Requiem of The Godfather: Price of a Memory

Ch 04. Highway to Hell

    Eduardo spat on Rico’s corpse, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle, before rummaging through the man’s leather jacket. His hands were still shaking, whether from leftover adrenaline or from the remnants of a life forcibly dragged back from death. His fingers closed around a smartphone with a cracked screen and a Glock 17.

    

    “A Glock… not bad for a dead man like me,” Eduardo muttered hoarsely.

    

    He checked the magazine. Full. He tucked the pistol into the waistband of his soaked pants, then turned his attention to the phone. The screen lit up, displaying a wallpaper photo of Rico with his arms wrapped around two women in a nightclub. Eduardo snorted in contempt and opened the recent call list.

    

    Only one name appeared repeatedly over the past hour: Boss Claude.

    

    But that was not what Eduardo was looking for.

    

    With a thumb that smeared blood across the glass, he typed a number he knew by heart. His home number. Emily’s number.

    

    Tut… Tut… Tut…

    

    Each ring felt like a ticking time bomb in Eduardo’s ears. Outside the stolen SUV, the rain had begun to ease, but the storm in his chest only grew more violent.

    

    “Pick up, Emily… pick up, please,” he whispered, his voice breaking.

    

    Click.

    “Hello…” a woman’s voice answered.

    

    “Emily, it’s me. Eduardo!”

    

    “Oh God, thank God!”

    

    That voice. Emily’s voice, usually gentle, now sounded fragile, trembling, thick with fear. In the background, Eduardo heard heavy impacts. BAM. BAM. Something was slamming against the wooden door of their apartment.

    

    “Emily, listen to me,” Eduardo said, forcing his voice to stay steady even as his lungs felt filled with shattered glass. “Where are you right now?”

    

    “Chloe and I are at home. But outside… Claude’s men are here, Eduardo! They’re screaming for us to open the door. They say you’re already dead! They say I have to go with them to pay your debt!” Emily began to sob. “Chloe is crying, Eduardo. I’m scared… I locked myself in the bathroom with her.”

    

    At the sound of his daughter’s name, Eduardo’s eyes burned red.

    “Emily, listen carefully. Do not open the door. No matter what happens, do not open it. Move to the corner of the bathroom, hold Chloe, cover her ears. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

    

    “But they said you’re dead, Eduardo! They said they threw you into the sea!”

    

    “I’m not dead, Emily! I… I got away. I’m on my way. Don’t listen to those bastards!”

    

    BAM!

    

    The sound of splintering wood came through the phone, loud and unmistakable.

    

    “They’re almost inside, Eduardo! The door… the door is breaking! Please help us!” Emily screamed hysterically.

    

    “Hide, Emily! I’m hanging up, I need to focus on driving. I’ll be there before they touch you. I promise!”

    

    Eduardo ended the call before Emily could respond. He tossed Rico’s phone onto the passenger seat and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The SUV’s tires shrieked across the rain slick dockside asphalt, spitting white smoke before the vehicle shot forward into the darkness.

    

    [WARNING: USER STRESS LEVEL INCREASING.]

    

    [SYSTEM DETECTS EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY.]

    

    [RECOMMENDATION: ACTIVATE “CALM PREDATOR” TO IMPROVE DRIVING FOCUS?]

    

    “Do it!” Eduardo shouted at the empty air. “Do whatever it takes as long as I get there in time!”

    

    [SKILL ACTIVATED: CALM PREDATOR (LV.1).]

    

    [EFFECT: EMOTIONS SUPPRESSED BY 80%, MOTOR REFLEXES ENHANCED.]

    

    [COST: MEMORY OF YOUR WIFE’S FIRST PERFUME WILL BE REMOVED.]

    

    ZING!

    

    The burning heat in Eduardo’s chest instantly cooled. The panic that had made his hands shake vanished, replaced by a chilling calm. He stared at the road ahead with flat eyes, as if he were playing a video game rather than gambling with his family’s lives.

    

    He tried to remember the scent of Emily’s perfume from their first date in the city park. He remembered her white dress. He remembered her laughter. But the fragrance itself? Gone. He could not recall whether it smelled of roses, vanilla, or citrus. The memory was wiped clean, leaving behind a cold, empty space.

    

    “I don’t need perfume,” Eduardo murmured coldly. “I need speed.”

