The Outlaw

*** TRIGGER WARNING***

“wh-why would your uncle try to kill layla and I?” I asked as my heart started beating erratically in fear of what he might say. He looked at me with his jaws clenched, even though his face was devoid of any emotion but his eyes showed pain.

“My grandparents were from a very rich and feared family from Italy, the Martera and had two kids, my mother Celia and younger her brother Andre. Unlike the harmless sibling rivalry, they had a noxious rivalry. The two of them always competed in almost everything, from school, to sports, to getting parents attention. While mother used her achievements to get their attention, Andre was more notorious, causing trouble over all. He would destroy antiques and expensive stuff around the house, my grandparents brushed it off at first but they snapped when one day they walked on him cutting my mothers pet dog into pieces. Andre was sent off to a mental institute when he was 17.

Five years in, my mother took over my parents business and was excelling. She took their company from national to international. That is when my biological father, Erik, met my mother. She was in Spain for business and he was one of the waiters in the hotel she was staying at. Formal hi-hellos turned into flirt and before anyone could have known, they began dating. She showered him with expensive gifts and dates, she would come to Spain for months and spend her entire time with him or sometimes she’ll give him tickets to come all over the world with her but would never invite him to Italy.

A year into this and my mother fell pregnant with me, she was in Italy at the time. Ecstatic about the news, she immediately flew to Spain to give him the news, upon reaching the hotel she found out that he was getting married to his long time girlfriend Maya.

She went to the chapel where he was getting married and confronted him, the coward he is, he denied everything. So she proceeded to make his entire family loose their jobs, business and source of education. In no time she had him on his knees begging for mercy, I was already born by then and being my biological father, my mother gave in. She housed him and his wife in another part of Milan.

Years in and my mother is married to a good man and I am the centre of everyone’s world, like my mother I excelled in every field and was adored by everyone. I was 10 years old when Andre came back but what shocked everyone was that he came back with a 8 years old and a wife. My grandparents forgot everything and welcomed them with open arms and so did my mother, she spoiled her niece and sister in law. Unlike grandparents my mother didn’t raise me to have any kind of rivalry with my brother, Flynn. She treated him just the way she treated me and I adored my little brother with everything. And before you ask, Flynn is my half brother, same father but different mothers.

Because of certain reasons, Flynn stayed with us in Rome. Flynn, Emma, Andre’s daughter, and I went to the same school. Everything was alright and we kids were getting along just fine and the relationship between mother, Andre and my grandparents were slowly healing. Everything was going fine until that dreadful day that changed everything. One day when we returned home from school there were tails of blood everywhere, we all had personal armed guards who shoved us back into the car, they were successful but not with me, I slipped between the guards and followed the trail to the kitchen. My soul left my body when I came there.

Both of my grandparents heard were served and hung from either side of the room while chunks of their flesh were scattered all over the kitchen. My world darkened that day, I still remember the stench of metallic rotten meat swallowed the house, my entire system had stopped working looking at the scene. There was a buzz ringing in my ear, I couldn’t feel when my guard pushed me out. My grandparents were my angels, they loved so much and I loved them just as much.

I remember the way my mother howled in pain when she reached the kitchen, her screams still echo in my head. She was lost, broken, confused and angry. I pushed the guard away from me and went to console my mother who was on her knees crying like a kid. I tried so hard to keep calm but I lost someone important in my live as well, I cried as my mother collected all the pieces of her parents like a mad woman as if bringing them together would someone bring them back to life.

She fell into such a severe state of shock that she collapsed on the floor while taking her mother’s head from the ceiling. Andre arrived at that time and without wasting a single heartbeat, he had guards take mother and me to another house to clean up the mess.

My mother stayed in the state of shock for eight days, she was out cold for all those day and those eight days were a nightmare. Andre had taken control of all the business and her wife of the household, it wasn’t the temporarily control. Andre buried my grandparents the same day and didn’t even inform us.

When my mother woke up she was in denial of her parents death, so she didn’t bother to do anything about Andre and that only made him unstoppable. My stepfather was too busy taking care of mother and he didn’t listen to me either. I knew I had to take things in my own hands and since I was already 16 and in the last year of my school, I didn’t have a problem going back to our house that Andre had taken over.

In the back of my head I knew something was wrong when Andre didn’t show a single emotion seeing his parents ruins and just started to clean the mess up. This is far from normal and my suspicion proved right when I arrived at the mansion. The people who worked there were fired and some strange people lived there, our basement were off limits and the attitude of Andre and his family completely changed. Even though we weren’t buddies with Emma, we were civil but when I met them it was like a switch flipped in them, they went from being kind to devious in a snap of a finger.

They would call me a faggot for being bisexual and push me around, the men there didn’t bother doing anything to be because even at the age of 16 I was double their size. One day I came back from the school earlier the usual and when I was passing Andre’s office, I heard him talking over the phone with someone….”

***FLASHBACK***

I wasn’t the one who usually eavesdrop but my interest piqued when I heard my mother’s name.

