Page 29 of Vicious Behaviors (The Next Vicious Generation #3)

Marcello

I feel a loving hand stir me from my slumber. My lashes cling together, heavy with dreams, until the faint shift of weight on the edge of my bed tells me someone’s in my room. The mattress dips just enough to stir me fully awake.

“Dad?” I croak, my voice rough, scraped raw with sleep.

The lines around his eyes soften at the word.

“You haven’t called me that in years,” Vincent murmurs.

It’s still dark outside. Beyond the glass, the world is a quiet void, the moonlight stretching shadows thin.

But the warmth in my father’s voice lasts only a moment.

It’s so brief that I start to wonder if I didn’t just imagine it.

Because just as quickly as it came, it vanished before my eyes as my father’s face shifts, resetting to that familiar, steeled expression I’ve come to know all too well.

“Get dressed, Marcello. You need to come with me,” he says, already standing.

I don’t ask why. I just obey.

As I put on my clothes, he silently roams my room, rummaging through my desk, flipping through textbooks like he’s searching for something I’ve hidden. When he finds a few Psychology textbooks I borrowed from the city library, he doesn’t say a word. And neither do I.

It’s only when I’m dressed that I finally break the silence. “Are we going to the gym?” I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

It’s my usual morning routine before class. The one rule he instilled in me years ago. The one thing that keeps me steady and my only safety net to stay in control.

“Not today,” he replies, his voice flat as concrete.

Something shifts in my gut.

‘He’s up to something,’ the voice inside me begins to growl. ‘Don’t go. Say you’re busy. Say that Jude is expecting you at the gym. Say anything. Just don’t go with him.’

I swallow the unease clawing up my throat and do my best to leash the beast inside me.

After waking up, the demon inside me usually doesn’t make an appearance this fast, but apparently, being woken up by my father triggered him.

To the monster’s bitter resentment, I follow my father out of my room and down the hall. The house remains asleep as we descend the stairs to the ground floor. Even the walls feel as if they’re holding their breath with every step I take.

When we finally step out into the cold silence of morning, my brows knit together. Tony, my father’s usual bodyguard, is nowhere to be found. The hired guards who linger in the shadows of our estate are gone, too.

No footsteps. No whispered radios. Just quiet. Too quiet.

‘Don’t get in that car,’ the voice hisses again, when we both watch my father get into the front seat of his Rolls-Royce Phantom.

But I do. Maybe because I’m curious. Or maybe because fear feels too much like home.

We drive in silence as the sky begins to bruise with light, the early streaks of ash and rose bleeding across the horizon. I count every turn. Every long stretch of road, just in case I need to know my way back.

It takes us over an hour to reach our destiny. The moment we stop at guarded iron gates, the voice in my head goes dead still, too afraid to even breathe out his fury at being here. That’s how I know that this place, whatever it is, scares him.

My father hands something to the guard stationed outside, while I keep my eyes on the tall, rotting building on the hill ahead. The pale walls are cracked, ivy creeping into every dent like veins across its skin. All the windows are narrow, barred, making the structure feel even more imposing.

Once the guard let us through, the iron gate screeched shut behind us like an eerie warning.

We drive towards the main building, and as we slow to a stop, I catch sight of a weather-beaten sign hanging above the entrance, its lettering half-faded but just clear enough to read the words—Forensic Psychiatric Facility.

With apprehension, I step out of the car in sync with my father, my eyes locked on the structure like jaws waiting to snap shut. “What is this place?” I ask.

“You’ll see,” my father says with a clipped tone.

We ascend the steep, concrete steps, and the minute we walk through the menacing building’s doors, the stench of disinfectant mixed with something fouler hits my nostrils, making my stomach drop.

Inside, the hallway stretches long and ashen, like the throat of something waiting to swallow us whole.

Fluorescent lights buzz overhead as men in white coats move briskly, clipboards clutched like shields.

“Is this a hospital?” I ask, throat tight.

“Of sorts,” he says.

A man in blue approaches, head dipped in deference. “Good morning, Mr. Romano. Please follow me.” My father nods.

I trail after them, every instinct howling in warning.

