The Weight of Truth
Su-ah’s mind kept circling back to those three letters. Mafia. Even though she had lived a life completely cut off from the world, devoting herself to a monastic existence, she still knew what the word meant.
A criminal organization that didn’t stop at every imaginable evil—it even committed murder.
There’s no way Tezman could be like that. Even as she tried to deny it, their first meeting flashed through Su-ah’s head. The image of him casually driving a crucifix into a man’s skull.
The way he had spoken to her with an utterly serene expression, completely unfazed by the blood pooling across the floor.
“Yesterday and the day before that, Tezman killed people. That’s what being in the mafia means.”
Mateo’s words kept echoing inside her skull.
Avoiding Cact, who had tried to speak with her, Su-ah had fled into the bedroom. As long as she remained inside, even Cact could not enter without Tezman’s permission.
Eventually, Su-ah stepped out of the bedroom. She brushed past a startled Cact and headed straight for the desk where Tezman always sat. She quickly scanned the documents piled across its surface.
Nothing suggested murder or illegal activity. Just notes filled with stock and financial terminology. Of course, a few strange words appeared here and there, but that alone wasn’t enough to label someone a mafia boss.
“It was… just a joke, right?”
They hadn’t seemed particularly close. Remembering how tense Cact had become the moment Mateo approached her, Su-ah shook her head.
“Yes. It was a nasty joke.”
The thought that Mateo, who clearly didn’t get along with Tezman, had said it just to torment her eased her mind. At least until Tezman entered the study with a sunken expression.
The study door opened without a knock. Not knocking meant only one thing—the owner of the room had arrived.
When Su-ah lifted her head, she met Tezman’s dark gaze fixed directly on her.
“Tezman?”
“Cact.”
He continued speaking to Cact.
“Leave us.”
At the quietly commanding tone, Cact bowed silently and exited the study. Once the two of them were completely alone, Su-ah opened her mouth.
“Tezman, I don’t believe it. Don’t worry.”
His eye twitched faintly.
“Believe what?”
“…Ah, that… the thing about you being in the mafia. Your brother told me. He said you were a mafia boss who kills people. But don’t worry—I trust you, Tezman—”
“It’s true.”
What?
A silence fell over them as if the world had stopped turning.
“W-what did you just…”
With a grim face, he walked toward her.
“Su-ah.”
“W-wait… don’t come any closer. Stop joking around.”
“I’m not joking.”
Tezman grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him.
“It’s true. The Pavard Family. My grandfather was the first mafia boss to expand his power from Europe all the way to America.”
His voice remained calm, yet the eyes looking down at her were clouded and murky.
“My father was one of the mafia dons who controlled Europe, but he hated hearing that filthy word ‘mafia’ so much that he started charitable work and entered politics. In one stroke, we became a prestigious family.”
“B-but that’s all in the past, right?”
Desperation seeped into Su-ah’s face as she asked, almost pleading. But the words that followed brutally crushed that desperation.
“No.”
No?
“While I do trade stocks and investments and lend money to banks, on the other side…”
He drew in a short breath before spitting out the rest.
“It’s also my job to put bullets in the heads of our enemies.”
Put bullets in their heads. Su-ah’s hands trembled violently as she covered her mouth and stumbled backward.
“Su-ah.”
“D-don’t come near me.”
Everything felt chaotic. It was her own fault for not confirming it sooner. She hadn’t even asked a single question from the beginning. Self-loathing flooded in—an endless wave of disgust at herself.
“…Back then… you said the man with the crucifix in his head survived.”
Su-ah’s face twisted as she looked up at him. He offered no answer.
“…He actually died, didn’t he? You lied to me, didn’t you?”
She had believed it like a fool. Of course a person whose skull had been pierced, bleeding all over the chapel floor, couldn’t possibly be alive.
“This must be my punishment. It has to be. Otherwise, none of this makes sense.”
Punishment for betraying God and falling into corruption. Su-ah’s body trembled as she muttered to herself, her breathing growing ragged.
“God is punishing me. Hic… How dare I…!”
