One Last Rainy Day: The Legacy of a Prince

“Every time Tobias dismisses me, he fails us…them—all of us. At one point, I prided myself on being the one capable of gaining access to anything I desired. Now it feels like a fucking curse—with a weight I’ll never be able to lift.”

This line helps to characterize Dom and the emotional weight under which he’s living throughout the duration of the text. He says that he’s gained access to information that he cannot share with anyone because he believes no one else could bear this metaphorical weight. In choosing to manage it alone, he aligns himself with an archetype of masculine stoicism, which ultimately proves harmful to his mental health and to his community.

“What’s whirring around in my psyche is equivalent to the magnitude of ten atom bombs, and I can’t utter a fucking word.”

Dom uses hyperbole to compare the enormity of the secret he’s keeping to 10 of the most destructive weapons humans have. This comparison suggests just how volatile and violent the knowledge is, the power it has to destroy, emphasizing the psychic toll of Dom’s choice to wrestle with it alone.

“Inside the house in front of me resides a monster who stole my childhood by plotting my parents’ deaths for seeing him beneath his carefully placed veil. Who covered up their murders and brushed their children away like debris with a payoff.”

When Dom takes Cecelia to her father’s house, his thoughts about Roman reveal how angry and resentful Dom still is. That his feelings have been simmering inside him for all this time, affecting his view of the world and himself, displays The Corrosive Power of Vengeance. He can’t move on when he is so focused on revenge. It also demonstrates The Moral Ambiguity of Vigilante Justice as Dom wants to rid the world of a “monster”; while he views this intention as a justification for violence, the moral authority he grants himself is more than he can psychologically sustain.