But the case? It was buried. It was wiped away, suppressed, silenced, like it never even happened. That was my first real lesson in this world: if you have enough power, you can bury anything, even blood."
He paused, his eyes pained. "That was when my life got harder. I realized I had to toughen up, so I began building my own circle."
Matteo's voice grew heavy, burdened by the ghosts of a childhood shaped by violence. "My father never told me I was wrong. He never punished me. He believed it wasn't my fault, that they had it coming."
"And because he didn't stop me… I only got worse."
"Mark cried for days when he found out what I'd done. He blamed me, and we fought bitterly. Back then, I thought he was ungrateful… like he couldn't see I'd done it for him. It took me a long time to understand how deeply I'd hurt him."
