4. Prisoner Of Shadows
735 Words
~EZRAN~.
"I’m… exhausted."
Her whisper still echoed in my ears as I moved through the familiar hallway toward my office.
Exhausted?
As if I f*cking believe that.
She made sure her words sounded pleading—but it wasn’t her words, it was her eyes. It’s not the f*cking same.
The girl I met when I offered Morales the deal to secure this marriage had fire in her eyes. The kind of eyes that promised she wouldn’t flinch at blood. Like a real Mafia princess.
But the one in my house right now reminds me more of a f*cking kitten.
A cute, scared cat.
I sat in my study, the whiskey in my glass untouched, the silence pressing against my throat like a hand. This house has always been too quiet at night, but tonight it felt worse—like the walls remembered.
And I hated that I couldn’t stop remembering her.
The girl. Now my wife.
I shouldn’t have touched her. Definitely not that kiss. I don’t know what the f*ck got into me when she looked at me with those bright blue doe eyes.
But that has to f*cking stop. I owed her, and I’m just repaying my debt. She will get my protection and nothing more.
Nothing more.
A knock at the door snapped my attention. And I already knew who it was.
“Enter.”
Matteo stepped in with files in his hands.
He had been with me long before the crown touched my head. When the others betrayed me—when they sold me out to my father to save their own skin—Matteo stayed. That was everything.
That’s why only those inside these walls breathe with my permission. The servants. The guards. Matteo.
These people would f*cking die for me, and they have nothing to do with the Vitale name.
Everyone else? F*cking parasites waiting to feed on me.
That’s the reason everyone knows I killed my father, but no one knows why.
And it will always stay that way. Stay with me. In me.
He set the file on my desk. “Reports from Palermo. Rasulo is restless. He says you lack the iron to hold the throne. That the bride is a distraction.”
I didn’t look at the file. I didn’t need to. My father’s shadow still poisoned every step I took, his claws sunk deep in the men who once served him, especially Rasulo, his second in command's son. Even rotting in the ground, he tried to rule through whispers and doubt.
“He’s dead,” I said flatly.
Matteo’s gaze sharpened. “The living think you won’t take headquarters. That you’re afraid.”
Afraid. A bitter laugh scraped my throat.
Afraid?
I am f*cking haunted.
I leaned back in my chair, fingers tightening around the glass. My father’s face surfaced—twisted with fury, bloodshot eyes burning into me as he begged for mercy. I hadn’t given him any. And every night, he reminded me of it.
“And about your wedding.”
“She is irrelevant to business,” I said. Her pale face appeared before my eyes again.
She's nothing Ezran. Irrelevant.
“They don’t think that way, Don.”
“They’ll learn,” I said, voice like steel, “where my loyalties lie.”
“Do you want me to tighten the watch?”
“Do it,” I said. “No one enters or leaves without my word.”
He nodded once and slipped out, leaving me alone with the ghosts.
I have to do something soon so my father’s dogs know they can’t f*cking touch me now.
But I will never go to the headquarters. To that cursed place filled with blood and memories. No.
I tipped the glass of whiskey back, but it didn’t burn enough. Nothing did. I slammed the empty glass on the table, the crack loud enough to rattle in my chest.
My eyes stung from exhaustion, but sleep was a luxury my body refused.
I closed them anyway. And there it was again—my father’s voice clawing at the edges of my sanity. My mother’s familiar screams tearing through the dark.
And I hear him again—the monster I buried, laughing in my head.
They call me ruthless, merciless, unbreakable… but only I know the truth.
I never stopped being my father’s prisoner.
I can never be free of his shadow.
- Writer
