The darkness in the cellar was absolute, swallowing every sound except Luiz's ragged breathing. Cold seeped through the stone floor, chilling him to the bone. His hands ached from the rough grip of the guards, knuckles still raw, and every muscle throbbed with tension.
He pressed his back against the wall, trying to steady his thoughts. Why do I keep doing this to myself? The question echoed in the emptiness. Every fight, every word, every act of defiance had led him here—alone, blamed, punished. For them. Always for them.
From above, faint sounds of life filtered down: laughter that wasn't light, but sharp, slicing through the silence. It was Livia, he guessed, celebrating some imagined victory. Cyrus's voice followed, sneering, taunting Mateo. And somewhere—deep beneath it all—Grandmother Valentine's footsteps, slow and deliberate, a predator circling its prey.
Luiz swallowed the lump in his throat, wishing he could cry, scream, anything to release the tension coiling in his chest. Instead, he let himself sink deeper into the shadows, curling in on himself. Memories clawed their way forward—the look on his mother's face when she was betrayed, Mateo's wide-eyed fear the first time he'd tried to shield him, the countless nights he'd spent carrying his family's poison so others could walk free.
The cellar door creaked. His head snapped up. Footsteps. One… two… a pause. Then, her voice—smooth, controlled, colder than ice:
"Luiz."
His stomach turned. He didn't answer. He didn't dare.
"You've learned to take the blame well," she said, each word measured, deliberate, almost like a lesson being dictated. "But taking the fall isn't enough. You must understand… it must hurt. Deeply."
A shadow fell across the cellar's threshold, growing taller, sharper. Luiz felt the floor beneath him shrink, as if the walls themselves were leaning in to suffocate him.
"You've carried the weight of this family's sins before. And yet…" Her heels clicked against the stone floor as she approached, each tap a drumbeat of inevitability. "…you still think it ends with mere isolation. You still think you can survive by being obedient. By being quiet."
He flinched. Her shadow loomed over him now, impossibly large, swallowing what little light remained.
"You will learn differently this time," she whispered. "This time… you will feel it. Every injustice. Every betrayal. Every failure. Not just in your mind, but in your body. Until you understand what it truly means to be of this family."
The cellar seemed to tilt. Luiz's chest tightened. He could hear his own heartbeat, a frantic drum in the oppressive dark.
And above, the house carried on, oblivious to the quiet storm building below—a storm that promised pain, endurance, and lessons that would leave him changed… whether he survived them or not.
The first touch of her presence—a hand on his shoulder—was ice.
And then, silence.
Before the storm.