SUN
I wake up to the sound of a door slamming and footsteps.
No idea what time it is, how long I’ve been asleep, or how long I’ve even been stuck in this nightmare.
All of us lift our heads: me, Ragnar, Mauro, and Eliano. Everyone except Summer, who's still hooked up to an IV and hasn’t regained consciousness.
Will he ever wake up? Or is his mind permanently fried?
Anzo steps through the open door. He’s not wearing a jacket, just a shirt, with two holsters strapped to his waist. Why does he need guns when we’re locked in cages? That question won't leave me alone. It looks like he’s heading out on some kind of mission.
But it turns out we’re the mission.
"A few more hours and I’m out of here, my sweet little birds," he says. "But first, I need to clean up this room."
His gaze sweeps over us, landing for a second on Summer.
"The question is, who do I still need, and who do I have to get rid of to keep those suit-wearing bastards from crawling even further up my ass."
No one says anything. You can’t argue with a psycho.
Anzo walks up to the cages holding his family.
"How lucky I am to have you here, my dear nephews."
He smiles coldly. "I can’t pass up the chance to share a few interesting facts about your father, the man you remember as some untouchable saint."
Something shifts in his face. Something dark. Almost tragic.
He starts pacing between the cages like he needs to burn off some of the energy buzzing under his skin.
Does he think this whole scene belongs to him now? That he's finally found a voice no one can challenge?
"My father believed in the law of the strongest. Whoever clawed their way to the top over broken skulls and spines would earn the reward. After he forced his brother Alberto to hand over control, he made it his life’s mission to find a worthy successor among his three sons."
Mauro and Eliano watch him with grim expressions. In Mauro’s eyes, I see a whole ocean of hatred.
"He got lucky, two of his sons turned out to be alphas," Anzo goes on.
"But I was a beta. That, to him, was a crime he could never forgive.
" He pauses. "Still, because he believed the strongest should win, he once said he might pass the title to me…
if I could meet certain conditions. If I could prove myself. "
Anzo passes my cage, barely glancing at me.
"Tito was the cruelest of us, but our father always knew he was too stupid to make a decent capo. He couldn’t think strategically, couldn’t earn real respect, just a brute thug.
Paolo was cleverer, but he didn’t have the balls.
Couldn’t muster the kind of cruelty Tito had.
So, in the end, it turned out I was the one who performed best in all the twisted little tests our father threw at us.
And slowly, even he started to see it. That maybe I, the beta, was the best successor he had. "
Now Anzo steps up to Summer’s cage, inspecting the IV stand with a far-off look before continuing.
"But Tito and Paolo couldn’t handle that thought. So Tito decided to do something that would wipe me out of the game forever. Something that would take away my dignity, cripple me, shove me into a corner to rot in shame… He figured that would take me out of the running for capo."
His tone shifts, suddenly quieter, more controlled, like it’s taking effort to keep his voice even. Like he’s playing calm, and it costs him.
"One day, I woke up… tied down, arms and legs. Tito dragged me into this very room, and then he did something—"
He breaks off, taking a deep breath.
"Something you’re not supposed to come back from."
He hesitates, like he’s about to say more, but then he changes his mind.
"For years, I believed I could fix it. I even went to that bastard Blue Lowen, since he was famous for his research on this kind of thing. Thought he could help me. But he sent me away with nothing."
Interesting. So Anzo knew Blue? Maybe there was some history there. Maybe just some shattered hope?
"But whatever Tito did to me didn’t kill my ambition.
It poured revenge straight into my bloodstream.
Paolo stood by while it all happened and didn’t stop Tito, so I guess he felt guilty.
He was eighteen at the time and didn’t have the stomach for working in the family business.
Dropped out of the game completely. He’d already found his True Mate and had a kid on the way. Rocco was born not long after."
I do the math in my head. That would mean whatever happened to Anzo… happened when he was just fourteen.
"Starting a family changed Paolo even more. Softened him. He tried to apologize. Over and over. And I nodded and said, ‘It’s fine, I understand, it was Tito’s doing.
’ But… I didn’t understand. He was very wrong if he thought I forgave him.
He could’ve stopped Tito. Easily. He was a year younger but bigger and physically stronger. "
Anzo walks back to Mauro and Eliano’s cage.
But his eyes lock only on Mauro.