“Its only that bitch left in my path, I get rid of Celia I will rein over Italy! That faggot is not a problem, I will convince him that his mother was killed by an enemy just like those old hags. Oh I loved cutting them to pieces, you should have seen the look on his bitch’s face when I dismembered her husbands head..” his laughter echoed throughout the empty hallway.

I was too shocked to hear anything more, his voice began to feel distant the more he talked about mutilating my grandparents. My brain hurt from trying to process the information but thank god for my reflexes were quick. I recorded every word he spoke and send it to mother.

I didn’t wanna cause a scene now, my grandparents always taught me to let the enemy think they have the upper hand. The benefit of doubt makes them overconfident and I could pull out my last weapon when they think they won.

I was about to run away when I bumped into Emma who yelled for his father, I knocked her out and was running down stairs to escape when I felt an unbearable pain in my leg, that fucker shot me. I pulled out a gun from my bag and shot everywhere I could,,, but I was out in the open and they all open fired at me. I cannot begin top comprehend the pain I felt, the last thing I remember was Andre standing over me before I was engulfed by darkness.

I woke up feeling hot and breathless, both my arms and legs were tied to the bed post and there was Emma on top of me. I was tongue tied to see my cousin naked on top of me, I shouted in fear and started pulling onto the cuffs to break free but that was all in vain. There were needles piercing my skin, I was surrounded with medical equipment. That moment I wished to have died than to go through this, I wished for the bullets to have killed me.

I felt so violated and disgusted with myself, my heart was practically bleeding, the gun wounds didn’t compare to the pain I was feeling. I shouted for anyone who could hear me, anyone but all I got in return was a stab wound from my cousin and loud roar of laughter from the people around me.

***FALSHBACK ENDS***

“That fucker didn’t only wanted to kill my family but also rip me mentally and physically. And he very well succeeded, he brought in my mother one day, with both of her arms ripped from her body. He beat her in front of me,, made his men rape my mother before my eyes while I laid tied to post helpless. I felt disgusted with myself, how could someone let their mother be beaten and raped in front of their eyes.

But that wasn’t the end, he tied her up too and made her watch me get beaten and raped by my own cousin. I cant erase the look of terror in her eyes, she was worn out, bruises, scars was in every corner of her body. She felt ashamed, I know that I could see through the mask of her hatred for Andre.

My mother refused to meet my eyes, but I begged her to look at me one more time I knew my time is near and Andre is done playing games, he will kill me any second now.

And my suspicion was accurate but the difference is that he had invited all of mother’s enemies and brought both of us in the living room…. he set her loose and made her run for her life as he and her enemies shot at her. She died before my eyes, lilith, but I was helpless.

Months after her death, I had become a sex toy for Emma to be used. But one day she found out she was pregnant with my child and that was all the motivation required for me to break from those chains and kill every last of them.

Some of my mother’s trusted men had snuck into the mansion, Andre had ordered all of his men to stay away when Emma was with me. When he slipped into my holding cell, it was just me and Emma. He managed to knock her out and set me loose. I worked on auto pilot, I grabbed guns and bombs from the next room and killed all of his men.

After what felt like hours, I finally cornered Andre and his wife, I was shaking with anger and excitement. I had him exactly where I wanted him, on his knees and his pregnant daughter in my captivity. I wanted to make him suffer the way he made me and my mother suffer, we went to one of our warehouse where I cut her daughter open and crushed the child’s head in my hand. Then made him and his wife eat the child, they didn’t have any other option, they were starved for days it was either their life or sanity.

After weeks of torturing them physically and mentally, I ripped Emma in half, I pulled out her intestine and choked her mother with it . I felt powerful, to have that cynical power. I would get flashes of the way he treated me and my mother, I snapped when I remembered how my mother was killed.

I had managed to break everything inside Andre in the matter of days, taking all the things away from him that he values the most, his family and the power of Martera. I could have easily killed him but I didn’t, even with both of his legs cut off and half of his body paralysed, I wanted him to suffer more, what he went through for days didn’t compare to what me and mother went through. It didn’t compare to what my grandparents went through. So I took the hard road, I left him in the hands of fate and warned him about the consequences of messing with me again… well I think he has a team of sort after me..” he trailed off.

I was scattered, both in fear and disgust, how can someone do such thing to their own family? That’s not the Gerardo I know, he is kind and compassionate but this Gerardo is cynical and vengeful..

“Andre showed a lot of traits of a psychopath,, but even then he came back for family business? Usually psychopaths go for what feed their hunger for havoc. Martera industry is a tech company..” I trailed of in confusion.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

I felt him get stiff at the question.. I furrowed my brows at him, even with the candles lit around us, the room felt cold and empty.

“There was nothing called Martera Ind. at that time, I made that industry. Andre was after the gang..” I snapped at him in shock as he turned around to look at me without a trace of emotion on his face.

“Martera family are the Italian mafia and I am the king of the underworld”