Destiny's Game*-Chapter 58: Fragments of Louis.

Bill’s POV

Those years changed him.

Louis stopped fighting openly. He listened, nodded, obeyed—at least on the surface. He became what his father wanted everyone to see: quiet, cold, precise. But I knew better. I saw the way his hand trembled before he picked up a knife. I heard the way his breath caught whenever footsteps echoed down the hallway too loudly.

He was becoming a perfect heir to the Alvara name...

...but inside, he was still just a child trying not to break.

As he got older, his rebellions became different. Not loud. Not dramatic. Louis was too smart for that. Instead, he would delay an order by a few seconds longer than necessary. He would "misplace" important files. He would give the wrong report, just subtly enough to frustrate but not incriminate.

Small, quiet acts of defiance.

Like a trapped animal testing the bars of its cage.

Charles helped without realizing it. That boy—bright, chatty, annoyingly hopeful—was Louis’ anchor. Whenever his father pushed him too far, Louis would slip away and find Charles, and somehow his breathing would steady again.

But the older Louis grew, the more dangerous everything around him became.

One night, when Louis was thirteen, his father summoned him to the training hall again.

Another "test."

Another lesson in becoming a weapon.

When Louis returned, his shirt was soaked in blood that wasn’t his. He stood before me silently, eyes blank, shoulders stiff. I’d seen that look many times in many men... but never in a child.

"Bill," he whispered, voice shaking so faintly I almost missed it, "tell me I’m not becoming him."

I wiped the blood from his hands, the way you clean a wound.

"You aren’t," I said.

And I forced myself to believe it.

That night, Louis didn’t cry.

He didn’t sleep either.

He just sat beside me, staring at the floor, clutching my sleeve like the six-year-old who once called me "mum."

It was the first sign—

Louis was beginning to fracture.

And the Alvara household was too blind, too cruel, or too proud to notice.

At some point... Louis stopped flinching.

The first time he smiled after a mission, it scared me more than anything his father had ever done. It wasn’t a cruel smile—no, that would’ve been easier to accept. It was calm. Quiet. Almost peaceful.

He had gotten used to it.

The blood.

The screams.

The silence afterwards.

And that terrified him.

He never said it out loud, but I saw the shame in the way he washed his hands too many times, the way he refused to meet his own reflection, the way he hugged Charles a little too tightly after every mission—as if trying to remind himself he was still human.

But the truth was simple:

Louis had learned to find relief in violence.

Comfort in control.

Peace in the aftermath.

He hated that part of himself.

He feared it.

But he couldn’t stop it either.

It was the only thing in the Alvara household that made sense anymore.

Then Michael was introduced.

Louis was fourteen; Michael sixteen.

Handpicked, trained, polished—a perfect young soldier, sharper than the knives he carried. He had already killed more people than Louis had met.

Michael wasn’t like Charles.

He wasn’t soft.

He wasn’t innocent.

He looked at Louis and didn’t see a child—he saw potential.

For the first time, Louis met someone who didn’t judge that dark part of him. Someone who understood the thrill of it, the twisted peace it brought. Someone who didn’t flinch when Louis’ mask slipped.

Louis hated that too.

Hated how easy it was to talk to Michael.

Hated how Michael could say "Good job" after a mission and actually mean it.

But most of all, he hated that Michael didn’t fear him.

That unsettled him the most.

Because up until then, Louis believed the darkness inside him was a monster only he could feel.

Michael looked at him like it was a crown.

Louis didn’t trust Michael at first.

Of course he didn’t—Louis trusted no one except Charles and, on rare days, me.

But Michael approached him in a way no one else ever had.

Not with softness like Charles.

Not with authority like his father.

Not with distance like everyone else.

Michael approached him like an equal.

And Louis... responded.

At first it was small things—sparring sessions that lasted too long, quiet conversations in the hallway after missions, the way Louis’ shoulders relaxed around Michael in a way they only ever did around Charles.

Then it grew.

They trained together.

Ate together sometimes.

Shared the same silence, the kind made between people who understood each other without needing words.

Michael had this unnerving ability to calm Louis during those episodes—when the bloodlust hovered too close to the surface, when Louis felt that old shame choking him. Michael never comforted him like Charles would have, with hugs and soft words.

No.

Michael grounded him with cold logic, steady eyes, and a simple:

"You’re fine. You’re alive. Focus."

Louis hated that it worked.

And Charles noticed.

He didn’t understand it—not the darkness, not the violence, not the sickening peace Louis found in the aftermath. Charles tried, he always tried, but he was too gentle to fully grasp it.

And Louis didn’t want him to.

Because Charles was the part of Louis that was good.

The part he wanted to protect from the monster he feared he was becoming.

So he kept Charles at a slight distance.

Not enough for Charles to feel abandoned...

Just enough for him to feel confused.

Michael, on the other hand, slipped into the cracks Louis didn’t know he had.

They became close—dangerously close.

Not emotionally, not romantically... but in a way that made Louis feel understood for the first time in his life.

I remember the first time I saw them laughing together—a rare, sharp laugh from Louis, the kind he only made when he let his guard slip. Charles froze in the doorway, eyes confused and a little hurt.

Louis didn’t notice.

He was too busy matching steps with Michael, mind working on a level Charles couldn’t follow.

And for the first time, I realized something:

Michael wasn’t just becoming Louis’ comrade.

He was becoming his shadow.

