#coronadotask

Soft static. Then the quiet hum of ambient city noise in the background through an open window — muffled sirens, a car horn, the distant thrum of a train. A long silence before a voice speaks, measured and low.

THE INEVITABLE FALL. Which family do you believe is most likely to collapse first, and why? The centuries-old Del Bosques, the disciplined Shibatas, or the upstart Du Bois?

"If I had to guess who's going first? Del Bosque. Not because they're the weakest — not in the way people think. They've still got history. Money. Land. Legacy etched into the foundation of the city. But that's all it is: foundation. Something buried deep. Old. They've woven themselves so deeply into the identity of the island that most people don’t even see the difference anymore — Del Bosque is Coronado, Coronado is Del Bosque. That's why no one expects them to fall. And that’s exactly why they will." "The Shibatas are ghosts in a room full of mirrors. You never see them unless they want you to. And when you do? It's already too late. Their silence is strategy. Their fear is earned. The Du Bois… they're climbing. There's ambition there. Fire. They want it bad enough to play the long game — to adapt, evolve, whatever it takes. They're not hiding who they are. They're betting on the fact that their way might actually work and who's to say it won't? At least it's something different." "But the Del Bosques? They move like they don't need to try. Like Coronado will always belong to them because it always has. No urgency. No reinvention. Just generations born into power and raised to believe it's permanent. But nothing is. Especially not here. Legacy can keep your name alive but it can't stop the ground from shifting under your feet... I just hope when they go down, they take the Shibatas with them somehow."

PERSONAL VENDETTAS. Does your muse have unfinished business with any particular family member? What happened, and how do they plan to settle the score?

"Katashi Shibata. I’ve known since I found his name scrawled in my brother’s notebook — circled, underlined, once, twice, over and over again. The rest of the page was blank, like the message spoke for itself... Felt like... a whisper from the grave. A final cry for help. A last finger pointing me toward the man who took everything from him... who took everything from me. There was no body... No body, no burial... I didn't even get a proper goodbye. Just… silence. And I've had to live in that silence ever since." She's starting to sound choked up. There's a long pause as she collects herself. But her voice sounds heavier as she continues. "I know what people think — that grief warps truth, that sometimes we go looking for monsters to make sense of the dark. But this isn't guesswork. It's... it's instinct. It's gut. And every time I see that man, something in me stills, like my body already knows what hasn't been proven. I know he did it. I know it. And I might not know how this ends. I don't know if I'll ever get the kind of justice that makes it feel worth it. I don't know if there even is such a thing. Nothing will bring my brother back, I know that. But I also know this: someone has to be held responsible. Someone has to carry that weight. And I will not stop until they do."

THE PRICE OF LOYALTY. What would it take for your muse to betray their current allegiances? Is there a line they won’t cross, even for survival?

"My loyalty isn't to a name or a family crest. Not really. I'm not under any illusions about what those things mean in Coronado. I lean Du Bois because I believe they're the best shot we've got at shaking the rot loose but if they ever gave me a reason to think they're no different than the rest..." "What I am loyal to is smaller. Quieter. The people I care about — and that's a short list these days. I've... I've already lost someone. I know what that grief feels like... how it rewires everything in you... how it bleeds into every crack of your soul... So if it came down to it? If keeping someone safe meant crossing lines I swore I wouldn't? I'd do it. I'd have to. I can live with my own life on the line. I've made peace with that. But theirs? No... no, that's where the line is. That's the one I won't let anyone else cross. I just... I can't stomach losing someone I love like that again..."

DATED 14 JANUARY: THE INEVITABLE FALL. There's a gala, and he is a much younger man, flitting between families and offering his services. There is a palpable electricity in the air—a Del Bosque cousin talking heatedly to a Shibata as the newly arriving Du Bois pair enters the room. It's a loaded powder keg, a bullet in the chamber. A slight is enough to set everyone ablaze. It would be sensible to run, to hide, to douse the flames and stop the clock, but all Dimitri can do is watch, and wait as the fires start to lick at his heels. He belongs to the flame—to the burn and to the warmth all the same; there is nowhere he would rather be. An indictment and a curse, all in one.

Which family do you believe is most likely to collapse first, and why? The centuries-old Del Bosques, the disciplined Shibatas, or the upstart Du Bois?

I don't know anything—number one rule of Coronado. If you think you know anything going on with the Big Three, no you sure as fucking hell don't. But you can place bets, hedge them, hide them, even double-deal, though you'll find yourself at the wrong end of a gun that way. I won't lie, the party was nice, but if I was going to guess, it was a minute away from turning into a bloodbath. Literally and metaphorically. The Du Bois are new, a variable that's certainly turned a lot of heads, and even cut some off. But they'll burn like the rest. The heel of the Del Bosque-Shibata alliance is going to find them, and when it does, they'll just everyone else beneath them: dirt beneath their feet.

