Birth of Diablo

(ROMEO)

I slowly opened my eyes and found myself staring up at the bulb in the ceiling. The room felt familiar—familiar in a way that I did not like. The stale scent of antiseptic clung to the air, mixing with the faint metallic tang of old blood. My wrists ached, phantom pain from past bindings, even though I wasn't tied up now.

I kept staring straight up, praying to a God I don't believe in that I was wrong. But deep in my belly, a feeling curled tight like a coiled snake, whispering that I was right.

I was back in the lion's den.

I was afraid that if I turned my head, I would confirm the truth. So I closed my eyes.

(IVAN)

Ivan played back the video recording again for what must have been the hundredth time now. The blue glow from the screen reflected in his sharp eyes, but his mind was elsewhere, still trying to process what he was seeing.

He still could not fathom how this almost timid 21-year-old boy had taken charge of a machine gun and singlehandedly taken out up to 24 ex-mercenaries. The sheer absurdity of it gnawed at his logic.

"What is he made of? And that girl? He must be in love with her," he muttered to himself, his hand stroking his chin. "So this is the so-called power of love, huh?"

The look on the boy's face as he handled the gun was berserk—eyes dark with rage, mouth set in a snarl. He had moved with a strange, animalistic precision, each shot finding its mark as if guided by an unseen force.

"He must have the blood of Vikings. The blood of Diablo," Ivan thought, restarting the video again.

"This boy is not a human being. This is the devil himself. I'm going to harness that power of darkness."

He exhaled slowly, pressing his fingers against his temples.

"Diablo Gato," he murmured, scribbling the initials "DG" on a sticky note on his desk.

Ivan was correct to be shaken. All his best men were either dead or receiving treatment, most of them in critical condition.

Victor, his head of security, had taken a bullet to the chest and lost a lot of blood, but he was going to pull through.

Was it sheer luck that all the bullets missed the boy? Or was it some black magic that deflected them? Was it skill? Was he a secret mercenary? A government experiment? So many questions.

The answers could not be found in the video clip he had recorded while parked at a safe distance from the battle zone. He could only watch in silence.

Romeo is no pet. This was a war machine. A one-man army.

Seeing is believing, yet he somehow could not believe what he was seeing. This boy was a maniac.

And now he knew what lured the devil out—the fish that lured the cat out. The red button that switched Romeo the boy into Diablo Gato, the war machine.

It was the girl, Emi.

Ivan now wanted that button in his hands even more than before. He would have to capture the girl even if it meant losing a hundred men. Diablo Gato's ferocity was worth more than a thousand. He was Dracula in human flesh.

Once he had the girl, he could turn Romeo into a bulldog he could unleash on command.

His mind momentarily shifted back to Romeo's beautiful body as the bathrobe dropped to the floor the other night. He had loved what he saw—the way the dim lighting cast subtle shadows over defined abs, the way lean muscles tensed and flexed as Romeo reached for a towel.

He felt his pants tighten as his cock pushed against his zipper at the thought.

He still thirsted for Romeo.

The thought of bending him over, pressing him against silk sheets, pinning his wrists down as he took him apart piece by piece—it sent a slow, dangerous heat curling in his gut.

Only so much more now.

(SATOSHI)

The second squad of cars drove back into the compound and pulled into the garage, all coming to a screeching halt with the application of emergency brakes.

The sharp scent of burnt rubber filled the air. The chaos was instant—men shouting over one another as they unloaded their dead comrades and hurriedly transferred the few remaining survivors to the medical suite within the villa. The air was thick with blood, sweat, and the faint sterility of antiseptics.

Satoshi had an entire in-house surgical team for such emergencies, but even they looked grim.

Of the first squad of cars, none made it back. They had all been disabled. Half of his men were dead. The other half had critical injuries.

He planned to put them out of their misery after interrogation. Classic Satoshi.

The injured men all told the same tale.

The tale of a possessed madman spraying bullets without missing a mark. The tale of a one-man army—the devil incarnate. The tale of Diablo Gato.

A boy turned monster.

Satoshi poured himself a glass of whiskey, his hands steady despite the storm brewing inside his head.

At that moment, Satoshi knew he had created a monster. A monster that would soon be baying for his blood.

The omertà could not save him now.

He would have to put down the monster before the monster put him down. He would have to hunt down his prey before his prey turned him into prey.

That night, he slept with a gun under his pillow.