Don: The Blood Chains-Chapter 89: Cruel Joke.

After what he had done, what he said to Hana and Amine, nothing really happened. They went to eat out, though it was in the worst atmosphere possible. They were in silence, not even speaking a word anymore, because well, Joseph was more than both of them thought he would be.

It seemed like he was speedrunning his death with all of this shit he had done so far, like if nothing mattered, he just wanted to die while causing chaos.

In their eyes, what he was doing was the exact opposite of what they thought he would do... bundling up an empire, the Cassian family again, but in a new way. Making construction companies, getting contracted with the government, and just stealing millions from them... yeah, how the modern mafia is working... but no, he was doing the opposite.

No business hiding in the shadows, but just straight up going forward, cutting down heads, waging war against everybody who was standing against him... well, he grew up in that world, and moreover, he was jailed because of that world.

His sanity truly broke to pieces. He truly changed, and all of that anger, all of that aggression... is now coming to the surface... and it was just so visible.

At one moment he talked, acted like a fucking monster. The next moment, when they were at the eyesight test, he was like the most wonderful person in the world, sweet words, his behavior up in the notch, calm, sensible... he completely changed. Even at the doctor he was acting all behaved very well... just an hours after he killed a teenager.

"How can he do it?" Hana asked as she looked at Amine as they waited for him.

"I would like to believe that he has a variant of mental illnesses that developed throughout the year... but the worst is... that he is completely sane." She answered Hana as she looked at her. "His father was the same, at least what I read about him, and a lot of people thought he too had mental illness, but no... all of the Cassians were like him."

"You mean—"

"Yeah." She cut Hana off. "He was always like this, and the prison just helped him to explore himself, but it is more a question of how long he can do it." She took a deep breath. "To be honest the agencis could fuck us up at any moment. It’s not like back then, revolvers and shit... modern technology and thousands of examples of how to deal with the mafia, especially one that is reckless and kills everybody."

The truth, not even a single lie in it, just straight facts. In a day, the agencies could wipe out all of them, especially right now when they have no blackmail material which they could just concrete themselves in a position where they are not that easily to be eliminated.

But at the moment, they are the least fucking threat in the country.

"True." Hana sighed. "Thinking about it, we might be the only family that is acting like the old days. Every other crime is in real estate, construction companies, and whatever shit is possible to cover the drug business."

"Yeah, but back then it was like the wild west. Car bombs, drive-bys, there was no police, no rules. They operated in the open. There were city blocks where police didn’t even dare to go in, and I think Joseph is aiming for that, because, well, that’s what he grew up in."

"I don’t think so... I think he doesn’t even have a goal, just wandering like a lost soul." Hana whispered, and it just shut both of them off.

That sentence summed it up the most, as Joseph was like a soul, a ghost just wandering still in this world without purpose, without any goal. A lost soul who should have disappeared long ago but couldn’t, like if something just chained him to the present, to the life of the Cassians.

Yeah, the last ghost of the Cassians.

"I am done." His voice came, pulling both of them out of their thoughts as he stood with two big bags in his hands.

"What are those?" Hana asked as she noticed some medicine in them.

"The doctor said that if I don’t look out, I will die quickly, because my body is not ready and I’m deficient in all of the vitamins. So she gave me vitamin supplements, protein, and so on. She also said I should go to the hospital, as I probably have refeeding syndrome, organ damage, and digestive collapse... though when she realized who I am, he gave me some medicine to help and a lot of other things." Joseph explained calmly, like what he said was nothing, just a little thing.

"Uhh... was it expensive?" That was the only thing Amine could ask, because it was just absurd once again how he acted so calm... when he just told he have all of these fucking problems.

"No, he gave it for free... thought it was strange."

"Strange?" Amine asked back again.

"The human body... the immune system, the way the whole thing works. I didn’t die in that cell, even though I barely had any real nutrition, no proper vitamins, and I didn’t even drink a full liter of water a day. I survived on almost nothing, on neglect, on decay. And now... now I can die just by eating too much. How strange is that?"

It felt almost mocking to Joseph. Back then, his body had clung to life with nothing but stubborn instinct, adapting, enduring, refusing to shut down no matter how little it was given. Pain had been constant, hunger was a normal thing and still, his heart had kept beating.

But now everything was different. Too much food, too much comfort, too much of what was supposed to be good could push him closer to the edge than starvation ever had. As if the body understood suffering better than peace, as if it had been built to endure punishment but not excess.

Like a fucking joke... he lived when he should have died, and now, when he was out in freedom, he could die if he ate too fucking much... what a joke, truly.