Czar Gregovivk

"He was right in front of me, and I couldn’t save him." Her low cry grows louder as her eyes fixate on her fingers. "I couldn’t! I should have warned you, asked about that man from Sodoma that Macro was involved with, gone after them, but I didn’t want to break Macro’s trust..."
I hold her face and pull her into my chest as she sobs, her face wet with tears. I stroke her hair, letting her curl up in my lap. I can't ease her pain of feeling guilty for neglecting her friend without having to tell her the truth—that Macro had broken her trust long ago.
"Why did they do this to him?" Mabel grips my shoulder, while I keep my eyes on the still lake, watching the water. "Deep down, I knew that his relationship with that man of faith wouldn’t end well, but I never imagined it would end like this..."
"The police are investigating, Mabel. We will find out what happened," I murmur to her, passing my other hand over her leg, adjusting her body in my lap.
I lie to her again, not telling her that the truth is that Sodoma is handling this, that a large sum of money was paid to the police to cover up the case, that the cover-up turned into an armed robbery, where a young man ended up being killed. But Morgana made a big mistake. If she wanted to make everything disappear, she erred by killing a councilor. We could fix this, refute the evidence, make it look like an accident, as Ramsés ordered it to be done when he saw Sebastian’s lifeless body. His body was placed inside his vehicle, which was then exploded when the car fell off a cliff on a deserted road. The staging of the accident was well done, with tire marks skidding on the road as if he had lost control on the curve; quick, practical, and clean, without raising suspicions—all of this on a Sunday night, to leave no trace of a priest's murder.
This would be what people from the outside world connected to Sebastian would know: that he died in a car accident after losing control of the vehicle. But in Sodoma, the truth was one: someone had killed him. The death of a councilor made the chess pieces move. The meeting of the councilors, which was only a few days away for my trial, was moved to tomorrow night. Jonathan Roy summoned everyone, a risky maneuver on our part to hasten Morgana's next steps. If she was already aware of what I had discovered, Mabel would be her next target, so bringing her to the mansion was the best choice; I had to keep her safe.
"He was scared, he was so afraid... He suffered from the loss..."
"Sebastian, his name was Sebastian. And in his own way, he was a good man; he loved Macro and would never do anything to hurt him." Her head pulls away from my chest, lifting as she looks at me, lost.
"The same person who killed this man also took Macro's life, didn’t they?" Her hand rises, wiping the tears from her face as she looks at me. "Why did she kill them, who is this woman?"
"Who told you it was a woman?" I ask her, raising my hand and holding her face.
"Macro, he talked about a woman, things I didn’t understand, confusing things, just saying that she took his master away, that she would never let him go..." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "My mother, he talked about my mother..."
"Alekessandra?" I inquire quickly, making her look at me as I grip her face tighter, wiping her tears.
"No, Macro spoke about my biological mother; I didn’t understand... Because my biological mother died of an overdose; he knew that. One night, we broke into the orphanage's office because I wanted to know who my real family was, and I found in the records that my mother was a drug addict and died a few months after leaving me at the orphanage."
"Why did Macro talk about your mother, Mabel?" She cries even more, lowering her eyes to her hands.
"I don’t know, I don’t know, sir. She died of an overdose on the streets of New York. Macro was scared, saying nonsensical things, apologizing to me... Then..." She falls silent and bites her lip, crying even harder again, hiding her face in my chest.
I couldn’t get anything more from her because the cry of pain and suffering consumed her. I knew that the boy had gone to find Mabel to tell her something; I just hadn’t discovered what it was yet.
"How is she?" Ramsés asks me softly as I enter the room and see him talking with Jonathan and Baby’s husband.
"I managed to get her to sleep a little," I respond, lifting my eyes to Sieta and Aunt Yelena, who are talking while sitting with Ginger and Baby on the couch. "Who has already responded to the summons?"
"Everyone," Roy tells me. I nod in agreement and put my fingers in my pants pocket. "Tomorrow night, all the councilors of Sodoma will be in Moscow; I asked Dexter for some help in New York."
