Carmen
It's a celebration.
One of the many my father liked to attend, with me right beside him. My stepmother Bianca sat not far away with a smile stamped on her face—one that didn't reach her eyes.
In the meantime, I was bored as I drank from my wine slowly, savoring the taste as best as I could while looking around the luxuriously decorated hall.
It was a gala of some sort in appreciation of my father's charitable achievements. His service to humanity and the charity of his soul. Something along the lines of how good a man he was.
I couldn't help but wonder what the officiators of the event would think if they knew who my father truly was.
A mafia Don whose hands were covered with so much blood he might as well have painted them with it.
Charity? A way to avoid taxes when he owned the organizations themselves as a large shareholder. He did nothing that did not serve him.
And was I proud? Very.
He was my father, and I was his heir to take over from him when he retired.
Most people would have flinched at the thought, but I had been prepared from an early age. Twice as much for being a woman. Sitting there, I had to look soft—but not too soft.
My right hand fell to caress the purse with my gun in it as I sipped from my wine, waiting for the moment when Father would be called on stage and I would have to follow behind him.
There were guards at every corner, and every guest had been screened to ensure that no mistakes were made. But even then, I worried.
There had been rumors in the underground of—
Father was called, and he smiled with a gentle smile on his lips and waved. I got up beside him, allowing the blue gown I wore to shimmer beneath the lights, matching my blue eyes as my black hair fell across my shoulders.
I tucked my arm into his like the loving daughter I was, helping him up the stairs even though I knew he needed no help. Still, he enjoyed acting weak in public, and I liked to humor him.
Together we walked to the stage, and I pulled away, moving to stand behind him as he collected the award with a gentle grin on his face.
"The art of being a true mafia Don is not looking like one," one of his lessons.
He hugged the host and stepped up to the microphone to speak.
"As an aged member of society that likes to talk, I'll try not to bore you with my speech," he began.
People responded with smiles and laughter, including myself as I chuckled softly, my eyes focused on him as I listened to him continue.
"I thank you for the recognition! I am rich now, but as I like to tell my loving daughter, I grew up in the slums, so I know what poverty feels like. The hunger in the belly when there is no food."
"I do my best to contribute to society, but most importantly, I want to make a difference. For myself and my family," he said, gesturing toward me as he continued to speak.
"…because of this, I have decided to make a brand new foundation in my daughter's honor. Together…"
He said it with a grand smile on his face.
But the a loud booming sound went off.
It echoed beautifully in the sudden silence in the hall—made even more terrifying by the fact that Father immediately stopped speaking and clutched his chest.
I did not hear the gasps.
A sinking feeling seeped into my chest as I grabbed him and pushed him to the ground, a look of pure horror on my face as I stared at his chest where he was heavily bleeding out.
His white shirt was quickly soaked with dark blood—the kind I was familiar with, but never one that belonged to Father.
I had never felt so out of control as I moved, trying to put pressure on the wound on his chest, while logically I knew what was happening. I was medically trained to handle emergency situations, and maybe that was why I knew.
There was a massive accumulation of blood in the pleural space. If the intercostal vessels had been hit, he had less than five minutes left.
Yet somehow the old man wouldn't shut up.
Blood gurgled out of his mouth as he tried to speak as if he wasn't dying.
There were more screams now—almost all of them Bianca, my stepmother, who was shouting into the phone, calling emergency services and demanding a car be brought closer so he could be taken away immediately.
But I knew.
He knew.
It was evident in his eyes as he kept struggling to speak, choking on his blood as he gripped my shoulder with bloody hands, a look of pain etched across his face.
"…do not trust him…do not…"
His voice was barely audible.
Tears filled my eyes as I asked back, gritting my teeth in anger, needing a name.
"Who? Father, who?"
I pressed harder on his chest even though I knew it was a lost cause.
"…do not…"
He gasped.
I watched his entire body seize, his gaze fixed on me as if he was trying to memorize my face before his body dropped.
His eyes became blank.
The slow stench of death followed after.
And I knew he was dead.
I knew it.
And soon others would too.
Gabriel Castillo.
Mafia Don of the Western District of Marcelle City.
Had been shot.
And was dead.
The ambulances arrived ten minutes later, and they had to pry me off him as my vision blurred. My teeth were gritted in rage as I watched them pack his body with cold efficiency into the ambulance.
I looked around the hall.
People sobbed and wept.
Bianca sat on the floor crying.
Nolan, the head of security, had lowered his head in shame. Vaden, my father's advisor, stood stiffly nearby. Gordon, his lawyer, looked pale.
Nico—my stepbrother, whom I hadn't seen in years—stood among them.
A couple of people looked absolutely gutted and grieving.
Yet I was fully aware that someone there—if not more—had plotted and planned to kill him.
A mafia Don never just died.
They were killed.