The Dicosta manor was a palace of shadows.
Marble floors stretched wide enough to echo footsteps for minutes, and golden chandeliers threw their light across ceilings painted with saints that none in the family ever prayed to.
Dylan sat at the enormous oak dining table, legs dangling above the polished floor. He was twelve, the youngest son of a family that ruled the city not by kindness but by fear.
The table was set with silverware polished so clean he could see his own face in the spoons. Yet the air was never warm. His father sat at the head, posture like steel, his mother silent at his side. Conversation at dinner was never about joy—it was about business. Deals, threats, numbers.
And then there was Uncle Marco.
Always smiling. Always talking. Always watching Dylan in a way that made his stomach twist.
"Dylan," Marco said that night, slicing into a steak dripping red. "A boy like you… you'll grow into a fine man one day. Stronger than your father, maybe."
His father's eyes sharpened, flicking toward his brother. "He doesn't need your words, Marco. He needs discipline."
Marco chuckled, raising his glass of wine. "Ah, always so serious, brother. This family thrives on power, not cold stares."
Dylan lowered his gaze to his plate, pretending to eat while the words slithered between them like knives.
The boy didn't understand everything—but he felt it.
The tension. The crack in the family walls. The storm building.
That night, the manor did not feel like home. It felt like a cage.
And Dylan, though still a child, could already sense one truth—
Something in this family was about to break.
The rain outside hammered against the tall windows of the Dicosta manor. Thunder growled over the city, shaking the glass chandeliers until they chimed like bells of doom.
Dylan lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He couldn't sleep. His uncle's words from dinner kept circling in his head. Stronger than your father… Why had he said that? Why did his father's face turn sharp, almost afraid?
Then he heard it.
Raised voices.
Through the hall, faint but clear—the study.
His father's deep roar. His uncle's smooth, mocking reply.
Dylan's chest tightened. Against every instinct, he slipped from his bed and padded barefoot down the corridor. The walls loomed like giants, portraits of ancestors glaring down at him as if warning him to turn back.
He stopped outside the heavy oak door of the study. It was cracked open just enough for him to see.
His father stood behind the desk, veins bulging in his neck.
"You think you can take this family from me, Marco?!"
Uncle Marco leaned against the desk, calm as ever, swirling wine in his glass. "Take? No, brother. I simply think the family deserves a leader who isn't… weak."
"You're drunk."
"I'm right." Marco set down the glass. The sound was soft, but it echoed like a hammer in Dylan's chest. "Your boy, Dylan. You protect him too much. You shelter him. He'll grow soft. And a soft heir means the Dicosta name dies."
"He's my son!" his father thundered, slamming his fist on the desk. "And I will never let this family poison him!"
Silence.
Then—steel whispered.
Marco pulled a knife from his coat. The smile never left his face.
"I wasn't asking for your permission, brother."
Dylan's eyes widened. His small hand clutched the wall so tightly his nails tore against the paint.
His father reached for his pistol—
But he was too slow.
The blade slid deep under his ribs. His father gasped, eyes wide, a sound between a growl and a broken breath escaping him.
Dylan bit his lip until it bled, stopping the scream rising in his throat.
His father staggered back, crimson blooming across his white shirt.
Marco held him upright for a moment, like an embrace between brothers. Then he whispered, almost lovingly—
"Power belongs to those who dare take it."
And let him fall.
The thud shook the room. The chandelier above rattled. Dylan's world shattered.
He stumbled back from the door, chest heaving, tears burning his eyes. He wanted to run inside, to help his father—but he knew if Marco saw him, he would be next.
So he ran. Down the endless corridor. Past the staring portraits. Past the golden cage that no longer felt like a home but a tomb.
That night, Dylan Dicosta stopped being a child.
He would never forget the sound of his father's last breath—
or the smile on his uncle's face.
The rain still howled outside, but inside the manor the silence was sharper than any blade.
Marco wiped his knife clean on his brother's silk shirt, humming a low tune as if nothing had happened. He crouched beside the lifeless body, whispering almost gently:
"Should've listened, brother. Should've known the weak don't survive."
Then—
a creak.
The hallway board groaned.
Not loud. Barely a whisper. But Marco's head snapped toward the door.
His smile twisted. "Ah…"
He rose, eyes narrowing at the faint movement beyond the crack of the door.
Someone had seen.
---
Meanwhile, Dylan's bare feet slapped against the polished floor as he ran. His throat burned with sobs he couldn't release. The grand corridors, once familiar, now felt like a maze designed to trap him.
Run. Just run.
But behind him, Marco's voice rang through the manor. Calm, too calm.
"Dyyyylan…"
Dylan froze. His blood turned cold.
Marco's footsteps echoed, unhurried, steady.
"You saw, didn't you? You peeked. Naughty little nephew." His tone was playful, almost sing-song. "Don't be shy. Family should stick together. You wouldn't want to end up like your father, would you?"
Dylan pressed himself against the wall, heart pounding like it would tear free. His small body trembled as he looked for escape—any escape.
A servant's passage. Hidden door at the end of the hall. His father once showed it to him, saying: "If you're ever in danger, use this, Dylan. Never hesitate."
He bolted.
Marco's footsteps quickened now. No more calm. His voice sharpened.
"You can't run from blood, boy!"
Rain beat the streets like a drum of warning. Dylan ran until his legs buckled, until the world blurred into a smear of lamplight and mud. He clung to the wet stones as if some hidden hand might pull him back into the manor and drag him under forever.
