Chapter 86: That day.
It was their stupidity of course it was... they didn’t even think that that amount of weed is in the hands of somebody powerful, they didn’t even think about what consequence it comes with stealing from somebody who has that amount of drug to their names... it was exactly what Joseph talked about to her.
They thought they were thugs. They thought they, capable of doing something big... and with that they were going to become rich they were going to move out their family... but what happened was the biggest tragedy in the city.
Teenagers died in a senseless way... or at least that was how it was all pretended to the wide public... back then the law enforcement was non-existent... well there were dozens of officers, detectives, and investigators that actually did their job but they too were corrupted or more like... they were cautious how they present things.
They didn’t want to cause more chaos with this, not upset the people... and they did it in a way that was well... less outrageous.
They said and lied that it was a teenage gang that was at war with each other and that how it all happened, how they had died... and that it was the other gang that hanged them from the bridge.
But why did they lied... it sounds bad even if it wasn’t the mafia, but was some fucking street gangs... well, it was a risk assessment and because they had a card on their own.
The police once again was a non-existent corrupt bubble in the hand of the mafia... and the mafia hated street gangs and still do for the exact resin Joseph said.
Street gangs and fucking thugs are like vultures they roam the street attack rob whoever they want, shoot up whoever they want, do whatever they feel like the best for them... that’s why they are hated, they do not know order, they do not know secure and hierarchy on the state in the underworld, they don’t know shit about it.
They can fuck up whole deals with their bullshit actions, like they fucked up the weed deal, because Hana stole from it, and they couldn’t sell it to their buyer as it was not the full amount... but from it came the thing that made the story less terrifying... that they were killed by other teenagers.
Because of the corruption the police asked a favor from the mafia and it was to make up the story about another street gang so it would be more believable to the wide public, not just that but to actually catch some real street gang members and say it was them who did it... and they went more far with it.
The Liopon mafia actually did it, and caught some street gang members and tortured them to the point that they actually believed that it was them who did it, and then handed them to the police who then, showed them to the public and the street gang members even testified in a live broadcast that it was them who did it.
Of course to some people it was just way obvious they were just some scapegoats because their voice was low, they were visibly shaken, the eyes looked like they had shell shock from a war, and their faces were just broken... but to the wide audience, to the families involved it meant everything... in their grief, in their deepest sadness, they didn’t notice the obvious signs that it wasn’t them... no they just needed an answer for what happened, and how could it happen to their kind and smart kids... well they had fucked up on their own... but the parents lived on with the lie the police told them...
Until the new government came along, and all investigations that were handled by the corrupted government and police force, were reopened... it was thousands of cases but they did everything to solve those, to reopen those that had much evidence and obvious lies... and this was the biggest one.
The news broke fast, it spread everywhere in the country when it was finally solved but... it would have been better if they would not solve it... because to the families that were involved it was far more better to know their child died innocently than that they were gunned down... but the new investigation said otherwise... with camera footage it was clear that they were robbing from a mafia... and they were brutally gunned down... not just that but maybe the most heartbreaking thing that could have happened made the news too.
Hana was there with them... yeah, the police didn’t name her, but the families already knew it was her. The friend group stayed whole, and everybody knew who was in it and well from the beginning it felt strange that Hana wasn’t there, with their best friends. But when the footage came out from that street, it was clear...
The little girl who went to comfort the family, who cried with them, who stood at the funeral with her friend’s family... she was part of it. And she lied for years... lied about knowing anything, lied to herself, lied to everybody and when the truth came out, the families looked at her differently. At first it was just silence, long heavy silence, like the air itself stopped moving.... they just stared and in those stares Hana could feel everything, anger, heartbreak, confusion.
The trust was gone.
They remembered her tears, the way she cried with them, the way she held the mothers and whispered that everything would be alright. They remembered her standing at the funeral, holding flowers in her hands, shaking like she was one of them.
Hana tried to explain it but no one wanted to hear it.
It wasn’t just a lie, it was betrayal, a deep wound. One that could not heal with time or apologies. Once you break a family like that, once you make them cry over lies, you can’t put it back together.
And Hana... she felt small. Smaller than she had ever been. The girl who once stood proud, pretending she belonged, now stood alone in the center of the storm. She realized then that lies don’t just fade, they grow, they rot, they eat away until there’s nothing left but the truth.
And she got fed up with all of it... in a sense she too broke at the same point when Joseph started to break... and she had only one thing on her mind... to kill whoever was behind all of it... the cops and the mafia too... yeah it started as a revenge story... how crazy it is and unbelievable. From a fragile teenager who was involved in some bullshit robbery, where her friends were all killed, she became a killer herself.
The road was long and terrifying. She learned from veterans who were hitmen for decades and she became one... but her revenge never happened... because all of them died... yeah she did all of it she killed people, had enough money, enough connections and in the end she could do this main job.
Because the corrupted cops were jailed or killed and the same thing happened to the mafia... all of them died or were sent to life in prison or executed... how sad and disappointing it was. In her mind she did all of it, she turned into a monster on her own to be able to finally end the story, to finally get the answer, to finally kill all of them who were involved in it... but those people had already had their justice served.
And in the end, she just became a hitman, a ruthless killer who went on to take many lives... She was even in a PMC for about two years, until Joseph Cassian’s name came up, and Pablo arranged a meeting with her, offering an opportunity to finally leave and work as a bodyguard for an almost unbelievable sum of money... and she was naive enough to think that, in this era, no one could be as bloody as they were back then...
Yeah... well, Joseph Cassian went beyond everything she thought she’d see... to be honest, she knew the Cassian family, she’d heard storie, fuck, they were already ruling when the whole robbery thing happened... but she never thought she’d be serving the only Cassian left alive, the one who allegedly killed his own family, the one who took over everything.
On the other hand, Joseph thought about something else... that Hana... she was just a fragile girl who got lost in her life, a little girl whose emotions took over her... something that started as a little robbery... changed her life forever.
"Huh... well, I’m sorry." Joseph said and to be honest, he felt nothing about it... no, the idea of hanging bodies from a bridge actually sounded... kind of cool to him.
On the other hand, Hana actually believed it, she truly thought he felt sorry for it. "It’s alright... just... the past can still hurt."
"It indeed can." he answered, and did the unthinkable... he hugged her tight and warm. "Just don’t get lost in the past, Hana."
She said nothing back... just sniffed as tears rolled down her face... lost in a gasp for a moment, back with that memory of that day...
Hanging bodies from a bridge... their heads gone... how terrifying it could be...