20. CARLOS
CARLOS
N ine and a half hours later and we’re finally landing in Rio. I’m dying to get to the house. The one thing I hate about planes is how disgusting you feel after traveling on them. I want a shower and some decent food.
“Finally back home, Enrico. Excited?” I say to my piece of shit brother. Something feels off about his response, though. The tired, beaten down demeanour has been replaced with a look of hatred and happiness. His squinting eyes portray the hate for me, but his response sounds almost gleeful.
“You have no idea, Carlos. I can’t wait to get back home. Let’s go,” he says as he jumps up out of his seat with Mark and Lucas exchanging looks of confusion. I don’t like it.
I lead us all to the exit door, Simon following close behind me.
As predictable as he is, we didn’t speak for the rest of the journey.
I actually mainly slept after the most amazing blow job of my life.
That fucker put me to sleep like a baby afterwards.
I’ve no idea if Simon managed to sleep, as I awoke to find him just watching me.
Lost in thought. I would love to be inside his head sometimes to see what that overworked brain of his is thinking.
The cabin door opens with a hiss, and a wave of heat rushes into my face—dense, immediate and unmistakenly Brazilian. As I step out onto the top of the stairs I take a moment to let it hit me fully.
The air wraps around me like a thick blanket—humid, fragrant and alive.
Not the dry artificial warmth of climate control, or polished hotel lobbies, but the kind that clings to your skin and settles into your lungs.
It smells like sun baked pavements, faint salt from the ocean somewhere nearby and that earthy sweetness that only comes from air after the rain on warm soil.
Underneath it all there are hints of mango, diesel, sweat and the faintest trace of sugarcane smoke.
Or I could just be experiencing nostalgia, and all my childhood memories have returned in the form of smells.
It’s overwhelming. It’s home.
Outside the terminal, the sun is already beginning to sink low—painting everything in gold and bronze. The heat radiates from the ground, soaking through my shoes. My shirt starts to cling to my back within seconds, but I don’t care.
As we make our way through the airport to the cars waiting for us outside, my ears hone in on the distant sounds of honking horns, samba music bleeding from car radios, people yelling in fast Portuguese—it all makes my chest tighten, not in panic, but in something close to relief.
Memory. Belonging. Reminders of times that are in the past.
It didn’t matter how long I’d been away from my homeland, Brazil had waited. Not gently. Not softly. But fiercely like an old friend who never learned how to whisper. And now that friend had me back, greeting me home to the chaos.
“Carlos, welcome home,” an old familiar face and voice greets me.
Bruno. My father’s longest serving friend.
Loyal to his very core. He has aged since I last saw him.
Strands of silver cover his previous thick black hair.
But he still maintains the broad shoulders and firm body.
Bruno’s passion has always been boxing. Him and my father used to spar a lot in their younger days.
I’m actually surprised he has shown up to greet us. I reach out and shake his hand.
“Bruno, good to see you. These are my men, Simon and Mark. You remember Lucas and my idiot brother.”
“Yes, how could I forget. Enrico, your father is looking forward to seeing you.”
“I’m sure he is. Can we go now? I’m starving,” Enrico complains, and we all pile into our respective cars.
“Simon, you go with Mark and Enrico. Lucas, stay with me,” I say, and Simon goes to speak, but holds himself back without saying anything and following the others to their car.
I don’t want him in sight of Bruno. I have a feeling the journey will be filled with words of manipulation and it's better to have Lucas with me who understands how this family works. The dynamic.
I’m grateful to get inside the air conditioned car, which cools me down instantly. Bruno sits up front with the driver while I sit in the back with Lucas. After we start our journey, Bruno begins to talk.
“Your father has been counting down the days to your return, Carlos. It is never a good feeling when family abandons you.”
I want to roll my eyes at the blatant attempt at guilt tripping me, but it won’t work. I feel no guilt for anything in my life. Everything happens as it is meant to.
“He’ll get over it.”
“You should be here, where you belong. The family business has always fallen to the first born son. It is your duty, Carlos.”
“Give it to Enrico. We’ve had this conversation many times. I’m not coming back. Besides, this has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and my father.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Your actions affect us all. Your father should never have agreed to let you go to that god forsaken country.”
“It's my home and I’ve made a great life for myself.”
“It’s a sin, living there, leaving your blood to suffer.”
“Oh I’m sorry, is dealing in arms and killing not a sin?”
Lucas reaches out and squeezes my knee. I look at him and he quickly shakes his head. Warning me not to go too far. But my mouth can’t help it. I’m not the little bitch boy. I deserve respect too.
“You forget yourself, boy. You’re not in America anymore.”
“Obviously,” I snark and gaze out of the window.
We drive along the coastline as the roads become quieter and the trees and land denser.
I may dislike my family, but Brazil always has my heart.
The beauty of the ocean, the land peaks that remind me of the pyramids in Egypt in the ocean.
Before long, the large familiar black gates appear, the entrance to the Silva empire.
It's a ridiculously large mansion. It's more like a hotel.
It screams money and power, with a hint of narcissism.
As our car comes to a stop, I see my father standing outside the large cream double doors that form the entrance to the property.
