STELLA
I don’t remember the year. Just the rain.
The funeral was held on a quiet estate outside the city, the kind of place where mourning feels rehearsed. Rows of black umbrellas lined the gravel path like soldiers. No one cried. No one dared.
I remember standing beside my father, bored and cold, my small gloved fingers twitching inside my coat. I couldn’t have been older than ten. I was too young to care about who had died, too old to ask out loud.
It was a Bratva affair—one of the rare occasions when our families acknowledged each other’s existence in public. My father held my hand like it was strategy, not comfort.
"Eyes forward," he’d murmured. "Don’t stare."
But I did.
I stared.
Because across the procession, standing beside a man with a face carved from stone, was a boy.
He
