Chapter 3

Leon

I leaned back in the car seat. Oh, Myra. She was my joy and my weakness. I thought of the way she had tried to seduce me with her walk. Her hips swayed back and forth with untrained abandon.

I knew Myra was a little nymphomaniac, but there was nothing I could think of that wouldn’t end with her tied to my bed as I gave what she truly wanted.

I pulled out the card I had forgotten to put away earlier. The name Buonarroti stood out in bold letters beckoning me to be the man I don’t want anyone to see.

See I had singlehandedly crushed almost all those who sought to kill Myra after I had married her mother, Pearl, but as long as any of that line stayed alive there would always be someone who sought to kill her.

“Why?” One may wonder but is simple really: everything the name holds belongs to her. I will do everything in my power to protect her, even if it means crushing necks with my bare hands.

Before I met Pearl I was a very ruthless man thanks to the upbringing I endured. My aunt, my mother’s sister, was a very capable femme fatale.

She was a witch, and it is said that she used ancient witchcraft. When I was young, the last descendants of the Giordano family fell into poverty. The elders in the family fought to the death for the last inheritance.

In the end, my father, a highly respected bishop, became the biggest winner. My aunt was ambitious and unwilling to follow my cowardly uncle for life in her affectionless marriage, so she seduced my father and framed my mother for adultery, causing them to be regarded as dirty sinners by my grandfather and dirt in the history of the entire Giordano family.

They were subjected to ancient torture - all the bones in their bodies were crushed and buried alive, and I at that time became a complete burial object... Ha, a young weakling.

At that time, I just used my parents' corpses as nutrients and struggled to survive in their tomb. My family regarded me as an abandoned child and assumed I had died at some point never caring to find me.

It wasn’t much later that a friend of my father rescued me and brought me to the United States. He died suddenly of illness, and I was left on the streets, trying to make a living alone.

In order to survive, I did everything I could at that time, including fighting in underground fighting arenas, performing magic tricks, gambling, cheating, stealing, and learning a lot of skills.

There was nothing that I would let hold me back, and I saved a lot of money and went to medical school, hoping to make a living.

I didn’t only study the body, though, I studied the mind chasing a degree that would ultimately lead to me becoming a psychiatrist.

I wrote a paper on split personality disorders that garnered the attention of my professor. He wanted to know why I understood it so deeply, so he hypnotized me during a conversation and discovered my little secret – my traumatic childhood led me to have a disorder.

He was actually a sociopath in his way to some extent and tried to cut open my brain to take a look. My hair grew back over what happened mainly, but my eyebrow holds the evidence leaving an ugly scar behind.

After graduating from college, I managed to build wealth on my own, so I went to France. I got close to my aunt under a false identity and married her. She was fascinated by me and wanted to marry me deeming me intelligent and strong, unlike my uncle. I fulfilled her wish giving her a bloody wedding that she would never forget.

I didn’t stop with her though. I went after her sons, one by one picking them off like rotten fruit on an apple tree. I snapped their necks with my hands. I acquired soldiers and caporegimes like they were wildflowers.

I turned them into consiglieres and underbosses (which I named little saints.) The underbosses (saints) turned into bosses (Preachers) who were willing to do my bidding while I had turned into the godfather of it all.

I was, indeed, ruthless. I cared not for souls. I could kill without batting my lashes and tears nor pleading swayed me once I made a decision. I could not feel the “normal” feelings of love, happiness, and compassion.

I was singularly driven by the desire to avenge my parents and that drove me. The only emotion I felt was a sense of accomplishment as I rid the world of all the insolent fools that carried out the downfall of my parents. That is until I met Myra.

The first time I met her she was small and weak. She cried beside a fountain because she had dropped the bundle of oranges. I knew that cry. It was a cry that plead with the hands of time to turn back so that her future could be different than she knew it would be now that she had dropped the fruit.

Initially, she intrigued me. What could be so bad that she would wish that she had not dropped oranges? I wondered within myself. That is when I saw Pearl.

She slapped the wilting Myra across the face before snatching her up and storming away the fruit long forgotten. That was the first time I felt my body switch and a deep compassion and protectiveness fueled all of my waking and sleeping thoughts.

The same drive I had to avenge my parents was in my bones but in a new way. It led me to protect Myra so much that I married Pearl. Pearl was in possession of a huge empire of her own, but she lived on the outskirts of her town living in a world that no longer existed but trapped her.

After marrying Pearl. I tried to keep my distance from Myra as I didn’t know what to make of my emotions, but something about her always drew me back like a moth to a flame.

This is what drove me to take everything from Pearl forcing her hand with magic and hypnosis to bestow it all on Myra. It is also what drove me to stop her cruelty to Myra once and for all.

With a force I could not control I found Pearl in her bedroom one windy night and ended the charade. The only thing left was her bloody neck and head in my hands as I whispered, “For you, Myra. All for you.”