He stands like the original mafia guy. Expensive white suit that should be too hot for this weather.
His sun damaged skin looks darker against the light material.
His hair is still as dark as mine and that convinces me that he dyes it.
As I get out of the car, the other guys pull up behind us and get out to stand beside me.
“Boys, finally home where you belong,” he says with his arms wide open, pretending he is the affectionate father he should be. He wasn’t and isn’t. The guy is cold and evil. Something I inherited. The only thing I’m thankful for.
“Father,” I greet, shaking his hand. “This is Simon, Mark, and of course you know Lucas.” He nods and smiles in acknowledgement.
“Simon and Mark, this is my father, Gabriel Silva.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” Mark says, but Simon remains quiet, his eyes flitting between me and my father. He sees the likeness and I don’t think he likes it.
“Let’s get inside, dinner will be ready in an hour and we have a lot to catch up on. Your guards can eat with the others. Diogo and Caio, please show them to their rooms.”
These two guards are not ones I’ve met. I have to admit, my father has great taste in the men he hires.
Caio is tall, has black hair that's just long enough to put behind his ears.
He is the typical hot Brazilian that you would expect.
Model worthy. Diogo is paler, he has large green eyes and dark curly brown hair.
His face is a little more sinister, with a sharp nose and crooked grin.
Tattoos cover his neck and hands, and I assume, under the light blue suit, cover his whole body.
“Carlos, what am I supposed to do?” Simon hisses behind me, looking like a fish out of water.
“Go with Mark and get settled. Do whatever he or Lucas tells you to do. You’re just here to work. Okay?”
“Fine. I think your dad is an asshole though,” he says, and I laugh.
“He’s worse than that, Simon. Don’t trust anyone here and give nothing about your life away. Just stick to my boys, got it?”
“Yeah,” he says, and follows Mark into the house, who is being guided by Caio. Which means the crazy looking one, Diogo, is assisting me.
“This way, Mr. Silva,” he says, walking ahead of me.
“Call me Carlos. I’m not your boss.”
“You’re the boss's son, which makes you our boss.”
“Please don’t piss me off, Diogo. I’m too tired to be polite. Just call me Carlos as I’ve asked.”
He looks over his shoulder at me as we climb the large staircase in the center of the entrance.
“I heard you were the crazy one of the family. A psycho,” he says, chuckling.
“Yet here you are challenging me. Is that wise?”
We reach the top of the stairs and turn right, walking through the large hallways that I used to play in as a child. The place even smells the same.
“I like the crazy ones. You can trust them. It's the sane ones you need to worry about.”
“I agree.”
He opens a familiar door that used to be my old room.
“I didn’t need showing to my old bedroom, I remembered the way.”
He shrugs.
“Just following orders. Dinner is in an hour and your cases are already inside the room.”
I nod and walk into my room. Diogo hovers behind me, and I’m not sure why he is still here.
“Do you need something?” I ask.
“Can I ask you something?”
“If you must.”
“Why did you leave? If I could have all this, you would have to carry me out of here kicking and screaming.”
“That’s because you’re just a guard. A different life to the son of Gabriel.”
“I guess, but still, why did you go?”
“I hate my father. I hate my brother, but it was an opportunity to make it on my own, so I took it at my brother's expense. This business and life is not for me. Nobody controls me.”
“I like you, Carlos.”
I smile and go to close the door in his face.
“And I think you’re a nosy bastard whose curiosity will get you killed someday. Try to control it, Diogo,” I advise before shutting the door.
I stand with my back to the door, carved mahogany, polished to a shine, thick enough to muffle screams.
The room hasn’t changed. Not one bit.
The chandelier still hangs above me like a frozen explosion of crystal and gold.
The silk drapes are puddled dramatically against the marble floor, casting long shadows in the late afternoon light.
My bed—absurdly large, too perfect, too untouched—sits like a throne in the center of the room, framed in a dark wood carved with angels and wolves.
Saints and monsters, The family crest still above the headboard.
The air is cool, perfectly controlled like everything in my father’s life.
It smells faintly of aged wood, cologne, and money.
Old money, blood money. I walk over to the window and trail my fingers along the desk that sits neatly under it.
The same desk I used to write school essays while bodyguards stood outside my door. Still flawless and not a speck of dust.
Because someone had been maintaining it. Keeping it ready. Like they were certain of my return.
Like I had never left.
My eyes flick over to the corner where the large antique wardrobe stands.
I could still picture my father sitting in the large leather chair next to it when I was thirteen years old, cleaning his gun, explaining with a chilling calm how to dislocate someone's shoulder with one hand, like it was a bedtime story.
Everything here is beautiful. Grand. Obscene. And underneath it all, it pulses with something cold and violent. It isn’t a home, it’s a museum of silence, of power, of expectations dressed in velvet and gold leaf.
I sit down on the edge of my bed, the mattress dipping beneath my weight, and I catch my reflection in the large mirror leaning against the wall.
I look older. Sharper. But I still have the same haunted and unmoving dead eyes.
I don’t belong here anymore.
Or worse—is that I do.
Because I’m cut from the same cloth, the demon's replica.
My father’s son.