Vinganca E Castigo Page

Joaquim was taken by the villagers—not to the police, but to the empty, scorched shell of the church. They did not beat him. They did not tie him. They simply stood around him, the mothers who had lost children, the fishermen who had lost wives, and they looked at him with an expression worse than hatred: recognition. They saw in his face the same darkness that lived in Gaspar’s heart.

Joaquim’s joy turned to ice.

He saw the church bells begin to toll—not in celebration, but in alarm. He saw the villagers running toward the blaze. And he saw Sofia, his daughter, who had gone to the church to light a candle for Tomás’s soul. The fire consumed the church in an hour. The stone walls remained, but everything inside—the wooden pews, the confessional, the altar, the congregation of thirty-two souls who had come for the evening mass—was ash. vinganca e castigo

Sofia was among them.

Joaquim built a device. It was crude but perfect. A hollowed-out buoy, filled with the crude oil and a tar-soaked wick. Tethered to the seabed by a long chain, with a floating trigger that would snap taut at the exact depth to pull a flint striker. When a boat’s propeller passed over it, the turbulence would pull the trigger, the flint would spark, and the oil would ignite—a geyser of flame directly under the hull. Joaquim was taken by the villagers—not to the

The fire caught the Fortuna ’s fuel tank. The explosion was a hammer of light. A piece of burning debris—a spar of teak the size of a pike—was hurled not into the sea, but inland. It spun, comet-like, and crashed through the roof of the village’s only church, the Church of Santa Maria. The old building, dry as tinder from the summer drought, caught fire in an instant.

The device worked. A muffled thump echoed across the water, followed by a violent whoosh . A pillar of orange and black erupted from the sea, engulfing the Fortuna ’s stern. The yacht lurched, screaming metal against water. Joaquim watched, his heart a drum of savage joy. They simply stood around him, the mothers who

His plan was not born of hot rage, but of cold, patient mathematics. He began to visit the old shipbreaker’s yard two villages over. He bought scrap iron, old engine parts, and barrels of cheap, crude oil. He told no one. By night, he worked in a sea cave, forging and welding.