with me really meant.
She didn't flinch.
"Good," she said simply.
And in that moment, I loved her even more.