"...Kuya." Julsen slowly closed his eyes before his ghost left him.
"J-Julsen... Hey, man. Wake up. Julsen!"
The night became silent after that bloody encounter. A lot of bodies were lying on the ground... lifeless.
Timotheus carefully let him go and looked at the blood in his hand. She clenched his fist and rushed to Danryll to give him a hard blow. Danryll didn't bother to dodge his attack and just let him.
"How could you?!"
"Sir, stop it!" Xol went in between to stop Timotheus while Ferran, on the other hand, just watched them because the unusual feeling of pain was forming inside him again.
"I will never regret it!"
"How will you prove that he really killed the doctor? Huh? You don't have—"
"Of course... I have." Danryll threw him his phone that was immediately caught by Timotheus. He watched the entire video and Julsen really killed Dr. De Vega inside the laboratory. He unconsciously dropped the phone astounded.
"Y-You think you all s-succeed? Even if you revealed them to the whole world... Dad... Dad w-would still choose to destroy e-everything and no one could s-stop him."
Julsen's statement before he died echoed in his head.
"You know what he said?" Timotheus looked at the ground while trembling and clenching his fist.
"I'm not interested—" Danryll was cut off.
"The game wasn't done yet."
"W-What?" Ferran creased his forehead.
"He said, Dad would still choose to destroy everything and no one could stop him."
"Don't you remember? He doesn't have a dad so how come—Where are you going?" Ferran asked.
"I will face him."
"What? Did you even know who his dad was?"
"Of course... because we have the same father."
+++
Little by little, the virus consumed the Chief's body. In that dark and cold cell, harsh coughs echoed. His body, because of an old age, slowly giving up due to the spreading of the deadly virus. Furthermore, he might die at any moment because of the blood gushing out of his open flesh. The bullet was deeply buried and no one's there to take it out.
"Everything is in vain..." He was lying on the floor looking at the empty ceiling thinking about the past when he's not alone yet.
***
"Dad!"
"Daddy!"
Mauricio Brion just got home from a year's duty overseas. His two lovely daughters welcomed him with a warm and big hug.
"Welcome home, dad." Patricia, his eldest, uttered and kissed his cheek.
"We missed you so much." Leticia, his youngest, also kissed him on the cheek.
"I missed you too, my little ones."
One day, Leticia fell really sick and no one could determine what illness she caught. Mauricio couldn't help but to cry, watching his daughter suffer.
"Please Kuya! S-Save my daughter! Please! I beg you!" He was kneeling in front of Carpio and Carlos who both graduated as doctors.
"Mauricio! Stand up!" Carlos tried making him stand but he was still begging on knees.
"We will do what we can but we can't assure you. Her illness is new to us." Carpio said with pity in his eyes. Between them three, Mauricio is the strongest one but seeing him breaking down because of his beloved daughter made their hearts break.
Carpio and Carlos are in the process of making the cure when they hear that Patricia, Mauricio's eldest, got infected by the same illness as her younger sister.
"K-Kuya! My daughters are dying! How long will it take for you to complete the cure?" He's being impatient. "It's been months already! Kuya!"
"Be still and hold on. We couldn't just give them medicine that we are not sure of its effect."
"But—"
"Sir Mauricio! Sir Mauricio!" One of the maids called out of breath. "Ms. Leticia..."
Mauricio's eyes widened and rushed to her daughter's room. He heard his wife's cry while hugging her daughter. His body trembles while slowly reaching his daughter's dead body.
"Dad..." Patricia weakly went inside the room while sobbing. She mourned for her sister's death and became critical because of her frail state. On the same night, Mauricio lost his two daughters and he look for someone to be blame of.
"If only you completed the cure on time! Curse you both! Useless!"
Mauricio left home and spent his days in the battle ground. After a year, he received a letter from his parents. The Brion family will have a reunion dinner and their father will announce something important.
Without a choice, he came back home. He thought everyone would welcome him with joy and warmth but agonizingly, he found them lying everywhere, all dead. The mansion is a mess.
