The Brother I Mourned Became the Monster Who Killed My Son

Just after I handed my son over to his handler at the Family safehouse, I got a call. "Sir, why hasn't the boy arrived? Is he unwell?"

I answered, confused. "I just left him with you. Have you forgotten?"

The man's voice came back smooth and immediate. "Sir, please. Don't play games. I haven't laid eyes on you today."

I went cold and drove back to the safehouse, only to find my son was gone. I demanded the watcher's tape. It showed I had never brought the boy at all that day. Even the soldiers posted at the door and the other men of the Family swore they hadn't seen me near the place. Yet I remember it. I remember carrying my son inside and placing him in that man's hands.

Desperate to find him, I called it in through our channels, then the straight badges came. In the end they pulled my son's body from the pond near our home. The surveillance from every corner of that street showed me pressing him beneath the water, drowning him with my own hands.

Carmela clutched his lifeless body, sobbing, her accusation cutting through me. "What did my grandson ever do wrong? Why did you have to kill him?"

Serafina, shaking with rage, slapped me across the face and screamed, "How could you do this to your own child? He was only five years old! Are you even human?"

I had no way to defend myself. Overnight I became a reviled father, a murderer, a stain on the Falcone name. My parents were hunted through the territory, their honor torn to pieces by a smear campaign that never stopped, until they died alone in their own homes. As for me, they threw me in the Joint, where a paid crew from an enemy Family broke me apart piece by piece and beat me to death.

Even in my last moments, I couldn't understand why every man who had seen my son and me swore we'd never come to that safehouse. And if I had never gone near that pond, then why did the tape show me drowning my own son?

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I took my son to be handed over.

——

"Honey, my mother isn't well. I'm taking her to the hospital today. Can you deliver our son to the handler?" Serafina, my wife, held Carmela steady at her side, her voice gentle.

Those familiar words sent a chill down my spine. I turned to look at Serafina and understood that I had been reborn. In my past life I had agreed to take my son alone that day, and that was where everything began to unravel. In the end my son drowned under circumstances no man could explain. I was framed as a murderer and tortured to death.

I gave no answer, so Serafina came closer, worried. "What's wrong, Honey? Are you buried in Family business?" Her tone was soft, as if she feared troubling me.

Looking at her gentle expression, my heart sank. In my past life I had been consumed by the Family's affairs. It was always my wife and Carmela who carried our son to and from the safehouse. So why did something so terrible happen on the one day they asked me to do it? Was it truly just chance?

After a moment, I pressed my thumb into the center of my left palm, into an ache that no longer had a reason to be there, and looked at Serafina. "I think our son looks a little unwell today. Maybe he should stay home instead."

Serafina glanced at our son, then nodded. "Alright. We'll do as you say."

"Just remember to call the handler and let him know," I added.

Carmela smiled. "Then I'll leave little Nico in your care today."

Their reactions seemed perfectly natural, so ordinary I could find no flaw in them. And yet the more ordinary it seemed, the more uneasy I felt. After Serafina and Carmela left, I looked at my son. He sat quietly at the table, eating his breakfast, obedient as ever. My eyes welled up. I couldn't shake the memory of his lifeless body, sinking beneath that black water in my past life.