    

    He twisted the steering wheel with razor precision, overtaking massive trucks along the outskirts of the city with only millimeters to spare. In his mind, every obstacle on the road seemed to slow down. He could see gaps between vehicles as if guiding lines had been painted onto the asphalt.

    

    Then, at the intersection leading to his apartment complex, he saw flashing blue and red lights. Not police. Two black sedans belonging to Claude’s men were parked crosswise across the road, forming a blockade to ensure no one interfered with Emily’s “pickup.”

    

    Three men stood in front of the barricade, gripping batons and firearms.

    

    “A car’s coming! It’s Rico’s SUV!” one of them shouted. “Hey, Rico! Stop! What the hell are you speeding for, asshole?!”

    

    Eduardo did not hit the brakes. Instead, he pressed the accelerator even harder.

    

    “What the hell?! He’s not slowing down!”

    

    “Shoot! Shoot the tires!”

    

    BANG! BANG! BANG!

    

    Bullets slammed into the SUV’s windshield, spiderweb cracks spreading across the glass. Eduardo ducked slightly, his eyes locked on the narrow gap between the two sedans.

    

    “I’m not Rico, you bastard,” Eduardo hissed.

    

    CRASH!

    

    The impact shook the street. The heavy SUV smashed into the side of one sedan, sending it spinning across the asphalt. One guard who failed to dodge in time was flung into the air like a broken rag doll before slamming into the wall of a nearby building.

    

    The front of Eduardo’s SUV crumpled. White smoke poured from the buckled hood. The airbags deployed, briefly obscuring his vision.

    

    Outside, the two surviving guards coughed amid dust and smoke. They drew their pistols and cautiously approached the wrecked vehicle.

    

    “Rico? Are you insane?! You almost killed us!” one of them shouted, aiming his gun at the dented driver’s door.

    

    The door did not open.

    

    Instead, the already cracked window shattered outward.

    

    BANG! BANG!

    

    Two precise shots drilled straight into the foreheads of the guards. They collapsed instantly without a sound.

    

    Eduardo kicked the car door open and stepped out with stiff movements. His torn clothes were now smeared with soot and fresh blood from abrasions caused by the crash. He held Rico’s Glock 17 in his right hand, while his left arm hung limp yet looked unnaturally solid.

    

    His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot, and he did not blink. He did not look like a man who had just survived a violent crash. He looked like a corpse crawling out of a mass grave in search of prey.

    

    “Time’s up,” Eduardo whispered.

    

    He no longer ran in panic. He walked with steady, lethal steps toward the shabby apartment building only a hundred meters away.

    

    From the third floor, he could hear coarse laughter and Emily’s increasingly desperate screams. The sound should have shattered his heart, but under Calm Predator, Eduardo felt only one thing, cold calculation about the most efficient way to blow the heads off the men upstairs.

    

    He entered the apartment lobby. The doorman who usually napped on duty now lay sprawled on the floor, his head split open.

    

    Eduardo climbed the stairs one step at a time. Each footstep left trails of seawater and blood on the filthy concrete.

    

    Emily, I’m here.

    

    He reached the third floor. At the end of the corridor, the door to unit 302, his home, hung wide open with its hinges torn loose. Two large men stood outside holding bottles of liquor, while inside the apartment came the sound of smashing furniture.

    

    “Boss Claude said to take the wife,” one man inside laughed, “but if the kid gets noisy, we’re allowed to teach her a little lesson, right?”

    

    Eduardo stopped at the end of the corridor. He raised his pistol. In his vision, the hallway fell silent, leaving only his heartbeat, slowing until it nearly stopped.

    

    “Hey! Who’s that?!” one of the guards shouted when he noticed Eduardo in the darkness. “You! Stop right there or I’ll shoot!”

    

    Eduardo did not stop. He kept walking forward, his face devoid of emotion.

    

    “I said stop, asshole!” The guard raised his gun.

    

    BANG!

    

    A small hole appeared between the man’s eyes before he could pull the trigger. His body fell backward, crashing into the already ruined door.

    

    The other man stared in shock, dropping his beer bottle as it shattered on the floor.

    “Eduardo?! No way… you’re supposed to be dead!”

    

    Eduardo looked at him with empty eyes.

    “You’re right. The old Eduardo is dead. And now, it’s your turn.”

    

    Before the man could scream for his friends inside, Eduardo was already in front of him, gripping his throat with Bone Breaker strength.

    

    “Shut your mouth,” Eduardo whispered hoarsely. “I don’t want my child to hear your bones break.”

    

    CRACK!