The sa cetery where Lucian was buried, the sa place where dozens of gangsters and mobsters lay deep beneath the ground, forgotten by the world.
The sa cetery where, today, Rafael and Hans would be laid to rest.
But unlike the criminals and gangsters before them, their nas would not be lost to ti. They would be rembered,not just on their tombstones, but in the hearts of their loved ones… or at least by the Bellini family.
From Hans's side, not a single family mber showed up. No uncles, no friends, nothing. Just Jas and the family.
They were his family.
A family that would carry his mory with them.
Jas held Charlotte's hand as they made their way to the coffins, but to his surprise, it wasn't just them who had co.
Standing at the site was Benjamin, dressed in a black suit, waiting patiently. Beside him stood a priest. Though the governnt had forbidden religious ceremonies for n like Hans, the priest was there anyway. He needed to do this.
Jas, his mother, and Charlotte stood beside the coffins, while Bella, Ferucci, and Hector, along with a dozen bodyguards, remained a few steps back, offering a silent farewell to Rafael and Hans.
Benjamin neither moved nor spoke. He knew he wasn't truly welco, yet he had co. He wanted to show how much that deal with Jas ant to him….his loyalty to him.
But he remained silent as the ceremony began.
The priest spoke the final words of farewell, his voice steady as he spoke of God, of forgiveness, of paradise awaiting the departed. That God would welco them.
Jas felt himself begin to break.
God? Forgiveness?
No. He had never believed in any of it. There was no one up there.
And if there was a God, how could He allow things like this to happen? It wasn't just about their deaths.
An almighty being, looking down, allowing children to suffer and starve, allowing disease to imprison lives….doing nothing.
Then ca the next word that caught his attention.
"Pray."
Pray for what?
He had prayed many tis as a child. He had prayed with Rafael, with his mother. Yet nothing ever happened. Not a single thing in their lives changed for the better. Not a single sign from the Almighty….only more suffering.
If there was sobody up there, that wasn't a god. Just a cruel fucker who enjoyed playing gas with humanity.
Every word from the priest only fueled Jas's anger because none of it was true.
But the part that struck him the most was when the priest said, "Rafael and Hans accepted You as their Savior."
No. That was a lie too.
Rafael never believed in anything. He only prayed because he clung to the desperate hope that sothing…anything would change, that life would get better. But when years passed and nothing happened, he tossed the Almighty into a locked box, never to be opened again.
What a joke.
Because Hans and Rafael were both nonbelievers. Talking about Hans receiving forgiveness was the biggest joke of all.
Jas even let out a small, bitter smile as the priest spoke those words.
Hans was a monster on his own.
A special forces operative who had done and seen terrible things, he crushed skulls, to make enough money to support his family.
Maybe that was why God abandoned him.
Maybe his punishnt was being forced to watch his family slaughtered in front of him.
And maybe, just maybe, his punishnt was eting Jas…the man who dragged him even deeper into the darkness.
No. That wasn't true.
They all had a light in the darkness.
For Hans, that light was his daughter. She had kept him grounded.
That beautiful girl who fought for her life, who fought to walk again…to live the life that the so-called Almighty had given her.
And Rafael? Who was his light? Certainly not Jas. Maybe it had been their mother…the one who had shined for him in his darkest hours.
But now, as the coffins were slowly lowered into the grave, they were swallowed by darkness.
No more light.
Yet… there was a small chance. A tiny, almost laughable chance that sothing people called Almighty was real.
A small chance that Rafael was in heaven now, where nobody could hurt him anymore. Where he could finally be himself…without scars, without pain…watching over them from above.
And for Hans?
Maybe, just maybe, the Almighty had forgiven his sins.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
The priest said as he threw a handful of dirt onto the coffins, then stepped back, allowing them to do the sa.
For this mont, Jas needed to believe…just for this.
His mother was the first to kneel down. She scooped up a handful of dirt, tossing it onto Hans's coffin first. Then, as she turned to Rafael's and she could no longer hold herself together.
Her cries ca from deep within…a mother's final goodbye before her beloved son was buried forever.
Jas didn't move, even though he wanted to help her. No. This was a mother's grief. He had to let her have this mont, to let her tears fall onto the sa ground where Rafael now rested.
As her trembling hand scattered the dirt over Rafael's coffin, Jas realized sothing through his own tears.
People were still out there. Walking free. The ones who had a hand in Rafael's death.
And it wasn't just the ones who pulled the trigger or the ones who planned it. No… Rafael's death was also on the hands of his bullies…the ones Bella had told him about.
Yeah. They would suffer.
Even if they were just teenagers. Even if they didn't know the weight of what they had done.
There was no rcy in this world for them.
They would die like dogs.
He was the contrast between God and what Rafael had died for.
He was the sin itself.
Erika slowly stood from the ground, her dress stained with dirt. She turned to Jas, and though the tinted glasses covered her eyes, he could still see the tear tracks on her cheeks, her lips trembling. She reached out, tapping his shoulder.
"Say goodbye." Then she stepped back.
Jas squeezed Charlotte's hand, pulling her closer as they both knelt down.
He guided her small hand toward the dirt.
"Pick up a little, Charlotte." His voice cracked as the tears started falling down more.
She listened to him and scooped up a handful of dirt as Jas did the sa.
And together, they threw it onto the caskets.
Charlotte looked up at Jas.
He was biting his lip, his face soaked in tears.
Not just a single drop.
No. He let them fall.
With his farewell.
Maybe that was the reason Charlotte started crying too…her little hands trembling as her eyes darted toward the coffin in the ground.
Who knew what she was thinking at that mont?
Maybe she regretted never saying a proper goodbye to Lucian.
Maybe… she thought all of this was because of her.
She didn't fully understand it, not completely.
But one thing was clear…ever since she had stepped into Jas's life, everything had changed.
And not for the better.
But it wasn't just them crying.
In the background, Bella and Ferucci wiped their tears, along with the guards.
To them, Hans was a great man…soone who never lost his patience with them, a great leader who shared his military experience to help them improve.
The only one who wasn't crying was Hector.
He stood still, watching Jas and Charlotte, not a single tear in his eyes.
Hector knew very well the life he had chosen. He knew they all lived in danger. He had accepted long ago that, eventually, they would all die.
Because this life was about death.
And no one could say otherwise.
On the other hand, Benjamin remained beside the priest, his eyes teary as mories resurfaced…the screams of his family, the gunfire tearing through the village, the unbearable silence that followed.
He had been the one to bury them all, far too young for sothing like that.
Now, watching Jas kneeling there, crying over the loss of those he held dear, Benjamin felt that sa raw pain clawing its way back to the surface.
He had been in that position once, kneeling over fresh graves, mourning what could never be the sa.
But he couldn't let himself fall apart here. He quickly wiped his tears away, forcing himself to stay composed.
Linda's words echoed in his mind…if soone took a photo of him at a gangster's funeral, it would be disastrous, but if they caught him crying, it would be even worse.
It didn't matter that these weren't tears for Rafael or Hans. This wasn't about them.
This was about the past… his past that haunted him forever.
Just like Jas's.
He slowly stood up and picked up Charlotte, who clung to him tightly, still crying, more than he had expected.
Her small arms wrapped around his neck, gripping him firmly as if afraid to let go. She refused to look back at the coffins, turning her face into his shoulder as the gravediggers began to bury them.
Every handful of dirt that fell felt like an eternity.
Each second took like forever as the coffins disappeared beneath the earth.
And then, at last, it was over.
Rafael and Hans were at rest, freed from this rotten world.
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