Page 26 of The Don's Eternal Vows

I know drawing closer would mean getting snared within it.

Impossible to scale. Inescapable. But then the gates suddenly opens and I walk straight into the Asphodel meadows

One step closer to Genoveva.

In the meadows, the hazy forms drift past me, their muted voices whispering secrets I cannot grasp. I walk right through them, focused only on the path ahead. Genoveva is here somewhere, her soul trapped in this endless twilight, and I will find her.

The path ahead stretches endlessly, a winding trail through a sea of restless souls. As I move deeper into their world, the spirits around me begin to take shape. Their features sharpen, becoming hauntingly familiar. I freeze, my breath catching in my throat as I recognize a face from my past.

"Salvatore," I growl without thinking, my fists clenching at my sides. The spirit of my old rival turns, his ghostly eyes locking onto mine. For a moment, I think he won’t remember.

And then, he says his own name. “Salvatore,” trying it on his lips. “Haven’t heard that in a while.”

It seems as though he’s remembering who he once was.

"Come to join us in eternal torment?" he asks at last, his voice echoing eerily.

I laugh, the sound harsh and bitter. "Not today. I've got unfinished business in the land of the living."

Salvatore's form flickers, his expression twisting with malice. "You always were too stubborn for your own good, Gianni. What makes you think you can challenge death itself?"

My lips curl into a predatory smile. "Love, Salvatore. Something you never understood."

I push past him. More faces emerge from the mist - enemies I've dispatched, rivals I've crushed. Each one a reminder of the blood on my hands. For a moment, I wonder where I’d be led to, on my day of reckoning.

And then, to my utmost surprise, a woman. Old and dreary, I look closer, feeling a pull, and then she comes back to me.

“Lola?”

She freezes and turns. She glides closer, expressionless, and a knot forms in my throat. No! This can’t be! It has to be a mistake.

She was anything but ordinary. She was my world.

She extends a thin, long, shadowy arm and like the olden times, caresses my cheek. She can’t seem to touch me though, her fingers running through. “Familiar,” she whispers, raspy to the ear.

“Yes, yes, Lola,” I cry out loud, reaching out to take her hand, but I can’t. “It’s me, Gianni.”

Lola's hollow eyes bore into mine, a flicker of recognition passing through her ghostly visage. Memories flood back, raw and painful, of a time long gone but never forgotten. She cared for me when I was a child, helping share my mother’s burden.She came as a nanny, but lived out her days with us, never having a family of her own. She sacrificed it all, she deserved heaven. Her presence here, in this desolate realm of lost souls, shakes me to my core.

"You shouldn't be here," Lola murmurs, her voice like a distant echo. "None of us should be here."

"Why are you here, Lola?" I demand, my voice tinged with desperation. "Where is Genoveva? Have you seen her?"

Lola's ethereal form wavers, her gaze unfocused as if peering beyond the veil of this existence. "She's not like us," she whispers cryptically. "Her soul is... different."

The urgency rises within me, fueled by a mixture of hope and fear. I grasp Lola's insubstantial shoulders, pleading for answers. "Tell me, Lola. Please. Where is she?"

“I do not know what I don’t,” she whispers hauntingly. “I cannot say what I do.”

And then, she drifts away. I chase after her but lose her soon in the sea of faces.

"You don't belong here, Montagna," a chorus of ghostly voices hisses. "Turn back while you still can."

“Where?” I scream into the crowd. “Where do I turn to?”

Before I get a response which I doubt I ever would, my gaze locks onto a familiar figure, and my blood turns to ice. The redhead - Paolo Greco's brother, the bastard who took Genoveva from me. His ghostly form shimmers in the gray mist, his hair still as red.

Rage explodes in my chest, white-hot and all-consuming. Without thinking, I charge forward, my fists swinging through the air. "You son of a bitch!" I roar, forgetting for a moment that he's nothing but a specter now.

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