Tezman pulled her tightly against him as she gasped, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Su-ah.”
“Haah… It’s my fault. I—I—hup!”
He breathed into her gasping mouth. Su-ah thrashed wildly, shoving at his chest. It was futile. He didn’t budge, as solid as a boulder. In despair, her fingers clutched desperately at his shirt.
The continuous flow of his breath gradually calmed the violent heaving of her chest.
“Hnn…”
A sob mixed with a moan was swallowed into his mouth. Sensing her breathing finally steadying, he slipped his tongue inside. He felt her flinch and push against his chest with the hand resting there, but it didn’t matter.
His tongue swept gently through her mouth, as if soothing her. It was an uncharacteristically careful movement. He slowly caressed the soft inner flesh, traced her teeth, and finally touched her tongue.
He didn’t suck or claim her the way he usually did. Instead, he licked and sucked at her tongue with melting tenderness, like savoring a precious piece of candy he had been saving.
At his desperate kiss, tears spilled down Su-ah’s cheeks. Even if her mind rejected him, her heart was the problem. One single kiss had opened it completely.
She hated him for stealing even her heart so thoroughly that she couldn’t even bring herself to despise him. With the last of her strength, she shoved at his chest. This time, their lips parted easily.
With eyes drenched in tears, Su-ah looked up at him. Brow furrowed, he reached out and gently wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
“Su-ah.”
Today, her name sounded especially sweet falling from his lips.
“I will never let you go.”
In one swift motion, he lifted her into his arms.
“W-what are you—!”
He strode straight into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. Then he rummaged through the drawer of the bedside table and pulled something out. She recognized it at once. A medicine bottle.
It was something Tezman kept in the drawer as a standby medication. A sleeping pill that also acted as a sedative. He took it with painkillers when his wounds were too severe for him to sleep.
“W-what is that? That…”
When he opened the bottle, small pills spilled out. He picked one up and put it in his mouth.
“For now, don’t think about anything. Just sleep.”
“No—no! Hup—”
Along with his tongue, the pill was pushed into her mouth. He pressed down on her struggling tongue to keep her from spitting it out and forced the pill down her throat. The small tablet began dissolving in her esophagus. A bitter taste spread across her tongue.
Disgusted by the bitterness, Su-ah moved her tongue around instinctively and ended up sucking on his. She tried to wash away the awful taste by drinking the saliva that flowed from his mouth.
As if he understood, Tezman gathered more of his saliva and fed it to her, making sure every trace of the bitterness disappeared from her mouth.
Gradually, her mind grew hazy. The emotions that had been boiling up and devouring her sanity slowly settled. Feeling her body sinking, Su-ah blinked slowly. She was sleepy.
The long kiss finally ended when Su-ah’s tongue stopped moving and her body went completely limp.
After laying her neatly on the bed and pulling the covers over her, Tezman licked the saliva from her lips with his tongue. If only she knew nothing. If only she saw only the good things. He wanted nothing else. He only wished for Su-ah to be happy in his arms. Without thinking of anything, thinking only of him.
After gently stroking her hair one last time, Tezman left the bedroom. His expression had turned murderous.
Su-ah would probably sleep deeply. Likely for more than half a day.
Passing through the study and stepping outside, Tezman spoke to Cact, who had been waiting for him, in a voice as cold as ice.
“Mateo.”
As if he had anticipated the question, Cact recited the information he had already gathered.
“He is scheduled to join the boss for lunch today.”
The boss meant his father, Michele. Tezman remembered receiving a call from Michele last night. It must have been an invitation to eat together.
“Perfect.”
Since the call had come, it seemed he should attend. He had a separate purpose, after all.
His gaze drifted toward the bedroom. The image of Su-ah’s tear-streaked face as she cried herself to sleep still lingered before his eyes.
“Do not let her take a single step out of the bedroom. Contact me the moment she wakes.”
“Understood.”
“And.”
A low, bone-chilling voice reverberated through the mansion.
“Increase the number of capos and soldiers. Make sure not a single filthy dog wanders in and out of this estate.”