When I looked in the mirror, I was always proud of how handsome I was.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the girls secretly loved it.
Despite these narcissistic flaws, I'd been raised in a wealthy and kind family, a family that was deeply religious and taught their children that we should treat people with kindness, even if those people repaid us with nothing but evil.
I believed that at first.
So, like the good kid I was supposed to be, I prayed to God every day, went to religious activities regularly, studied hard, and respected pretty much everyone.
Even when the other kids around me called me boring and started to isolate me, whether at home or at school, I stubbornly kept believing that sticking to being good was the right path.
At first, there was no big problem.
Sure, it felt a little lonely when nobody my age gave a damn about me, and the only person who paid me any attention was the teacher who praised me for being the "good child" among my peers.
But as time passed, I got used to it.
Then the problems started.
My stuff began disappearing, first it was my pencil, then my pen, even my crayons weren't spared. But since my family was rich, I didn't take it too seriously. Those things could be replaced.
However, that petty theft eventually turned into open bullying. My classmates began taking my silence for weakness and started blatantly stealing my things right in front of me.
Whenever I wanted to snap and punch them in their smug little faces, the words of the adults around me echoed in my head: never repay evil with evil; treat everyone with kindness.
So I sighed and tried to ignore them.
But there came a moment when they crossed my bottom line.
I don't remember exactly what they said, it's a blur, since I was just in kindergarten back then and my adult memory can't piece it together fully, but the boiling rage inside me wasn't fake.
I felt pure anger about something, even if the details are gone.
When it was all over, I found them bloodied and unconscious on the floor.
Suddenly, everyone in the class who had been either silent spectators or active bullies flipped into victims.
They all started crying that I was the one who'd done wrong and that I should be punished.
These were the same kids who'd watched them steal my stuff and torment me, but none of them had ever stepped in to stop it.
None of them cared how I felt.
Instead, they called my parents, reprimanded me, and isolated me even more.
Even the teacher, who was supposed to be on my side, turned away from me.
They said I went too far.
What exactly did I do wrong?
At the time, I didn't understand the core of the problem.
I still saw the world in black and white.
But something dark and twisted took root inside me the day I saw the teacher looking at me with fear, right after my parents, especially my father, arrived at the school.
I didn't get why she was so afraid of me. It was 2004 back then, if I remember right, when the internet hadn't yet become part of everyday life for most people.
Computers were expensive, and internet access wasn't something the average person could afford.
It was also a time when the media and the government were at the peak of their power, and ordinary people were terrified of crossing them.
By the time I graduated from that kindergarten, the school suddenly shut down.
A ton of rumors spread around about why, but I can't recall the details.
When it was all over, I found myself in elementary school, then eventually junior high and high school.
My school life after that was calm and peaceful, completely unlike kindergarten.
By then, I'd learned how to survive and thrive without being isolated, bullied, or treated like a freak.
I copied how the other kids behaved, stuck close to groups, picked up their hobbies as my own, learned about their interests, and pretended to like what they liked.
I made plenty of friends, laughed with them, and on the surface, my school life seemed happy.
But was it really?
Why did I still feel so empty?
Despite everything, I kept repeating the same routine because nobody bothered me when I played along.
People left me alone, and I'd even managed to gather a good number of friends in my life.
No one ever told me that maybe this was all wrong.
I thought it was fine, at least at first.
It wasn't until I met her.
The only one who ripped me out of this illusion and shattered every last bit of hope I had for this world.
She was my first love in life, and she was also the last one.
We confessed our interest to each other. She was gorgeous, there was no one among my peers, especially the guys in my class, who didn't admit how stunning she was.
I was handsome too and never lacked suitors in my life.
And when someone handsome and someone beautiful lock eyes, there's always some kind of spark.
Maybe it's love, maybe it's lust, maybe just raw attraction.
That's how we got together. We became boyfriend and girlfriend. Plenty of people blessed our relationship, thinking we were the perfect couple.
Sometimes I thought… maybe this life isn't all that bad.
As society taught me, I never smoked, never touched alcohol or drugs. I was taught to treat women like princesses and I did.
Since we got together, I never touched or even spared a glance at other women.
My broken heart from the past was slowly healing, and for a while, I almost forgot about the pain.
But everything twisted into something rotten when an old friend I'd made in junior high approached me again.
He wasn't exactly the best choice for a friend, lots of people didn't like him. He came from the bottom rung of society, a scumbag, and some of my classmates even suspected he was a drug dealer or something worse.
But he was loyal, in his own fucked-up way. He told me he'd seen my girlfriend wasn't who I thought she was. That I was just a shield for her.
That her sweetness was nothing but a façade to cover up her real relationship with her own brother. His house was near hers, and sometimes he could hear moans coming from inside her home.
Then he handed me his compact pistol, a 9mm, cold and heavy in my palm.
He told me to see it for myself. And if I didn't have the guts, I could call him and he'd help me finish her off. He said their relationship would be over for good because they were from two different worlds.
But if I could pull the trigger myself, he'd introduce me to a new world.
I didn't believe him.
But the gun felt terrifyingly real, especially when I tested the trigger in some hidden place.
I called my girlfriend, determined to prove him wrong. But she took too long to pick up the phone.
And when she finally answered, her voice was shaky, breathless, like she was trying to catch her breath between gasps. In that moment, something boiling hot started raging inside me.