He couldn't think straight, what to react, the place was suffocating.
He heard a car's engine outside but he just sit on the floor looking out of nowhere while tears falling on his cheeks.
"Everyone! We're... home," Carlos dropped the paper bags in his hand and ran toward his wife and son. "No!"
"M-Mom! Dad!" Carpio did the same and they were all in disdain while mourning for their entire family.
They held a funeral and buried them. The three were standing silently in front of their graves, praying for their souls.
"This is a nightmare that will always haunt us..." Carpio uttered while looking at their gravestones.
"I just want to be with them." Carlos sobbed again and again.
"Everything happened is your fault, brothers. Remember that." Mauricio emphasized the word 'brothers.'
"We will not blame you even if we all knew," Carpio paused when he felt Carlos hand, gripping his arm. "That these doings is for a revenge from what you did as a soldier."
They separate ways and never unite again.
Mauricio changed his identity after he met a man that support organizations that run different kinds of illegal deeds.
"Work for me."
***
"Hah... Work for you..." He coughed. "Well... at least my dull life once had a fun and exciting moment."
Mauricio wanted to rest and find peace. This world is now too much to handle for him.
"Kuya Carlos is long gone... Kuya Carpio died in my hands... no one left but me... Now---"
"Chief." A man in a shadow was standing in front of Mauricio's cell.
"Who are you?"
"No need to know." He paused. "Let's just say that I am one of those thousands of people that wanted to avenge the workers in the factory, which years ago exploded because of that cursed family... the Lorenzos."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Lead us."
+++
It was a silent drive to the real Boss' den but after a while, Timotheus spoke.
"I remembered everything."
Ferran doesn't react or say anything because his vision started to became blurry.
"The nightmare I always had."
***
Hiding. Peeking. Holding a gun. Recording.
Two voices that are talking but those words are unclear. Everything was a blur until a hard thing struck behind him and everything went black.
Hearing a heartbeat monitor.
'Where am I?'
Footsteps. Someone is whispering. 'I can't understand him. F*ck! I can't open my eyes! What's going---'
"...forget and you'll live, remember and you'll die."
***
"I started everything. They made me forget to continue their illegal acts." Timotheus sighed heavily. "Simon... he helped me. We retrieved everything in that organization to exposed them but I failed him that time. I failed Czaquira, Asyl, and Xol. We're a team, even Veronica. She contributed something to make the system perfect but I ruined it. And now... Damn."
Timotheus immediately looked at Ferran who coughed and blood came out from his mouth.
"What the... are you infected---"
"W-What? No... This is different." Ferran held his chest. This pain again. He looked at the time. Twenty minutes left.
"Are you sure?"
"W-Why would I lie? Sh*t... faster. There is no much time."
Timotheus sped up to reach their destination as soon as possible.
"Are you alright?"
"Am I look okay to you? Ah!" Ferran started having headache.
"Hold on. We're near."
Timotheus parked the car in front of the mansion and was about to go outside when Ferran held his arm to stop him.
"What the hell are you doing? Shouldn't we just go silently without them noticing." Ferran asked.
"Trust your old self." Timotheus gave him a smirk before facing the guard. Ferran confusedly raised his eyebrow when they opened the gates for them.
"What a surprising visit. Have a—" The real Boss was interrupted when he saw his son pointing the gun at him. "Careful, son. You might pull the trigger."
"I would gladly do, Debirion Lozano Lorenzo."
"Oh..." Debirion wasn't surprised at all. "So you finally remembered? Great but it is too late."
"You think avenging the whole family will make you satisfied?"
"Yes! Because they needed to suffer! I will never forgive those people who ruined my entire family!"
"You think mom will be happy to see you—"
"Shut up! You don't have the right to include her in this stupid discussion!" Debirion unconsciously pulled his gun and pointed it to his son.
"I have all rights! You're the reason why she has to experience that brutal death! You shouldn't have come back!"
Ferran just watched them and listened.