It feels like every corridor we pass twists endlessly.

Tile floors echo with each footstep, sterile and unfeeling.

As we reach deep inside the belly of the beast, the sounds begin.

Loud screams bounce off the walls—animalistic, almost inhuman.

The suppressed cries of patients, muttering, growling, babbling from throats torn raw by repetition.

All of it concealed behind locked doors, each with only a narrow window set into the metal.

Something within me forces me to stop and glance inside one of the locked rooms. There, I find a man, roughly around my father’s age, slamming his forehead into a padded white wall, over and over again until the foam gives way and blood begins to streak down his face.

I glance around the room and see the walls already stained with an older, darker shade of red—proof he’s done this before.

I flinch, stepping back, and ask, “Father,” I swallow hard, “What is this place?”

“This is a psychiatric hospital,” my father says flatly. “For the criminally insane.”

In other words, it’s an asylum. A prison for those whose mind already holds them hostage. My father’s words hit harder than they should. Not because they surprise me, but because somehow, I already knew this is where he would bring me one day. The place that he’d leave me in.

“Come here,” he orders, stopping at another small window and sliding open the viewing slot.

My knees threaten to buckle, but by some miracle, I’m able to get close enough to look inside. There, I find a man sitting curled in a corner, covered in his own filth. He rocks in silence, whispering to someone who isn’t there, his eyes wide, unblinking.

I take another step back and ask, “Why am I here, Father?” There’s an edge in my voice I’ve never dared turn on him before.

He notices it too. The resentment in my tone. The disdain. There’s a flicker of sadness in his eyes, but after a moment, like always, the mask falls back into place. Stone. Unshakable.

“You’ve made it clear that you want to follow in Jude’s footsteps,” he says at last. “That you want to be inducted into the Outfit.”

I don’t respond. It’s not like it’s a secret. Since Jude’s induction, after returning from England a few years ago, I’ve known my fate was to follow in his footsteps, wherever that might lead.

“If that is your plan… if that is the future you envision for yourself, then you need to have all the information before making such a decision.”

“I don’t see how this place has anything to do with me wanting to join the family business.”

“Yes, you do,” he retorts, bridging the gap between us.

“This place is what happens if things go wrong for you. If you kill someone for the syndicate and get caught, they won’t throw you in prison, Marcello.

They’ll send you here. This, “he gestures around us, “will be your new hell.” The blood drains from my face, cold seeping into my bones. “You’re not like your brother,” he continues.

“We both know that. Jude doesn’t carry the same burden you do. Not like we do.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, though deep down… I do. I’ve always known that I was different from my brother. Different from all my siblings. That I was damaged in ways they could never understand.

“Let’s not waste time on denials. You’ve lived with it for most of your life now.

Lived with that thing inside you. So far, you’ve been able to keep it on a tight leash.

But we both know it’s becoming restless of late.

And if you let it out, if you lose control…

“he doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to.

My throat tightens. “Why are you telling me this? Why bring me here? Why today?”

“Because I need you to understand. This,” he nods toward the padded walls, the muffled screams echoing through the halls, “is your future if you get careless. If you think this life comes without consequence, then let me assure you that you’re wrong.

I want you to see what’s waiting at the end of that path.

They won’t ask questions, Marcello. They’ll lock you up like a monster.

And you’ll end up living the rest of your days like one, too. ”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“No, son.” He shakes his head slowly. “I’m trying to give you all the facts. What kind of father would I be if I let you make a decision blind?”

That’s when I realize this visit isn’t just a cautionary tale. It’s a confession, too. He’s telling me that I’ve failed at hiding what I am. That he sees how I struggle with it every day. That it’s getting harder and harder to keep the monster in check.

What he’s failed to see is that I’ve fought more brutal wars just to keep my mind intact. The only reason I’m still breathing is because I’ve learned how to bury the part of me that wants to burn it all down.

I’ll keep fighting it until my very last breath. However, it’s my father’s lack of faith in me that really causes the knot in my chest to tighten.

“Do you not want me to take the omertà? Do you think I don’t deserve to have my birthright?” I retort, taking a step back from him. “Is that it? Am I that weak in your eyes?”