Still, I pretended not to notice.
I kept chatting with her as I made my way to her house, sneaking closer.
The door wasn't even locked.
It was too easy.
I stepped inside and followed the sounds, her moans were loud, raw, and completely unrestrained.
I didn't hesitate to push open the bedroom door.
I really saw her eyes widen in shock when she realized I was standing there.
Her brother was still on top of her, thrusting into her, too lost in fucking her to even notice me at first.
She screamed at her brother to get off and started babbling that she could explain.
But I didn't give her the chance.
I raised the gun and pulled the trigger on both of them.
Blood splattered across the sheets and the walls, the smell of sex mixed with gunpowder filling the room.
I left without a backward glance.
Since then, my heart has been dead along with her.
Then, there he was, standing there waiting for me with his arms crossed, a cold look in his eyes.
Without waiting for him to react, I questioned, "Why?"
I didn't believe for a second that my old friend was reminding me out of any sense of good intention.
"He wanted to quit the organization. The boy thought it was easy to take the money from us and call it the end." He chuckled, a dark, bitter sound rumbling in his chest.
"Even the boss can't quit. The cops breathing down our necks will never let us walk away clean. So how dare that little shit think he could just leave?"
"I told our boss about you… about his sister… and our boss thought he could use that to control you. We know who murdered them. Now, what's your choice, my friend?" He looked at me like he'd already won, like he was so sure I'd break.
"Then I'll send him my regards."
I lifted the gun in my hand and shot him point-blank, the blast echoing through the room as his eyes went wide with shock and disbelief.
Blood sprayed across the wall behind him as his body crumpled to the ground.
I spat on his corpse, the taste of bile and rage burning in my throat.
Then I started searching around for any recordings, his phone, or whatever he'd been using to blackmail me.
It didn't take long before I found it, a hidden drive stashed under a loose floorboard.
I grabbed them and poured the oil across the floor. I struck the match and dropped it, flames roared to life instantly, crawling across the floor. The fire was already licking at the kitchen walls, creeping toward the gas lines, and I didn't wait around to watch the explosion.
That was the moment I walked out of the house, calm, steady, and leaving behind nothing but chaos ready to blow.
When the house went up in a roaring explosion, it burned not just the evidence… but my girlfriend along with her brother.
Since then, there's been nothing but silence. None of his old associates ever came near me again, and I don't bother with them either. My heart, my morality, and every last shred of expectation died the moment she betrayed me.
But this isn't all about her, it's about the way my life spiraled down into a path of self-destruction, into becoming a crime lord, and eventually being thrown into eternal damnation after my death.
She was just one of the people who led me down this path, the path where I built a cartel empire brick by bloody brick, and finally died from a gunshot after I'd been hunted like an animal by a coalition of police, government agencies, and the DEA.
I died alone on the rooftop of my house, my skull blown open by a hidden sniper waiting in the dark.
At that moment, I remember how proud I was, how invincible I felt, convinced that the law itself was nothing more than a fragile piece of paper in the face of true strength.
I realized then that my father had crushed the kindergarten I used to attend, effortlessly.
He ruined them by manipulating the media to smear their reputation, spreading poisonous rumors, applying so much pressure that the school shut down in disgrace, and every teacher's life was destroyed.
What I never understood is why those same people raised me to be good. Why they kept filling my head with their sweet bullshit about how we should repay evil with good.
I don't understand…
Because of that contradiction, my life turned out the way it did.
I lived in this false illusion of normalcy, completely blind to the truth that nothing in this world is purely good or evil. I was drowning in the fantasy that most people are decent human beings.
Nobody opened my eyes to reality. It wasn't some wise mentor or a moment of sudden enlightenment, it was betrayal.
My own girlfriend betrayed me. My underlings turned on me. Even my family cut all ties and worked with the government to hunt me down.
For ten years I ran like a dog, crossing borders and hiding in shadows to avoid being extradited to the US.
But in the end, just like any mortal, I could still die. Everyone is equal in the face of death, no matter how high you climb or how many people you bury along the way.
Maybe I deserved it.
Maybe I was born bad from the start. I can't deny I felt a sick, sadistic thrill back when my female kindergarten teacher looked at me with pure fear.
I used to brush off that feeling, trying to cage myself in this fake shell of goodness.
But deep down, I always felt the intoxicating rush that came from having power and absolute control in my hands.
That feeling never went away. It was a root, buried deep in my soul.
I never felt right pretending to be someone's friend or playing along with their fake normal lives. I only felt alive when I dominated everything around me.
It all started with petty crimes, stealing, scamming and then it grew into kidnapping, bribery, smuggling.
Drugs are a lucrative business, and everybody loves money.
But me? I loved what money could buy. It doesn't just buy things, it buys loyalty, obedience, and fear.
As my empire grew, it became so massive that even laundering money through legitimate businesses couldn't completely hide it.
The authorities smelled blood, hungry for a piece of the wealth they could bleed from exploiting my operation.
But that shit was manageable…
Until the United States decided to stick their fucking nose where it didn't belong and sent in the DEA.
And that's how I fell.
If the next life truly existed, I wouldn't be a good person again.
I would be merciless and beyond ruthless.
I would never allow anyone to stand in my way.
Never!