Benjamin was mindblown by it, by all of it as he thought more and more about it. About the beginning, about the files he had read on James, about the facts that he had known about him. The fact that James wasn’t making any bold moves, wasn’t doing what others in his position would have done. He wasn’t aiming for something much bigger or greater at least, there hadn’t been any sign of it.
But now, everything is different. And the question in James’s mind was, when? When did James realize all of it?
Who knows, maybe he knew it all the time, maybe when his house got shot up, maybe when he was in a coma, when he truly was alone in the darkness, fighting for his life, when the chance was there that he would never wake up. Or even if he wakes up, he will become paralyzed, he will never walk again... maybe that thought was what caused him to think in a wider spectrum.
The thought that he would never be able to pay back what they did to Rafael, what they did to Hans. The thought that he would never be able to get those people who were responsible for their deaths. The thought was there the moment he woke up from the coma, the moment he screamed Rafael’s name but he never walked through that door, when he realized he would never hear his voice again.
Maybe it was way back, when Marcello died. When the only true friend he had, who he could truly trust... yeah, they struggled together to become something that their parents would be proud of... but in the end, they both lost what they aimed for.
Marcello died while James lost everything around him, while he lost himself.
The moment when he realized that living this life, to be somebody who is so influential and so dangerous that he’s bending the lines between two worlds, bending the line of what a human is capable of doing... the realization was always there, it was deep down in him, he knew it but almost pushed it down inside himself. He didn’t want this role, he didn’t want to become a monster, didn’t want to become a feared gangster of the country, he never wanted to be the one that stands on the top, on the peak looking down on what he achieved.
Total chaos and control.
But he knew it, and even saw it playing out before him. The circle was made to chain him down, to not let him run around and do whatever he wants to do, and of course, he knew it, at least thought about the whole meaning of it. Not just that, but the fact that Hector literally built up a whole drug trafficking route, he built up a whole production line in another country with camps, with labs, with plantations supplying the country with the purest of the pure drug... it was all before his eyes, that this is what greatness is, this is what is the road to the peak... when the fucking government is making a whole ass agency to control you, a whole ass agency to be able to get a grip on you...
He knew all along that, or more like he became exactly what he never wanted to be, and his aim was no longer just to become what he pretended to be, because he did it a long time ago, without him even knowing. He already abandoned the mask when he killed the first time... it was not pretending but the feeling inside of him, the need to rule over everything, to control every single corner of the underworld and do whatever he wants to do in calmness knowing that not even one motherfucker would go against him, that not even one person would stand in front of him blocking his way.
To truly achieve peace.... everything needs to be his. Everything needs to be controlled by him.
And now all of this bullshit that’s happening is just truly pushing him toward this idea, toward that feeling inside of him, that there is nothing left but to take total control and he has all the needs right now, he has all the weapons and all the tools in his hands.
He’s no mastermind. He doesn’t know shit about how the drug is made. He doesn’t know who cooks it, who moves it, or who’s in charge of which territory right now. He doesn’t know the smuggling routes or which politician takes which envelope.
He’s not a criminal genius, but what he is... is something far more dangerous.
James doesn’t need to know the details, because the people who do know, they work for him. Out of fear, out of loyalty, or because they know that crossing him means losing everything. He doesn’t run operations, he doesn’t build networks. He becomes the reason they stay together.
So how the fuck is that possible? How does a man like that end up at the top of a criminal underworld he barely understands?
Because he never needed to know the rules. He wasn’t raised in this life, didn’t inherit a name, or a reputation, or a family legacy. What he had was nothing, what he did was lie.
That was the trick, that was the start. A bluff so bold it became real.
He moved like a man with blood on his hands and nothing to lose, and when no one stopped him, he truly became unstoppable, but he didn’t do it alone.
James’ not the one who built the empire. It’s the men and women around him. The killers, the smugglers, lab workers, those out on the fields. His only job is to keep them in line, make sure loyalty is bought with fear or respect, whatever it takes because without those people, he’s nothing.
But with them backing him?
He’s on another level, the man who bent those fine lines, the man who started the new era.