The sun had just begun to rise over Monteverde when Enzo returned. The dirt road was unusually quiet. No dogs barked. No morning chatter echoed from the nearby cottages. A chill hung in the air—not from weather, but from something deeper.
He saw Antonio standing by the gate, eyes red, jaw tight. Behind him, villagers gathered like crows, whispering in circles, glancing at Enzo with a mix of pity and fear.
Enzo's heart turned to stone before a word was spoken.
"Where's Ma?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Antonio looked away.
"Where is she, Antonio?"
"She's gone," his brother said hoarsely. "Last night. A fight broke out… with the Morettis. You know how it's always been. She tried to stop it. One of them had a gun. Said it was an accident."
But Enzo had heard that lie before. Nothing in Monteverde was ever an accident. Every betrayal wore a familiar face.
He dropped the bag in his hands. He didn't speak. Didn't cry.
He walked past Antonio, past the villagers, past Rosa sobbing by the door. And when he stepped into the house, he saw his mother's body lying on the wooden table, covered with a white sheet. Her rosary still clutched in her hand. Her face too still, too pale — as if she had gone somewhere far beyond him.
Enzo fell to his knees.
A sound escaped his chest, raw and guttural. He wept not just for the loss of her, but for the death of everything she had represented — peace, goodness, hope. The only light in his world had been extinguished.
And in that darkness, something else awakened.
He didn't wait for a funeral. He didn't wait for justice. He waited only until the village slept.
Then he went to the back of the house where his father kept the old hunting rifle.
His hands didn't shake.
He loaded the weapon, dressed in silence, and walked into the night.
---
They found the body of Giovanni Moretti, Elena's uncle, the next morning. Shot clean through the chest. No one saw Enzo. But everyone knew.
The police came. The questions were few. The cuffs were cold.
Enzo didn't resist.
At fourteen years old, he was tried as a minor and sentenced to three years in a correctional facility.
Monteverde called him a killer.
But Elena… Elena called him a martyr.
When she visited, just once, behind the metal bars and glass pane, she placed her hand on the divider and said, "They'll never understand why you did it. But I do."
Enzo leaned forward, voice like gravel. "I did it because I had nothing left."
She shook her head. "No, Enzo. You still have me."
---
Three years passed like rain over stone.
The boy who emerged at nineteen was no longer the same. Taller, broader, with eyes too old for his face. He had studied. He had fought. He had learned how to survive without love.
But deep inside, he had also decided:
He would never be poor again.
He would never be powerless again.
And he would never forget what blood cost.
---