I look at the serious man, short in stature, standing next to Jonathan Roy, the private detective Dexter. Jonathan claimed he was a trustworthy man who could help us. After talking with him on the phone and explaining to Roy the whole submissive scheme, he decided to get the young man up to speed on these matters. Jonathan thinks that his brother-in-law’s contacts with some New York police officers could help us. In fact, one patrol is surveilling Alekessandra Shot's house, while another is watching who comes in and out of the orphanage where Mabel was left by her mother.

"Look, Roy, I’ve never seen this picture of Dad!" Baby approaches, holding a large, old black book from the library that I had forgotten about. Jonathan turns to look at the photo of his father. "This is Mr. Huslan, Czar's father, Dexter. They were the veterans in the world of Sodoma."
She shows the photo to her husband after Jonathan looks. I observe the photo of their father next to mine, both in suits, holding a drink, at some kind of party.
"Is this Ramsés' father?" Dexter asks, looking at the Egyptian, who shakes his head.
"No, I inherited the chair from my mother. She was from Sodoma." Ramsés falls silent, gazing at the photo for a second.
I look at the black-and-white picture in his hand and notice the man in a light suit next to them, watching him for a long time, someone I also do not recognize.
"This one, if I'm not mistaken, was Petrus..."
"The crazy dog!" my aunt exclaims loudly, laughing, holding a glass of vodka.
I raise my eyes to her, who is pointing at us, making everyone look.
"Your father nicknamed him that." I watch her in silence, paying attention. "A completely lunatic fascist who preached authoritarian and antidemocratic political stances. It was nauseating to hear him talk about racial supremacy."
"You knew him, mother?" Sieta asks, looking at her.
"No, God forbid, I never spoke a word with that man! But unfortunately, I once heard him talking at one of the parties your uncle Huslan held here at the palace."
"Was this photo taken here?" I ask her, taking the album and looking more closely at the man's face. "But I don’t recognize this room."
"Yes, it was taken here at the palace, and you are inside this room." She smiles and opens her arms. "You don’t remember because you were still in your mother’s belly," Aunt Yelena says, turning her eyes to the window. "It was before your father remodeled the place to look like Melissa wanted."
"Your father was a party animal, Czar, more than you are." Baby walks closer to me, looking at the photograph. "So this guy was from Sodoma?"
"Yes, he was a counselor, if I’m not mistaken, one of the old-timers, older than your father and Jonathan's father." Ramsés responds while drinking his drink.
"I’ve never heard of him." I look at Ramsés, seeking an answer. "Petrus was Morgana's husband," he answers me seriously.
"You were a child when he died," Aunt Yelena says softly, making me look at her. "Your parents left you with me to go to his funeral when you were a child. Melissa told me the funeral was with a closed coffin."
"Why?" Jonathan's wife asks, looking at my aunt.
"His death was horrific. The door to his sauna broke, trapping him inside. When they found him, three days later, he was already dead, cooked alive by the hot steam..." she says, pulling at the corner of her mouth.
"Good grief, that’s horrific..." Ginger murmurs, lifting her face to her husband.
"Don’t mourn his death, child; he was a bad man." My aunt stretches out her arm and gives gentle pats on Ginger's hand. "Very bad, three times worse than his wife, who took his place in the chair of Sodoma when Petrus died..."
"Why do you say that?" Sieta asks, keeping her eyes focused on her mother.
"Petrus was a hypocrite. He preached about the superiority of Aryans but kept a black submissive in his house, who lived there as his sex slave..." I see Jonathan's wife’s eyes widen as she stares at my aunt along with Sieta.
"My mother told me about this..." Ramsés says quietly, making me look at him. "His submissive died under very suspicious circumstances. They say he killed the guy when he suspected his wife was sleeping with him without his presence..."
"Morgana..." I say seriously, watching the Egyptian nod in agreement.
"Exactly. He was a disgusting pervert who liked to watch a black man fuck his wife but didn’t like her to sleep with him when he wasn’t present."