DATED 15 FEBRUARY: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. It's two hours after a fight with his wife—his first spouse, the woman that he had wondered if he would spend the rest of your life with. She's someone who Dimitri thought you could grab the moon and stars for, but even then, she takes a look at the bloodied, gleaming things and sighs. She wants to return to a quiet, wonderful life, but quiet and wonderful are for her—not for him, not for the boy who escaped the docks. She can complain about the glittering bodies adorning her face, but she wears it all the same. It will kill your relationship, but if there's one thing Dimitri's familiar with, is how to kill his darlings.

If you’re forced to choose an alliance with one family to guarantee your survival, which would you choose and why?

Someone takes a look at me and pegs me for a Del Bosque man. I got it all, the penchant for older things, wanting classical music and classic things. Living on top and the wealth that comes with it. People would assume that, since they do business with me in the open. But people, I've learned after all my goddamn years, are absolute fucking idiots. Del Bosques are the pretty face, the art and appraiser, but the Shibatas sit on a literal mountain of gold, or so their books tell me, though they're smart enough never to let anyone see. They do have the smarts to sit back and play to the shadows. If power and resources are a numbers game, the Shibatas have everyone beat a hundred to one, and even if I've never been a betting man, those odds are easy to love.

DATED 22 JUNE: POWER PLAY. A hit is ordered, running through the circles of the underworld like wildfire and catching Dimitri by surprise. He contends with the unsavory, but expects it to confine itself to their halls of power, unaware that the halls of power extend everywhere across the isle. He finds people trying to empty out his office, and wonders what they want with it. It takes a call, a favor taken from one of the ones with pull. Tonight, all of the miscreants will be taken out by body bags. Tomorrow, he'll buy a shotgun with a filed off serial number and practice with it. Dimitri will never be caught unaware again.

What’s your prediction for who will control Coronado in five years? Will any of the current families remain, or will we see new players emerge from the ashes?

Like the Del Bosques want us, want me to believe, they are Coronado. I'm hard pressed to argue against it. Coronado is a corpse that drifts along the waves of the ocean, and they're the rot that clings to it no matter the cost. They're a rot I can live with, of course, but I can't see anyone else taking the crown at all. Through hell or high water, Coronado's first and only love are Rafael and his kin. They would sooner sink this rock of an island and destroy what remains than give up any semblance of control. There'll be more Du Bois-a-likes, even if these ones manage to stick around longer than the others. I can't put stock into them, but I'll take their money all the same. Just another pile of gore stuck to the rot of this place. I used to joke that I'd become part of the island one day—I didn't think it would hurt to say.

DATED JAN 25: THE ASSASSINATION. Red. Red. Red. The stocks plummet, the investors fear and all Dimitri can do is allay them and act like this doesn't mess with his plans at all. He expects the Premiers to die like the rest, but not like this. It's dynamite to the knees, it's the stars falling off to heaven, it's salted earth on sainted tongues. Disastrous. Disastrous for many, but not for everyone—he's been in worse spots, after all.

Do you believe the Premier’s assassination was orchestrated by one of the three families? If so, which one and to what end?

I think it's a botch job. If the guy was killed by a family—they all benefit from the cold war running around the streets. No one benefits from a war zone, no one benefits from the fear, at least, in the long run. Fear is poison, and if they want the island to fester and rot, that's on them, but it'd be bad for business. Like salting the earth. If they want to rule over ghosts, I can't stop them, but I can only advise. Why? Well, maybe they needed to shut him up—the Du Bois are good at that, scare tactics, or maybe he just double-crossed someone, tried to renege on the deal. Or play both sides. Maybe the Shibatas wanted a frame job, or were ordered to. Maybe Rafael is finally going to go for Imperator.. A hundred different reasons, all equally plausible, but all I need is my bottom line. All I need is for everything to go back to some semblance of normal, after.

DATED FEB 22: THE PRICE OF LOYALTY. As he turns down for the night, he pets his dog, a fierce and loyal thing. He checks his alarms. He checks his ledgers. He checks the knife under his pillow and the pistol under the bed. Dimitri is no young man anymore—he is old and tired, and he wants to rest, but there is no rest for him. He thinks about the ghost stories that he used to listen to as a child and wonders if the dead would mourn the living, seeing their sorry state. He knows he would.

What would it take for your muse to betray their current allegiances? Is there a line they won’t cross, even for survival?