The one who walked beside his darkness...

while Charles followed the light Louis kept pushing away.

I watched them all grow.

Louis with his sharpened edges and quiet storms.

Michael with his steady eyes and dangerous understanding.

And Charles... soft-hearted, sun-bright Charles.

Charles, who had always been drawn to Louis like a moth to a flame—

but somewhere along the way, it changed.

He didn’t just admire Louis.

He didn’t just follow him.

He fell for him.

Slowly.

Boldly in small ways, timidly in others.

He watched Louis the way someone reads a book they never want to finish.

He memorized the things Louis liked—how he preferred silence over chatter, how he hated being touched without warning but leaned into it when he trusted you, how his mask slipped only when he was exhausted or safe.

Charles listened to every word Louis said.

Every order.

Every complaint.

Every quiet mutter.

Not because he feared him—never that.

Because he loved him.

Loved the boy behind the cold control.

Loved the softness Louis was terrified to show the world.

Loved the loyalty buried beneath all the violence and training.

And I...

I was happy for them.

Truly.

In a house like the Alvaras’, love was rare.

Unheard of.

Dangerous.

But those two boys found something—something warm, something fragile, something real—in the middle of all that steel and blood.

Louis never noticed.

Or maybe he did, and he pretended not to.

Because Louis was always afraid of wanting something he could lose.

But Charles...

Oh, that boy loved him with the kind of devotion that could move mountains—or break him entirely.

And I stood there, always watching, always quiet, feeling something swell in my chest.

Pride.

Fear.

Hope.

Because maybe—just maybe—Louis would have something in his life that wasn’t pain or duty or darkness.

Maybe he’d have someone who loved him simply because he was Louis.

Unfortunately...

the Alvara household didn’t accept Charles.

Not really.

Oh, they accepted his presence—another Alpha child in the family made for good image, for good power, for good politics.

But acceptance?

Belonging?

Warmth?

None of that was ever meant for him.

To the household, Charles was an outsider with a pretty face and a good pedigree.

A tool.

A trophy.

A backup plan if Louis ever broke under the pressure.

Everyone except Louis and his parents kept him at arm’s length.

Servants bowed to him but whispered behind closed doors.

Guards respected his strength but never trusted him with real information.

Relatives smiled for show but looked at him like he was an intruder.

He was tolerated, not embraced.

And I saw it eat at him sometimes—quietly, privately.

Not with tantrums or complaints, but in the way he clasped his hands too tightly during family dinners.

In how he froze when older Alvara members dismissed him with a look.

In the way his shoulders tensed every time someone addressed him as "the adopted one" instead of his name.

But Louis...

Louis loved him.

Openly? No.

That wasn’t Louis’ way.

Louis was made of masks and sharpness.

But he made space for Charles.

Real space.

Louis would talk to him when others ignored him.

Sit beside him when others pretended he wasn’t there.

Share meals, share silence, share warmth—simple gestures, but in the Alvara household, those gestures meant everything.

And Charles clung to that.

He didn’t love Louis because he was accepted by him.

But because Louis was the only person who saw him as more than a convenient decoration.

And I...

I pitied the boy.

Not because he was weak—he wasn’t.

Not because he was sensitive—though he was, in the best way.

But because loving Louis came with a cost.

The kind of cost that only an Alvara heart could pay.

And Charles...

poor Charles didn’t yet understand how high that price could climb.

When Louis turned eighteen... everything changed.

The Alvara estate had always been a kingdom of shadows, but that day—

that exact day—

the shadows bowed to him.

He officially took over his father’s business.

Not a branch of it.

Not a training sector.

Not a testing ground.

All of it.

The entire empire.

The throne of blood and influence that swallowed men twice his age whole.

He became the head of the Alvaras.

The decision shocked the outer circles—uncles, distant cousins, old business partners with swollen egos and thinning patience.

They’d thought he would be eased into power.

Guided.

Controlled.

But Louis didn’t need easing.

And he needed no guide.

His father stepped aside with a proud, terrifying smile—because he knew what he had created.

A weapon polished to brilliance.

A ruler with the mind of a strategist and the heart of a survivor.

The ceremony wasn’t grand.

The Alvaras never wasted extravagance on tradition.

It was private, almost silent, like a coronation done in the dark.

Louis stood before his father, head held high, expression unreadable.

I stood behind him—his shadow, his insurance, his quiet blade.

"From today," his father said, voice deep and steady, "this empire listens to you."

Louis didn’t nod.

Didn’t bow.

Didn’t tremble.

He simply said,

"Good."

And the room—full of dangerous men, powerful alphas, distant relatives who had always assumed they’d hold authority—fell silent in a way that tasted like fear.

Because they realized something crucial:

Louis wasn’t taking control.

He already had it.

And now it was official.

I watched him step into that role—the role he had been shaped for since he could walk—and all I could think was:

He’s perfect for this.

And he’s still only eighteen.

But the world didn’t care about his age.

He became judge, ruler, decision-maker.

Every command he gave was obeyed.

Every order executed with terrifying speed.

Every enemy silenced.

Even Charles, strong Alpha Charles, looked at him differently that day.

With shock.

With awe.

With something deeper—something that made Charles swallow hard every time he watched Louis speak with authority.

Louis wasn’t just the heir anymore.

He was the King of the Alvaras.

And everyone...

even those who had loved him since childhood...

realized that his power was not something you could stand beside without consequences.