31. Life after Life.

Deangelo.

My mom was the rockstar of my world, my anchor, my safe place. She was my heaven, my superhero.

She was one for surprises, each day a multitude of tiny things... how they made me smile from toe to lips.

Which hand was my cookie in? Which way would we walk to school? Would be splashing in puddles or leaping over? Would we dance our special jig if we saw a cat? It was so fun, all those everyday adventures... I can still feel her excitement at seeing a simple flower or the way the light played upon the path. In a life so overwhelming and tight like ours, it was her that was amazing, not because she was given so much, yet because she made it that way.

Dad and some of his strong gammas had not been around when mom it all happened. I can vividly remember how I was slumped at the table in my room, my brows creased and face tense when Mom had walked in with a coffee in hand as she asked "How are you, my baby?" her tone casual and light.

I scowled at her scrambled eggs, "I don't know whether to do basketball or swimming, mom. I like both but I only see Mona at swimming."

Mom took another sip and then continued, serious faced, "I see, well, what's does your gut tell you? Which one do you want more?"

My face crumpled again, "I don't know!"

Mom made her face straighter than a poker player and said, "Deangelo, you can choose to be anything you want to be and you shouldn’t let anyone or anything deviate you...”

She couldn’t continue with whatever it was that she was saying because soon enough, we heard screams of what was obviously pain and fighting.

Life within our pack was a dangerous business. We had always been at war with the rival pack and it was not a battle that was friendly or anything, it was always bloody, always! They always watched for a weak spot in our pack and honestly, even as a kid, I knew that my dad did the same thing to them.

So the moment we started to hear the commotion in our compound, followed by sounds of shifting, growls and all of that, we immediately knew that we were in danger, but then, we barely had any time to move, hide or get ready because the next thing we knew, mom was unable to shift and when I looked at her arm, what I had found was a tiny needle. She went limp almost immediately and I needed no one to tell me that it had been laced with something that was designed to so that job.

I rushed to her side at the same time that I started to hear footsteps walk in, “You have to hide, Dee, you... you have to hide, you can not take them, just run. Hide.” Mom whispered to me as she wiggled around weakly.

“No, mom, I’ll stay and fight for you, I’ll save you...” I started to say until she immediately cut me off, her voice was stern and her eyes were pleading, “HIDE, DEE! Do as mommy says!” She had snapped and I did not need to be told again as I ran away, making sure to hide right in the closet all the while peeping at her writhing on the floor.

And then he walked in, black suit pressed and a swagger in his step. He wore a gold ring, along with about nine other black and silvers, and flaunted extra diamonds where he could, his olive skin wrinkled around it, worn from age and years of strain. A Rolex weighed down his wrist; the gold chain on his neck was overkill.

Bruno. Bruno Amato.

His men surrounded mom, all in their human form and then I watched as mom shoved at them, fought them, took out one guy’s knee and hit the other guy in the throat despite being weak. Three more jumped in, but soon, they were able to get her under their control as the man in a gold ring raised his hand up high and struck her face with it, rings and all, blood tripped out instantly and I found myself looking away from the scene for a few seconds.

He let out just his claws and had it on mom’s neck. “Oh dear Amelia, you should have accepted my proposal instead of Alessandro’s, don’t you think? I mean, look at you now, fighting for your life while he is out there probably buried in another woman, uh?”

“I can not believe what a sore looser you are, Bruno. It has been how many years now, twelve? and you’re yet to come to terms with the fact a she-wolf rejected you as a mate and went for someone else, sore looser.” Mom cackled and I could not help but wonder if she was going crazy, because why was she getting him riled up even more.

“Hm... still the little bitch even at the face of death, aren’t you? I wonder how loud Alessandro’s cry will be when he comes home to find his beloved wife dead, huh? Because you’re going to die in the next minute and don’t even waste your breath, because you can’t change my mind at all.” Bruno said, in a voice that was scary.

Mom laughed, but her smile didn’t meet her eyes. She looked back in panic as if trying to check on me, “oh, guess what, Bruno. I don’t plan to change your mind, you’re a fucking monster.” Mom yelled.

“Tell me something I don’t know, dear, I am a proud monster, a beautiful one and trust me, Amelia, you’re not just going to die, at least, not until I’ve had taste of what was supposed to be mine,” He said with a sick expression and it was at this stage that mom started to crawl back, her eyes bloodshot with fear.

She choked back a sob and brought her arm up to cover her cry. She straightened them and wiped away the tears so roughly they left red marks on her cheeks. And then it all happened, she was carried off the floor so easily and thrown on the bed, the other men watched just as I did as mom’s clothes was all torn to shreds until she was stark naked, he gagged her mouth and forcefully had a way with her, afterwards, he snapped her neck and blood tripped out.

And not once, not even once, did I look away from the dreadful scene of my mom being battered and killed right before my eyes while I was frozen in the closet. Even when I was finally found in the closet by my father, I didn’t shed a tear.

I never did, instead I got myself more indulged in the pack business as we forged various ways to get back at the Amato pack.

Dad became ruthless, cold, and vicious. It made him good at whatever he did. And he taught me the same skills. He never shielded me from his work. I’d seen a man murdered by the age of ten and knew how to handle a gun by the age of twelve. By fifteen, I’d taken a life and knew how to drown out their pleas as they begged for it.

I did all dirty work. The dirtiest of all. I killed the wolves that disobeyed us, that stepped out of line. I believed in the pack and the revenge that was needed to get. I indulged in the lifestyle because it was a good one. I saw enough death within the family to know that life was fickle. So I indulged in the luxuries.

If my life would be short, I intended to make the most of it.

Until I made another mistake, meeting her. The love of my life. Fuck, she was a pretty little thing. She always had been. Her frosted gray eyes held your soul when she stared you down, like she could suck you in and never let you out.

And then she died, killed by the same pack, while she had a little princess in her. Our princess.

I had cried for the first time then and it was as if the ferocity of it might bring Jules back; as if by the sheer force of my grief, the news would be undone. Even from the top of the street curtains were twitching as neighbours craned to locate the source of the screaming sobs. Dad tried to hold me back, to calm me, even as his own tears fell thick and fast but in my hysteria, I was too strong, too wild. After whirling about, unable to look through my puffy eyes at the photographs on the wall, I tumbled out of the door onto the rain-kissed street. I dissolved in the kind of despair that can take one's mind prisoner and never give it back. Once in the open, I sank down to my knees in the middle of the street, bathed in the headlamps of the cars now static before me. Ordinarily folks around here honk their horns in three seconds flat, but my wailing carried in that damp air, freezing them in place, helpless, just like me…

Questions started for me then. The little voice in my head that said I could have been wrong about everything festered and grew. Love for the life disintegrated. The soul within me withered. I turned from a child with trust to a man with only one purpose: to fill the shoes of the heartless alpha for the family and never be left open to deceit again.

I took life after life even though I never felt lesser pain.