No Longer His Obedient Mafia Shadow

I had been the obedient shadow of New York's future Don since we were six years old, willing to bleed for his Outfit.

But in a club full of made men, when asked who he would save in a lethal crossfire between me and a Capo's daughter, he looked me dead in the eye and chose her.

"Tessa is too soft for the life. Saving her would just be a tactical liability."

The entire syndicate crew erupted in mocking laughter, cheering as the Capo's daughter brazenly took the seat beside him.

To further break my spirit, he later used my late grandfather's sacred blood-oath rosary as a pawn in a treacherous mountain survival drill.

He left me to freeze in the torrential mud, violently shoving me aside to coddle his new favorite's fake injury, publicly berating me as a pathetic burden.

For fifteen years, I endured his isolation and casual cruelty, naively believing he was just hardening me for our future reign.

I couldn't understand how the boy who used to protect me could so ruthlessly strip away my dignity, deliberately destroying my confidence just so I would remain his dependent toy forever.

Waking up battered in the hospital, the fifteen years of suffocating devotion finally drained out of me.

I calmly booked a one-way ticket to the rival Southern Syndicate to become an underground surgeon, leaving him and his bloody throne behind forever.