A voice cut through the storm. Strong, low, not unkind.
"Kid—are you alright?"
He turned and saw a man stepping from the shadows: a broad-shouldered figure in a soaked coat, collar up against the rain. The stranger's eyes were weathered but clear. He reached out without fear, as if the city had taught him when a child needed saving.
Dylan tried to pull away. His mouth opened, closed—nothing came. The image of his father collapsing under Uncle Marco's blade played on a loop at the edge of his mind; words failed him.
The man crouched, careful and quick. He did not ask for answers; he simply wrapped the coat around the trembling boy and spoke softly, "Easy. Don't try to move. Come with me."
He helped Dylan to his feet, steadying him. The man walked with purpose, not asking questions as they moved through the rain-slimmed alleys. When they reached the station — a squat building with a single blinking lamp — the man did not hesitate.
Inside, the fluorescent lights hummed. Officers glanced up from paperwork. A dispatcher on night duty frowned, then relaxed when the man spoke in a tone of calm authority.
"This boy was found on Dicosta Lane," the man told him. "Can you take him in? He's hurt, shaken—name's not known. He needs warmth."
An officer approached, eyebrows raised at the boy's condition. "Who are you to bring him in?"
The man offered a name like a promise. "Ali Vefa. I found him. Log him as a found child. He can stay here for now—get him checked and some dry clothes. We'll sort it."
They gave Dylan a blanket and a cup of hot tea. He held it like it was a relic, heat seeping into cold bones. The desk sergeant took notes, watched the way the boy flinched at sudden sounds, noted the cuts and the shock that made him look half-ghostly.
"Any ID?" the sergeant asked.
Dylan shook his head. He could not say Dicosta. He could not speak the name that would bring Marco back to the door. He could not even form his own name.
Ali observed him for a long beat. Then, quietly and without ceremony, he said, "We'll give him a name for now. Dylan. And since he's with me, let it be Vefa. Temporary, until someone claims him."
The sergeant scribbled it into the log: Found: Male child. Name given: Dylan Vefa. Age: ~12. Brought in by Ali Vefa. The repetition of the surname on paper made the world feel a little less savage, if only for a moment.
Dylan sat in the small interview room wrapped in a blanket, the hum of the station a distant heartbeat. He did not cry. He did not speak. Shock had carved a hollow where words once lived.
Ali left him there with a firm hand on the boy's shoulder — not a custody claim, more a pledge. "You're safe tonight," he said. "We'll find a place for you to sleep. Tomorrow we do the rest."
Dylan watched Ali go, the name written in the log a warm weight in his chest even though he did not understand why. He let the blanket close around him like an armor.
Outside, rain kept falling. Inside, beneath the buzzing light, a clerk slid the Joker file across his desk — a mundane, dusty thing that would not yet be opened. The station smelled of coffee, paper, and the small mercy of people who answered calls in the night.
For now, he was Dylan Vefa: a name on a sheet, a boy in a blanket, a life diverted. He had run from blood and been carried to a place with shutters and structure — the first step away from the manor.
But somewhere in the pages of the city—on business cards, in living rooms, in the Dicosta mansion—Marco would not stop until the trail was extinguished. The hunt was not over.
Let's return to present!
The room was silent. Only the faint drip of rain against the window broke the stillness. Dylan sat alone in his study—lights off, glass of wine untouched on the desk. The shadows swallowed him whole, and for a long while he let them.
His reflection in the dark glass looked like a stranger: the silver in his hair, the thick lines carved by time and blood, the muscles still tight with discipline, but the eyes… the eyes belonged to a boy lost in the storm.
And in the silence, memories bled back—
The rain.
The trembling cup of tea.
The name Dylan Vefa being scrawled onto a paper.
Ali's steady hand on his shoulder.
Dylan closed his eyes, a bitter smile cutting through his face.
"Ali… you stupid, stubborn man," he muttered. "If it weren't for you, I'd have rotted that night. Marco would've found me, slit my throat before dawn. But you… you carried me into the light when I couldn't move."
He leaned back in the chair, exhaling as though the words had been trapped for years.
"You gave me a name when mine was poison. You gave me a roof when my blood was a curse. Even when I didn't deserve it, you treated me like a boy—not a Dicosta. Not a runaway."
His hand gripped the armrest tighter, veins rising.
"I owe you, Ali Vefa. More than I owe anyone. You never knew who I was. Never cared. And maybe that's why you were the only one who saved me."
The dark swallowed the rest of his voice, but in his chest the weight grew heavier. Because the more he remembered, the clearer it became—Ali had been the wall that kept him alive. And Hussain, Ali's son, had been the brother Dylan never had.
Now, irony dripped like venom: the son Dylan once had sworn to keep safe from his own shadow… was standing in this very mansion, tangled in his game, ready to be crushed by the same throne Dylan once built to protect him.
Dylan's lips curled, half laugh, half growl.
"Ali, if you could see me now… would you spit on me? Or forgive me?"
He tilted his head back into the dark, voice lowering into a whisper meant for no one.
"Thank you, old man… for saving me that night. But damn me… for what I've become."
The rain outside thickened, drowning the night in its cold hymn.
And Dylan Dicosta—the Doctor Godfather, the King—sat still, haunted by a debt he could never repay, and a boy he could never be again.