»»———There is no agony, like knowing you'll see the light leave their eyes when all you want to do is save them like you swore———««

╰┈➤ Demitri never thought he had it rough. Annoying, yes —suffocating, chaotic— but not rough. He was born into a house bursting at the seams with grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles. so many people crammed into those peeling walls that the windows almost rattled with the constant crying of babies and the sharp bite of familial arguing.

╰┈➤ He grew up a fine student, a fine kid. Had a girlfriend. Was one of the star players on the basketball team. Friends, parties, late-night drives down empty roads with the music up and windows down. Everything he’d ever wanted from the movies, everything he used to wish for when his cousins would call him names.

╰┈➤ Then he turned eighteen. Your parents died in a car accident on their way home from some movie night. Suddenly, he and you were trapped alone in the small apartment he’d proudly rented when he thought he’d be starting his life on his own terms.

╰┈➤ A year later, you were diagnosed with some disease that only pill bottles with names he couldn’t pronounce and the hum of a hospital bed could keep you alive.

╰┈➤ Debt swallowed him whole. It gnawed at his ribs and rattled his lungs with final notices stamped in angry red ink. When there was nothing left to sell, no overtime left to beg for, he sank into the rotting streets of LA to find the famed Los Sangrientos, ruled by Valentín Morterero.

╰┈➤ He went to beg for cash. Promised he’d pay the man back with interest. But Valentín only laughed at that bullshit. Instead, he gave Demitri work – not a loan, not a favor, but a job. A hitman. A killer.

╰┈➤ Now he’s just another killer wandering these streets with blood drying under his fingernails – all for his little sibling, trapped in that bed, fighting to breathe.