Rico's POV
There are memories that don't fade.
No matter how much time passes.
No matter how much power you gain.
They stay.
Waiting.
And when they come back…
they don't ask for permission.
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I had already lost my mother years before that night.
Her death had been quiet.
Painful.
But expected.
What happened to my father…
was neither.
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I wasn't supposed to be home early.
That much, I remember clearly.
If I hadn't returned when I did…
Maybe I wouldn't have seen it.
Maybe I wouldn't have become this.
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The mansion was wrong.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Too quiet.
Not peaceful.
Not normal.
Wrong.
The guards weren't where they should be.
The air felt… empty.
Like something had already happened.
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"Dad?"
My voice echoed slightly.
No response.
That alone was enough to put me on edge.
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Then I saw it.
A trail.
Dark.
Thick.
Stretching across the marble floor.
Blood.
⸻
Everything in me snapped into motion.
I followed it without thinking.
Faster.
Colder.
Controlled panic building inside my chest.
⸻
"Dad!"
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And then I saw him.
⸻
On the floor.
Surrounded by his own blood.
So much of it the marble had disappeared beneath it.
My father.
The man no one could touch.
Lying there like he had already been claimed by death.
⸻
For the first time in my life—
I froze.
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"Dad…"
My voice came out low.
Unsteady.
I stepped closer slowly, my heart pounding harder with every second.
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Then I saw it.
His chest.
Moving.
Barely.
But moving.
Alive.
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I dropped to my knees beside him immediately.
"Who did this?" I demanded, my voice tight, controlled.
His hand twitched slightly.
Weak.
Struggling.
But reaching.
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I followed it.
And that was when I saw it.
A flash drive.
Clutched tightly in his hand.
Like it was the only thing he refused to let go of.
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"Dad…" I leaned closer. "Stay with me. Who did this?"
His lips moved.
Barely.
His voice broken.
"…don't… trust…"
My jaw tightened instantly.
"Don't trust who?"
His grip on my sleeve tightened for a second.
His eyes met mine.
And in them—
I saw something I had never seen before.
Fear.
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Then his body went still.
Not dead.
But gone.
Like whatever was inside him had retreated somewhere I couldn't reach.
⸻
"Dad?"
No response.
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I checked his pulse.
Weak.
Faint.
But still there.
Alive.
Trapped.
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That was the moment everything changed.
Not when he died.
Because he didn't.
That would have been easier.
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Instead…
he stayed.
Breathing.
But unreachable.
A body without a voice.
A man without answers.
⸻
I took the flash drive from his hand slowly.
Carefully.
Because I knew it mattered.
It had to.
He held onto it even while bleeding out.
Which meant—
It was the truth.
Or part of it.
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That night didn't take my father.
It took his voice.
His power.
His ability to tell me what really happened.
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And left me with silence.
And questions.
⸻
Years later…
He still hasn't woken up.
Still lying there.
Still holding the other half of the truth inside a mind that refuses to return.
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I stood in the present, my fingers tightening around the same flash drive.
The only thing he left me.
The only thing that connects that night to now.
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"Don't trust…"
His voice echoed in my head again.
Unfinished.
Unclear.
Dangerous.
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My eyes darkened slightly.
Because whoever he was warning me about…
was still out there.
Still close.
Closer than I wanted to admit.
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And this time—
I wasn't the boy who found him bleeding on the floor.
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I was the man who would finish what that night started.