NOVEL WEB Chapter 269: Why?
The whole embassy in front of them looked like a rich baron's palace from some fantasy world or from back in the time, especially with the high brick walls and wrought iron fence… but with the greenery it was just truly mesmerizing.
So mesmerizing that nothing happened. The convoy of taxis they came with left them and they just stood there, all of them, not a single movement, like they were truly some tourists looking at the beautiful building and that's it.
"Shouldn't we go in?" Mike asked, but as soon as he looked at James he noticed that something was not right about James.
He just looked… like empty in a way, and first Mike started to worry that maybe the drug was a bit too much, that now it was acting up, but no, it wasn't no drug or anything else… James was just frozen at that moment.
Frozen emotionally, frozen physically, and to tell the truth, Mike didn't need to think a lot about it, because it was obvious why he was acting this way.
James was so passionate to come here out of nowhere, to see his family, to greet them, to be with them… to finally feel their love, to give them love in the time when nothing is promised. He went through a lot of bullshit in a short period of time, so many things that just hurt so much that everybody else would be on the floor begging it to stop, begging for God to be over with it… but he never did it. He never begged for nothing, he didn't even go down to the floor, but did what he needed to do or moreover what he felt is the right thing to do.
But now, what is the right thing to do?
What is the right thing to feel… what is the right thing to say?
Or is it even right to meet them?
He left them, abandoned them, but did it because of love, out of fear for them, but at the same time he did it for himself… no, he only did it for himself. Yeah, his mind started to play the games again… or more importantly it wasn't his mind, but he himself, he felt this, that maybe this whole thing was just… exciting. Yeah, deep within him was the feeling, that these constant actions, constant deals, constant death lingering around him… the power, the influence he holds… it all started to poison him.
Just like how it poisoned Lucian… but the worst of it was that he knew it… and knew very well the stages of it, especially after being a friend with Lucian, so-called 'besties.'
The first stage is that you truly believe you are untouchable, that you don't have power… you are power, you are influence, you are death. You believe it more and more as people kneel in front of you, as you make hundreds or millions… you believe that nobody can do anything against you… but that's not true.
That is the start of the second stage, when something happens and you realize you are not a demigod, a god, an untouchable being of the world, but a fucking human… a human who has so many enemies that they are uncountable. Panic and fear start to sink in, you become sensitive, paranoid about your surroundings… who can be the one that will betray? Who will stab you in the back?
And the last final stage is reality. That the power you once were starts to shatter, but before it fully collapses you act on it.
You kill everybody you think that would be against you, all the snitches, the rats, the backstabbers, you kill all of them, even if they are family, even if they are the best friends of you… you kill and kill and kill until those remain who act like good dogs and on order do whatever you want to… though you really know it is the end, that nothing will save you and there is two things to do.
Fight until you die, or get arrested and second… just flee, run as far as you can, and hide in the shadows until you die of old age.
This is the position of the underworld when you taste the greatness, when the power, the respect, the fear in people's eyes starts to feel like oxygen, and you breathe it in deeper and deeper until you can't live without it. It's intoxicating, like a drug convincing you that you are more than human, that you are destiny itself.
But the truth is, the more you drink from it, the more it poisons you. It blinds you to the faces of the people you once swore to protect, deafens you to the voices that used to matter, and leaves you chasing shadows of power that will one day turn on you. Because in the underworld, greatness is never a gift, it's a curse.
And it suited James very well.
He flew them out to be able to deal drugs, to be able to become somebody big… he did it for selfish reasons, to be able to go and go and go without thinking about them.
He had changed, of course he had. Everyone knew it… but there was a change he hadn't even noticed in himself.
The drug deals, the shootings, the constant death had become more important to him than anything else, even his own family. It was a cycle of madness. Rafael died, and what happened next? He killed more. Ferucci lay in a coma, and why? Because James had pushed and pushed, driving others to kill and keep killing in the name of vengeance.
This was madness, a path where the only goal in front of him was to kill, without a single thought for his family. Somewhere along the way, it had become something entirely different from the goal he started with. He wasn't doing it to protect them, to avenge Rafael or Hans. No, he was doing it for himself, for the mafia, to be greater, more feared, more powerful… and he hadn't even realized it until now.
Yeah, he noticed it only now, especially after he just had a panic attack seeing them all dead, seeing Charlotte and Bella covered with blood screaming his name, seeing his mother just stand there and ask the same one-word question all over again.
Why?
But maybe this question wasn't a question at all… wasn't a word from his mother… but a voice from within… James himself, his whole being. Just why?
Why are you becoming someone like this? Why are you acting this way? Why do you feel excited about it? Why are you doing it? Why?
It wasn't his mother asking those questions… it was him. The old James, deep within, realizing that the James standing here now was nothing but a shadow, a fragment of what he once was.
A loving boy who only wanted to be with his family. A boy who wanted to break free from the cycle of poverty. A boy who dreamed of showing his mother what he was capable of, that one day, he could be a big name.
But now… what came with it was only terror, suffering, and grief.
He had turned away from his path, and what he once promised to become became nothing more than a voice in the back of his mind, deep inside himself… the voice that keeps asking him… why?
"James." Mike raised his voice again as he tapped his shoulder, and James reacted like he'd just woken up from a bad dream. He looked disoriented. "We should go in."
"Oh… yeah, we should." He said, wiping sweat from his brow, but he looked visibly shaken. It was hard to believe seeing him like this, especially after the panic attack. And Mike was the only one who knew about it.
Mike was the one who needed to keep a close eye on James and do whatever it took to keep him grounded, to stay by his side… and to help him not turn into something that would destroy itself.