BLOOD AND ASHES

THE MAN AT THE DOOR

The silence after the call lingered like poison in the air.

Tobias sat frozen at his desk, his knuckles were white around the phone. His chest rose and fell in shallow bursts, his heartbeat was drumming so loud he thought Ethan might hear it across the room. On the couch, the boy was still slumped, fiddling with the second phone, the plastic tubing of his oxygen trailing like a chain tethering him to fragility.

And then Delgado’s voice came again, deep and mocking, seeping through the speaker like venom.

“Did you miss me, Tobias?” A chuckle followed, thick with arrogance. “I bet you did, viejo amigo. Everyone misses Aurelio Delgado sooner or later.”

The words hit Tobias like a slap. For weeks, this voice had stalked his dreams, twisted his waking hours. Every humiliation, every debt, every shadow of shame—somehow, it all traced back to this man. And now, Delgado dared to taunt him.

His instinct was to scream. To roar into the phone, to curse the senator’s name until the walls shook. But then he saw Ethan. His boy’s frail body leaned against the couch armrest, each breath rattling faintly with the hiss of oxygen. Innocent eyes blinked at the screen, unaware of the war raging a few feet away.

Tobias swallowed his fury like broken glass. He forced his voice into low, even words, though his lips trembled.

“I don’t miss you, Senator,” he said, with a tone that was dark with restrained disgust. “I am disgusted by you. By your filth. By the way you destroy lives for sport.”

Delgado chuckled again, as though Tobias’s pain was the punchline of a private joke.

“Filth, eh? And yet here you are, still breathing, still begging the world to notice you. You want to face me, Tobias? You really think you have that right?”

Tobias leaned forward, his free hand pressing so hard into the desk that the wood groaned.

“I demand it,” he hissed. “If you’re truly a man, then face me. Not through shadows. Not through your dogs. Face me, man to man. Look me in the eye.”

There was silence on the other end. Then Delgado’s laughter erupted—low at first, then rolling like thunder, cruel and gleeful.

“You think I am afraid of you?” the senator said at last, his accent dripping mockery. “Afraid of a failed maestro with empty pockets?”

Tobias’s teeth ground together. “Come then,” he growled. “Come and see what failure looks like when it decides to fight back.”

Delgado’s voice dropped lower, his every syllable was soaked in menace.

“De hecho, I am at your door.”

Tobias froze. His breath caught. For a split second he thought it was another lie, another trick. But then—

The door to his office burst open with a violent crack. Wood slammed against the wall, and sunlight spilled across the floor like a stage spotlight.

And there he was.

Senator Aurelio Delgado stepped into the room, his phone still pressed casually to his ear. His suit gleamed, tailored to perfection, a golden pin flashing on his lapel. His hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place, his face was carved into a smirk that reeked of triumph.

Two men flanked him, mountains in dark suits with shoulders like walls and hands like sledgehammers. Their eyes swept the room, sharp and cold.

Senator Delgado lowered his phone slowly, slipping it into his pocket as if he had all the time in the world. His gaze settled on Tobias with the satisfaction of a predator finally cornering prey.

He smiled—a slow, sinister stretch of lips that made Tobias’s skin crawl.

“Hello, viejo amigo.”

The words slithered across the office, heavy with irony.

For a moment Tobias could not breathe. Here was the man who had stolen his wife, shattered his school, crippled his reputation, and poisoned the very air around his name. No longer a faceless enemy hiding behind headlines and calls. He was flesh, blood, arrogance—standing only feet away.

Tobias’s body shook, not with fear but with raw, blistering hatred. He pushed back his chair so violently it toppled to the floor with a crash. The sound made Ethan jump, his small head lifting from the couch.

“Dad?” the boy whispered, his voice was fragile, trembling.

But Tobias no longer heard. His eyes were locked on Delgado, on the smirk that mocked his every loss. Every muscle in his body coiled tight, fury building like a storm ready to tear through everything.

Delgado tilted his head slightly, watching Tobias with mocking amusement. He even gestured at the bodyguards with a lazy flick of his wrist, as if to say: Stand back. Let him try.

The senator’s voice was smooth, velvet over steel.

“Go on, Tobias. Show your boy what kind of man you really are.”

Something inside Tobias snapped.

Weeks of humiliation. The stream that painted him a fraud. The debts choking him. The whispers of parents abandoning his school. His wife’s vanished body. And the cruelest weight of all—his son, fighting for every breath, chained to a dwindling tank of air.

It all erupted.

With a roar that tore from the depths of his chest, Tobias lunged across the room. He didn’t see the bodyguards. He didn’t care about their fists, their guns, their bulk. He saw only Delgado, smirking, mocking, standing there like a phantom made flesh.

Ethan’s voice cut the air again, higher, panicked—“Dad!”—but it was already too late.

Tobias’s feet slammed against the floor. His fists clenched into weapons. His body flew forward, hatred blazing in his eyes.

Delgado did not flinch. He only smiled wider, as though this moment—this inevitable explosion—was exactly what he had been waiting for all along.

The bodyguards tensed, muscles bulging, ready to strike.

The air itself seemed to hold its breath.

And then—

Tobias hurled himself forward, rage leading the way, straight at the man who had orchestrated his ruin. Whether he would land the blow—or be broken first—hung in the silence between heartbeats.