"I... I didn't mean to—"
"LORENZO!! YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ARE CURSED DEVILS!! DIE! DIE! DIE!"
Debirion peeked through the window and saw hundreds of people holding a torch in their hands and standing around the mansion.
"What... How did they found out?" Debirion closed the curtains and he trembled. The past... it slowly coming back and he couldn't think straight.
***
50 years...
The most powerful, influential, and wealthiest family in town were the Lorenzos. They run almost all the businesses in San Lorenzo, the town named after their family. Even in politics, people put their whole trust at them. Nevertheless, there are many out there that wanted to destroy them.
One day... one of their biggest factories had an anomaly and it exploded that caused the death of thousands of workers. It even put in the history of San Lorenzo after the incident happened. All the families of the victims gathered together to seek for justice.
The truth never revealed when Lorenzos were accused of something that they didn't even done in the first place.
Their businesses closed and bankrupted, the head of the family got impeached from the position, their mansion was burnt by the people in town, and his family got assissinated. They left nothing.
He's the only one who survived because he's studying overseas when the incident happened but people hunt him down too so he has no choice but to hid his identity.
'I will come back and take my revenge.' His eyes were full of madness. He wanted to make them suffer like what they did to his family.
He joined sindycates and gain power, he badly wanted to avenge his family but it faltered when he met Lucianna. They had a two years relationship before he decided to leave.
"I'm sorry... please forgive me. This is for your safety." He kissed her forehead while she's silently crying. "I love you."
"I love you." She didn't hesitate to gave him a passionate kiss before he run away.
He came back again after a decade and five years. There, he found out about the existence of their son, TImotheus.
"Please, baby. Will please give your father a chance to know you? Hm?"
"But he left us, mom. Before I was even came out to this world."
"Please?"
Timotheus sighed and just obeyed his mother. He doesn't want to break her heart even more. She gone through a lot.
Debirion and Timotheus spent quality time together but Timotheus didn't fully accept him as his biological father.
"I really love your mother. I really do." He said while watching the sunset with his son. "I just left to protect her. I didn't know that you happened. If I knew—"
"You would still leave."
"I'm sorry. Please... accept me."
"I'll... think about it."
They just got home and the inside is a mess.
"Lucianna? Lucianna!"
"Mom!" Timotheus trembled in fear, knees weakened, and eyes widened.
Debirion run towards his son and froze when he saw Lucianna's body hanging on the ceiling lifeless. Her body's full of bruises. Timotheus blame his father and he never accepted him as his father.
***
"You need to go!" Debirion pushed his son to the exit door.
Men in black pointed their guns at them as if they were cornering the three. Timotheus swiftly pulled his gun and shoot them. Ferran helped him while hiding somewhere in that room.
"You two! Go!" Debirion fired his gun because armed men didn't stop until they are dead. The people outside started throwing the torches into the mansion. The gunfires ceased and the men exited before they burnt alive.
"Old man, let's—" Timotheus' eyes widened when he saw him badly wounded. "Hey, old man."
"S-Stop making that f-face." His hands covered with blood shakingly held his son's hand. "This... will e-end everything... Lorenzo." It almost a whisper while he was breathing heavily. "Now go... I'll just wait for my time here."
"Dad..."
"Oh God... I'm just waiting f-for you to s-say it. Go! Before it's too late." He even smile as if he's not suffering on something.
"Ferran, let's go!" Timotheus was about to pull him but he didn't follow. "Ferran?"
Ferran vomited blood again even though he wasn't shot or something. Ferran's body slowly rejecting his soul.
"Ferran! I had the instrument to finally end this! Please... let's leave this place together!" Timotheus wanted to cry because of the sight of Ferran's suffering.
"I'll be just a b-burden to you... you c-can go alone. Leave." He's in a lot pain. Ferran might not be able to endure it. It is too much of a burden.
"But—"
"Timotheus..." Ferran slowly blinking while looking at the fire reflected on Timotheus eyes. He uttered a word before he passed out. "The dying world needs hope and the hope starts with you."