The Day I Buried My Parents… and My Old Life
They say grief comes in waves, but mine didn't. Mine came like a monsoon: unforgiving, relentless, and cold. One moment I was standing on the edge of my childhood, and the next, I was watching two coffins being swallowed by the earth. My mother. My father. Gone.
The rain helped. It soaked my clothes, blurred my vision, and made it harder for anyone to tell if I was crying or just weathering the storm. A part of me welcomed it. At least the cold gave me something to feel that wasn't pain.
I remember the priest's voice, hollow and droning, the kind of empty comfort people are paid to give. "Sorry for your loss." What does that even mean? You didn't lose them. I did. And it wasn't a loss. It was a theft. A brutal, bloody theft.
That's the part no one talks about. Grief isn't just sadness. It's rage. It's helplessness. It's the sick knowledge that someone out there is still breathing after taking everything from you.
And then there was him. Mateo.
Tall. Impossibly calm. Dressed in black like he belonged to the shadows. His eyes scanned the graveyard like a predator. Cold. Calculating. There wasn't a flicker of emotion on his face, not even at the sight of my parents being lowered into the ground.
But I saw him. Really saw him. And I wondered: did he know? Had he already started his own hunt? Because they don't call him The Hound for nothing.
A part of me hoped he'd find whoever did it. The other part wanted to do it myself.
That was the moment I realised: I wasn't just mourning. I was being drafted into a different life. A life I never asked for. A life with new rules.
They moved me into their home. Their circle. Their family. I became the tragic orphan under Mafia protection. But I'm not blind. I know what that kind of kindness costs. I've watched people smile while sharpening knives behind their backs.
Their protection has rules. Their silence has weight. And their love? It's layered with loyalty I'm not sure I can ever trust.
Somewhere out there is the person who killed my parents. And if I've learned anything from being raised by people who clean up messes for a living, it's this: justice is a myth. You don't wait for it. You take it.
So, I keep my voice low. My head down. My grief tight in my chest like a pressed flower that refuses to die. I smile when I'm meant to. Say thank you. Nod in all the right places. And when no one's looking, I practise.
I hide blades in ceiling tiles. I study faces in crowded rooms. I memorise the sound of footsteps in hallways. I wait.
Because I'm not just the girl with a tragic past.
I'm the Black Sparrow.
And I will not stop until every last feather is soaked in the blood of the truth.
__________
Her hunt begins in the series. Watch the first feather fall below.
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