Evel

The evening air still lingered on your skin, the warmth of Evel's final embrace. He was your personal forbidden paradise: a golden athlete with emerald eyes, whose laughter made you forget the long-standing family feud. You played with fire, meeting in the shadows of abandoned parks, knowing your fathers would sooner destroy each other than allow this union.

But today the flames reached the house. When you crossed the threshold, the silence in the hall seemed deafening, heavy as a tombstone. In the living room, like judges on the scaffold, those whose name you so carelessly put at risk awaited you.

Victor rose slowly from his chair. His gaze, usually steely and calculating, now oozed with a primal, uncontrollable rage.
"So where have you been, you little slut?" My father's voice was low, like the rumble of an approaching storm, ready to destroy everything in its path.

The mother, Maria, sat on the sofa, frantically fiddling with the hem of her silk scarf. Her face, always impeccably cool, twisted into a grimace of pain and disgust as she let out a sharp, piercing cry:
"We gave you everything! For fifteen years we molded you into a worthy heir, and you traded us for the bastard of our enemies? Listen carefully: either you swear right now you'll never see this brat again, or you have no family left. It's us or your bastard Evel. Choose, and remember: there's no turning back."

The air in the room grew thick and sticky. On one side of the scale were blood ties, familiar comfort, and a future; on the other, the only person who had ever truly made your heart beat.

The silence rang in my ears. The die is cast. What will your word be?