Serafina's face twisted with regret as she spoke and slapped herself hard across the cheek. The crowd gathered along the estate's low stone wall watched the heartbreaking scene, their voices filled with sorrow and sympathy. "Madonna, everyone in the territory knows how well-behaved and polite this child was. He was such a joy to be around."

"Yeah, I remember how much the Falcones loved him. Now that he's gone, how will they go on?"

"Such a tragedy. A bright little boy, the family's whole future, gone just like that. How did he suddenly drown in the pond?"

Amidst the murmurs, the Captain working the death of the Falcone heir approached me with a stern expression, a hardened man who had no love for mob families, holding a tablet against his chest. "We just pulled the watcher's tape. It clearly shows you bringing the boy here and forcing him down into the pond."

"You got anything to say about that?" he asked, and he set the tape running for everyone to see. The footage clearly showed me leading my son to the water's edge, dragging him in and holding him under until he stopped struggling. Only then did I let go.

The moment the tape ended, every eye along that wall turned toward me. Shock, anger, and hatred filled their gazes. As I watched the tape, a scene I had never once lived through, and faced the eyes of a crowd that seemed ready to tear me apart, I felt like I was reliving my previous life. That same feeling of utter helplessness and despair washed over me once again. My thumb pressed hard into the center of my left palm, the old ache surfacing where the cuffs had once bitten.

Before I could utter a single word, Serafina stormed toward me, her eyes burning with fury. She slapped me across the face, her voice shaking with rage. "Matteo, are you even human? Nico was your own blood! He was only five years old! How could you do this to him?"

My wife's hand trembled, but her slap was forceful, leaving a sharp sting on my cheek. Her bloodshot eyes glared at me with pure hatred, as if she wished she could tear me apart. Her wedding band caught the light, but her thumb had stopped turning it entirely. The scene was eerily familiar.

My heart ached with unbearable pain. Serafina hadn't listened to me then and wouldn't listen now. She had sentenced me with a single slap, crushing all my hopes. Carmela clutched my son's lifeless body, glaring at me with overwhelming grief and fury, the crucifix at her throat forgotten in her fist. "What did Nico ever do to deserve this? Why did you kill him?"

She grew increasingly hysterical, clutching her chest as if she couldn't breathe. The crowd erupted in rage, their voices filled with contempt. "This man is worse than a beast! How could he murder his own son?"

"I actually felt sorry for him when he was crying just now. Turns out he was just putting on a show! A cold-blooded killer!"

"Disgusting. A man like this doesn't deserve to be a father, or to draw breath at all!"

They began spitting at me and throwing whatever was at hand. Some pulled out their phones, filming, spreading word across the territory of what I had done. The story ran wild through every street the Family touched. Everywhere the whispers reached, people mourned my son and cursed me for a heartless father, wishing me a slow death.

Seeing that the situation was getting out of hand, the Captain's men stepped in to hold the crowd back. He fixed his eyes on me, his voice stern. "This has caused quite a stir, and it's a very serious matter. The evidence is clear. Do you have anything to say?"

I didn't hesitate. I met the Captain's eyes and spoke firmly. "I didn't kill my son. I would never harm him. Captain, I beg you. Look into this thoroughly. If you don't, the real killer walks free forever. I'm not afraid to die, but I can't let my son's death stay buried."

The Captain frowned. He clicked his pen once and held it, his gaze growing sharper and colder, as if he were looking at an incorrigible criminal.

"We've gone over the watcher's tape frame by frame. No cuts, no splices, nothing doctored. If you didn't drown the boy, then who did?"

Yeah. Who exactly killed my son and pinned it on me? The question had haunted me across two lifetimes. Even lying dead on the floor of the Joint, I never found the answer.

Seeing me lost for words, the crowd surged into another wave of venom. "Nothing to say now? Guilty conscience finally caught up with you?"

"You drowned your own blood and you've got the stomach to stand there like a victim? You make me sick."

"That sweet little boy, so well-mannered, and he got saddled with a monster of a father like you."

"His wife and her mother, God help them, tangling their lives up with filth like this."

Even the feeds carried the curses, the whole territory watching, condemning me as unrepentant, wishing the worst end on me. In the middle of the storm, the lead detective lifted a hand. "Take him in."

At his word, two men cuffed me and hauled me toward the car. In my past life, it happened exactly like this. Framed, sent to the Joint, beaten to death by a crew someone else had paid.

Not even my parents were spared. They were named, hunted, driven into hiding. Every time the old Don or my mother dared step past the door, they were met with slurs, with garbage, with funeral wreaths left rotting on the threshold. In the end they died wretched deaths inside our own walls, their bodies left to spoil before anyone thought to look.

Was I truly doomed to walk this same road again? Would my son die for nothing a second time, his killer never named? My mind churned, a tangled mess of confusion and fury. Where had everything gone wrong?

In my past life I had brought my son to the handler myself. Yet every soul who should have seen us that day swore we never came. In this life I had kept him home, close, watched. Still he vanished into thin air, only to surface dead in the pond behind the house.

I had done nothing wrong. And yet the tape showed me committing the crime, plain as daylight. Why? Why was this happening? Who killed my son?

A thousand questions swirled through me, clouding everything. I knew something was deeply wrong. I just couldn't put my thumb on it. I combed through the memories of both lives, hunting for a single thread, one loose stitch that might unravel the whole nightmare.

Then, just as they moved to shove me into the car, the realization struck like a round fired point-blank. I pressed my thumb hard into the center of my left palm, into the phantom ache the cuffs had left there once before, and my eyes went wide. I spun around and shouted at the top of my lungs, "I know who the killer is!"