"Say it, Joseph…" Vincente clicked off the safety as she pushed the gun more to Olivia's head, who was staring at Joseph.
But it didn't make any sense to him, like why would they try to manipulate him with her, like he doesn't even know who the fuck she truly is, they barely know each other for an hour and that's it, he doesn't have any emotion toward her, not a single bit of it… and they're still fucking trying to manipulate him with Olivia.
It was like a bad joke.
To them, thinking it would actually work was dumb... so dumb that Joseph just smiled more, because it was so outrageous, like what the fuck is this… these are the new era gangsters?
The era that they didn't even know how to torture somebody properly to get the answers, but instead, to kill somebody who he doesn't even know… that is just pathetic… but it worked... well his time was running out, and he well wanted to finally end it all, why and what happened back then, and how he got in the middle of everything.
"Once upon a time… a decade ago, I made a great mistake which was actually not a mistake…" He smiled at Vincente.
"What are you talking about—" Jelena raised her hand, ready to hit him once again, but Vincente grabbed her arm just in time.
"Let him speak!" Vincente said as he stared down at her, but he understood her. They were all looking for the answer for years and now he was here, but they needed to hear it from him clearly, not in a half-dead state. "Continue, Joseph." He lowered the gun now and stared at him.
But something happened. Jelena didn't hit him because Vincente grabbed her, but Joseph was out, like he was fighting to keep up, to stay conscious, but it was a hard thing to do, because of the blood, the warmth he felt and tasted in his mouth, the dizziness came back, the face was blurred as he looked, trying to get focus on something… and he found that focus point.
It was Vincente's custom-made silver pistol in his hand that was shining, so Joseph, all his power that was left in his body was focusing on it while starting to speak again.
"I-I left my family when I was 15 because I didn't want to deal with them, with the death and their snake behavior… I didn't want to have any connection to them, because I knew exactly what they did day to day, to stay in power… so I dipped, but 10 years ago at 18, one of the members of the family, the fucking dogs to my father, appeared before my door and without a word gave me a bank card." He still stared at the gun. "A card with an unbelievable amount of money on it. I don't actually know how much was on it… maybe a few hundred million, maybe billions… but I knew they wanted something, because they were never actually open toward me, and my father sending his top lapdog to give me that card was too strange… they were always snakes and I knew it… so I decided to do what I felt was best, to actually do something with the money… something that would show that there is a Cassian that's not one of them…" He looked up at Vincente now, who was listening. "How funny is it… with money that came from blood I decided to be a good man. So I went to the bank to get authorization to actually spend a lot of money with it… and that was strange too… I just walked in and they already knew who I was and what I wanted, and within 3 minutes I was out of the bank, without ID, without signing a single paper, and what I wanted was to spend as much money to charity as I would like, hundreds of millions, maybe even billions." He laughed as he shook his head. "I fucked up…" He looked into Vincente's eyes.
"Why? What happened?" He asked because it didn't make any sense, it had no connection to the massacre so far, but he was listening deeply, trying to puzzle it together.
"I put it together in front of the bank, that they wanted to fuck me over… giving a card with millions, and the card was already in my name? It just meant every transaction was in my name, every single fucking one… I knew I fucked up by stepping into that bank… maybe it was the greed in me, to help others, maybe I wanted to spend some money on myself… but it was all a pre-made trap to fuck me over, to make me the scapegoat." He looked now to Olivia with a faint smile. "So rather than spending the money… on the walk home I saw a group of homeless people with a child, a little child… and they seemed like loving people, like the homeless kind of person who tries to do everything to get out of that life, not the alcoholic, drug-addicted,no, they seemed genuine people… so I gave them the card with the pin, and dipped like a hero… and got arrested 3 days after."
"And what?!" Jelena screamed. "What the fuck does that mean?!"
Joseph looked up again with a smile, but this time at Jelena, and said:
"There is a saying that goes like, 'What we give in grace returns, though not always in the form we imagined,' and it happened to me. You know, Jelena, I didn't want to have anything to do with your family or you, Vincente, or Gabbana." He looked at them. "But they weren't caring about that, no… they wanted to return my kindness. And they did."
They were all confused, like, what the fuck is he talking about? Homeless people…? There was no way he was telling the truth.
"Who were those people?" Vincent asked.
Joseph slowly looked at him with a faint smile. "A pirate."
"A pirate…?" Vincent smiled back and pushed the gun to his knee. "A fucking pirate… huh?"
"Yeah… a middle-aged man with one eye, and he limped a bit… a pirate, doesn't it?"
Vincent at that moment had enough of it, but something was off, there still wasn't any fear in his eyes nor anything that would tell he was lying.
"It could be a nickname." Gabbana said from the back. "And there is a gang that runs operations through the homeless."
"They aren't a gang… they are grim reapers…" Joseph spoke again. "Y'all are going to die, just like how my family died, and your families, and those judges, governors, mayors who had their hand in my arrest." He looked up again. "... not because I want it, not because I am keen for revenge, no… but because what I did to them was a blessing from the skies… and they took it to heart, maybe too much… so kill me before they arrive."
"Or what is going to happen?! Kill us?! We are the most powerful—"
"You have no idea what power is, darling… you just a fucking bitch." Joseph said with a smile, but there was something else too, yeah, there was something in his eye that Olivia immediately noticed and knew…
Joseph Cassian… is far more dangerous than they ever thought he would be.