"Years passed, and I kept climbing. But after what happened, my father stopped seeing me as a candidate for succession. To him, I was an abomination. He was ashamed of me. Disgusted. Exactly ten years after… the situation, I was ready. I killed Tito first. I’ll spare you the details, but…
it wasn’t pretty. Then I went to Paolo’s house. "
Mauro and Eliano are pale and tense. I can tell that listening to this story without reacting is costing them.
"Rocco was at school. Luca was at a friend's house. Only seven-year-old Mauro and toddler Eliano were home with their parents. Paolo begged me for his life, for forgiveness. But… oh well. Years earlier, I’d begged. I’d pleaded. I’d cried. And he didn’t stop Tito."
Anzo leans forward and gently taps the top of Mauro’s head.
"You saw it all, the execution. Funny thing is, I didn’t even touch Paolo.
In the end, he didn’t touch me either. I was fair.
But when I slit your dad’s throat, the energy that bound him to Paolo ripped free.
The coil was torn. It was like someone severed a thick power line: an arc of electricity surged between their bodies and ripped off, and Paolo just dropped, dead.
And my arm, my fucking arm, went with him, cut off. "
He taps his mechanical limb. Gives a crooked smile.
"A little posthumous revenge from your parents."
We all just stare at him, his speech is a whole spectacle and he evokes quite a lot of emotion, especially in his nephews, who are both pale and trembling.
"They look strange afterward, like they’ve been scorched. Who would’ve guessed the energy between True Mates can manifest like that… but apparently, it can."
He looks at his artificial arm again, then shrugs and steps back from Mauro’s cage.
"Taking out my father after that was child’s play. He was already falling apart. Tito was doing half his job anyway."
"Is there a point to this fucked-up tale, Anzo?" Eliano asks, voice raised.
Clearly, he’s had enough of this twisted family history lesson. I don’t blame him. None of us know where the hell this is going.
But we all know for sure that probably none of us will get out of this room alive.
"Patience, nephews… Some things needed to fall into place first," Anzo says with a near-patronizing smile. "When I first met Moon, and he revealed that he could see all those vibrating paths into the future, the ones that could be charged with energy if approached carefully, I asked him whether there was any chance Tito’s damage could be undone. He didn’t answer for a long time. His gift was erratic, impulsive. He couldn’t just summon it at will.
So it took a while before the visions came to him.
One day, he slipped into one of his trances, the kind he absolutely hated, the kind that caused him unbearable pain.
Following those future threads always came close to killing him, and this time was no different.
But when he finally came out of it, he looked at me and said: Yes, there is one—just one—path that leads to that outcome.
Since that day, everything I’ve done has been to reach this one specific point. Today."
Then he suddenly turns and steps up to my cage.
"Moon said you could make it happen. He used these exact words: Only Sun can bring it about. "
I stare at him, still not understanding a damn thing.
"What are you even talking about? I already told you, I don’t have any kind of talent!"
Anzo gives me a nasty grin.
"Then we’ll test that in a moment. Did you know powers like this don’t always manifest casually?
Sometimes they’re triggered by something violent, dramatic, traumatic.
Something that forces your body to switch modes, to tap into a different kind of energy.
Desperation can unleash your gift, activate it. "
I shiver with fear.
"You’ve lost your mind, Anzo! There’s nothing inside me to unleash! Moon and Summer both showed signs of their abilities early on. I don’t have anything! Not even a hint of a gift!"
"Gifts come in many forms. Science doesn’t fully understand them yet. Some can’t be expressed in small ways, and for some… it’s all or nothing. Binary. You either have it or you don’t."
My nerves are literally vibrating.
"Can’t you just let us go, Anzo? Just walk away? You’re in a tight spot yourself, maybe even worse than ours if the FBI decides to take an interest," I try to reason with him, but of course it does nothing.
Anzo just gives a faint, amused smile.
"I sincerely doubt they’ll show up today. They usually hit early in the morning when they do raids, and it’s already 10 am. No sign of them. I think they’re skipping today."
"You’re playing with fire," Ragnar says coldly. "I doubt the feds are ever predictable."
Anzo slowly turns toward him.
"Ah… Ragnar. My dear brother-in-law. Twice over, no less. You know it’s bad manners to fuck someone else’s fucktoy?"
Ragnar narrows his eyes.