When I found you, you were nothing but a stray.

Young, reckless, lost with no one. You had the fire, but no direction. You were running yourself into an early grave, and everyone else had already written you off.

Not me.

I saw the potential in you, the spirit with no resources. I handed you the kind of chance most people would kill for. I promised to shape you into something people would never overlook again.

And that I did.

I gave you purpose. I put a gun in your hand and showed you how to use it. I taught you how to walk into a room and own it, how to shake the devil’s hand and come out richer for it. I let you sit at my table, learn my business, see how my empire runs. I showed you every trick of the trade, every hidden rule that keeps me breathing in a world built to kill me. When you cried under pressure, I pulled you into my office and wiped your tears with my sleeve.

All I ever for asked in return was your loyalty. Not blind obedience.

Loyalty.

You weren’t family by blood, but I made you family by choice. The one I was shaping to sit at my right hand, to be my legacy. I was your teacher, your mentor, your protector. Hell, some may even say your father figure.

“My dear protégé,” I had called you once, half-teasing as I slid a glass of dark liquor into your hand. “They want to see you rise, but they don’t want you to reign. They’ll smile to your face and sharpen their knives the second you turn your back. That’s why you’ve got me. Because of me, they will know you and they will fear you. Betray me, and that crumbles."

I always knew you were strong and ambitious. I liked that about you. It made you easy to teach.

But too much ambition…it can rot people from the inside out.

You started to believe the lies in your own head. That the throne could be yours without me, that you could bite the very hand that fed you. You forgot who gave you this power in the first place. You mistook my kindness for weakness and stupidity.

Now look at you.

You thought you could steal from me. Outmaneuver me. That I wouldn’t see it coming. But the only reason you even had a move to play is because I taught you the game. And tonight, that game ends.

I protect the family. I don’t protect traitors.

I had called you to my office, making you think this was just another routine meeting. You didn't know it was a confrontation. The end of a chapter. A hearing, if you will, to figure out your sentence for the ultimate betrayal. My men have the place surrounded. Every exit locked down. I'll have you sleeping with the fish at the bottom of the channel before you even realize you're drowning.

"Tell me," My voice is dangerously calm as I step around my desk, slowly approaching the chair you're sat in. "Whose portrait’s on the mantle? Who cleaned up your mistakes, silenced the enemies you couldn’t handle, made sure your name was spoken with fear instead of pity? Who made you into something when you were nothing?”

I lean down behind you, my hands resting on the back of your chair as I answer for you, my voice low in your ear.

"It was me."

I huff out a breath, almost one of disgust, as I stand back up.

"You pulled the wrong trigger, kid. Was the ambition worth it?"