That only meant his encounter with his family had to be delayed, not forgotten, he would not give up. So, with that in mind, he decided to stay, and after so many years spent moving around, sleeping on the couches of some friends, in cheap lodgings, in abandoned garages and in the worst of days tucked under a blanket and against the outside of a random building, he could finally not only afford getting a place of his own, but he also wanted to put down some roots and bring some balance to his own life.

His place is a mirror that reflects his personality, habits and fears – a gun taped under the sink, a pot of coffee on the counter, money under his mattress, an already used first aid kit in the bathroom, an opened tool box on the floor of the living room and a bed that is rarely made, he leaves in a rush in the mornings but always comes back to his safe place at the end of the day, keeping it not necessarily tidy, but definitely comfortable. Or at least, comfortable enough that some companions feel bold enough to invite themselves and spend the day there — more often than not, Conrad forgets the window open, the one close to the emergency exit and without fail comes home to find stray cats enjoying his furniture, sleeping on his bed and even napping on top of his towels in the bathroom, he doesn't mind them and lets them stay, they are often regulars and he already knows them and suspects a few even belong to his neighbors. They help him not feel as alone as he tends to feel on late nights.

By your own account, your family has been around since the founding of Coronado, with your hands in as many pots, so we have to imagine no one else would know better about what goes on BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. There must be something you can tell us, right? What’s the most damning rumor you’ve heard about any of the families that you actually believe is true?

Due to her occupation, Simone deals in facts, not crazed and untested theories. But there’s something to be said about conspiracy theories– some of those rumors have led to real things. For her, it’s that the special red pigment that Luciana Del Bosque has turned into a signature is the perfect shade of blood red because it uses real blood from a special donor hidden deep in the Del Bosque vaults. They say when it’s fresh, it smells slightly of rust. And one look at anything she’s used it on, anyone can tell that it’s a touch more brown than crimson once it’s dried. 

Given what you’ve shared so far, I think it’s a fair assessment to say that whatever wealth your family has hoarded is technically BLOOD MONEY. No reason to try to call it anything less than what it is. So I’m curious: all three families have blood on their hands, clearly, but whose methods do you find most reprehensible? Whose cause is most justified?

The D’s both know violence like they invented it, there’s no denying that. But, if Simone’s being honest, run-of-the-mill, brute force physical pain is nothing compared to the slowly festering cruelties that the Shibata’s have turned into an art. How many times has she seen the way their special brand of financial torture turns honest people into desperate shells? How many more everyday people will be drained of every last marca and then discarded? Thrown to the filth and ruin that made up the worst parts of Row’s End. Left to waste away into nothing but poison dust– all while they hide away on that little, shrouded island of theirs. Safe and satisfied behind all that’s rumored to inhabit it.  It’s why she’s so taken up with the Du Bois’s mission. They fight people like that. The ones who make decisions for the destitute behind gilded bars and high walls. They weren’t born with the power they have, they took it. Brought the wronged together with the promise of bringing more than just a little overdo justice, and followed through with it. Are still following through with it. This revolution has been long in the making, and Simone believes the Du Bois will bring them to glory. 

Now, obviously I would be remiss to not ask your professional opinion about THE ASSASSINATION. Do you believe the Premier’s assassination was orchestrated by one of the three families? If so, which one and to what end?

Immediately, Simone wants to blame the Del Bosque’s. But that’s another instance of her bias showing. Admittedly, she can’t think of a good reason for them to be behind it all. Sure, they’ve never needed a good reason to do anything awful before, but this feels extreme even for them. She just doesn’t buy the ‘needed to get rid of their own puppet before he could talk’ theory. If they wanted a clean slate, they wouldn’t have used such a loud method. No, whoever did this wanted to make a statement– which sounds like something out of the Du Bois handbook, sure. But she knows, has been assured even, that this wasn’t them. That knocks two thirds of the most powerful three families on the island off the list. But if the Shibata’s care about more than just the flow of money, why would they only make noise now? Simone can’t make sense of it.

You know the old saying: what goes up must, eventually, come down. So let’s talk about THE INEVITABLE FALL. Which family do you believe is most likely to collapse first, and why? 

Simone has a vested interest in seeing the Del Bosque’s empire crumble to the ground. She’s got an active role in the scheme too. She has to believe the Du Bois will lead the revolution to victory. She has to believe that her father’s death will be avenged. Without that hope, she doesn’t know who she is.

It certainly feels like there’s going to be a major POWER PLAY at work here, sooner or later. What’s your prediction for who will control Coronado in five years? Will any of the current families remain, or will we see new players emerge from the ashes?