go inside and not look back. As soon as I stepped foot inside the door, my brother Tobias was there looking so angry I feared for my life. I thought he’d found out what happened and was disgusted with me. He was - just not for the reason I thought. He grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs to our parent’s room. I was so scared, but he said nothing until he opened the door and ushered me inside.”
She looks up and the terror in her eyes shows me she’s back in that room as she breaks. “There was so much blood. It was everywhere. It looked as if something had been butchered in my parent’s room. Blood on the walls, the carpet and on the silken sheets. I remember retching as I struggled to breathe and Tobias gripped my face and made me look, telling me I had done this.”
She starts to sob and my murderous rage transfers to her brother this time. Fucking bastard. But I know him. I know the man he is and that’s what hurts the most. I understand him.
Then she raises her eyes to mine and says in a whisper, “Then he dragged me downstairs to my father’s den where it was a similar scene. Blood absolutely everywhere, even more than upstairs it seemed. Then he yelled at me that Carlos had used the information I fed him against us. While Tobias and Thomas our other brother were out, he had stormed the mansion with his men and killed everyone in their path. There was no warning and no time to defend themselves. When Tobias and Thomas returned home, they found a bloodbath. Thomas was out seeking revenge and as it happens, returned to us in the worst way possible.”
Now she’s shivering as the ghosts of her past hold her captive and she says in a painful voice, “He arrived in pieces inside a plastic bag. Dumped at the gates like a pile of trash as a stark reminder of everything that is bad with our world.”
She looks at me with a haunted expression and says with a quiver to her voice, “Maverick. The pain was too much to deal with. I thought my heart was going to give out on me because it tore me apart. However, it was nothing like the pain Tobias felt because I saw him break before my eyes. You see, Thomas was his twin, they were part of each other and a part of Tobias died along with him that day and it was all my fault. I had given the monster the keys to our door and let him blow it apart with the worst kind of explosion.”
For some reason, as the last word leaves her lips, she changes before my eyes. The mask slips back in place and any emotion is shut tightly behind it. In a hard voice, she says bitterly. “We all changed that day. There was no light in our life, just the darkness. Tobias went on a killing spree and slaughtered every member of the Toledo family - personally. He bathed in their blood and had no mercy. He was a beast whose hunger never left him. Revenge became the air that he breathed and I thought I had lost him too.
Then it turned out that the only man left standing was the one responsible. Carlos Toledo was the man who escaped time and time again, and when he returned, it was to finish what he started.”
Sophia looks at me with the blank expression of a woman who has lost it all. I can tell she is broken all the way to her core and she shakes her head and says with a voice devoid of emotion. “I’m sorry, Maverick, but I can’t deal with what happened next. I’m not ready for that. Maybe I never will be, but thank you for hearing me out. Now you know what a monster I am. I live in a world where life has no meaning. I’m a pampered princess who was never given the option to live a normal life. I deserve everything that I have to live with because of my own stupidity. If Carlos is dead, which I’m pretty sure he must be right now, I’m only sorry it wasn’t by my hand. You see, I’m a monster of the worst kind and should be left to rot with my own tainted memories because I don’t deserve to live, when I have