"Boss, do you wanna drink a Jack Daniel?" The three of us heard a very familiar voice but had not been heard in a while. That was Khalil.
"Not today" Nicolo smirked.
"What is the most important thing that reminded you of me after about 19 years?" Khalil started to wipe off the patches which had been made with black oil with a piece of cloth.
"I'm really in a trouble. I need your help" Nicolo looked directly at Khalil. His words were a request but, in his eyes, it was a command.
"What do you want me to do?" It was natural for Khalil to have a deep respect for Nicolo.
"You supply drugs to Dexter Venus, right? Now, don't say no. I know; you are the biggest drug dealer in the whole country" I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Yes, yes, so" Khalil rolled his eyes at me.
"Stop supplying him drugs, that's all I want from you" Nicolo's eyes turned red with blood as he remembered the fire Dexter had set on his family.
"But why?" Khalil raised his eyebrows at us.
"Why is that for you?" Pius frowned.
"That's right. I don't want to know it" Khalil shrugged and placed the hammer that was in his hand on a nearby barrel.
"My son is also caught in Dexter's drugs network," said Nicolo in a low voice.
"What! A son? Does that mean you married that little girl?" Khalil was amazed to hear that and Nicolo nodded at him as he was assuring that Khalil was right.
"Ok, boss, I'll do as you say," Khalil said as he bit his lower lip. He talked with us but was stuck in a great deal of confusion.
"I'll pay for your amount, any amount" Nicolo got off from the bonnet.
"Boss, you don't have to pay me. I'm not a man who works only for money. I still respect you, even your name. I do this help for that honor. No matter how dirty I am, I also have policies" What Khalil said was true. Nicolo committed the crimes but treated the people who worked under him so well that everyone respected him.
"Thanks, man" Nicolo gave him a bro hug.
"But there's a problem. If I stop the supply all of a sudden, he may suspect me" Khalil made an opinion.
"He must be unaware of this somehow," said Pius.
"Let's stop the supply little by little without stopping the supply at once. I'll be able to create a small gap in the middle of the supply chain. I'll take care of it" I rubbed my hands together.
"If there's anyone in this world who can do illegal things legally, it's only you, Amelia. So, I trust you. Then I agree to do that" Khalil saluted me sarcastically.
"Thank you so much for agreeing to this work. Start within a week" Nicolo ran his fingers through his hair while he was walking towards the door.
"Goodbye" Pius and I waved at Khalil as we followed the path which Nicolo had gone. Khalil leaned against a barrel with a small smile on his face and waited for us to leave.
"I feel sad to leave our old city" Before I got in the car, I looked up at the vast sky.
"Who said, we've got out of here right now? Don't you want to go to our old house?" Nicolo sat after I sat in the back seat.
"What?" Pius' eyes widened.
"You told us you sold it" I looked at Pius and he was also staring at my face in amazement.
"Can it be sold like that? They're still important things left in it" He took charge of the steering wheel with one hand and wiped the sweat dripping from his forehead.
"Oh my god! I can't even imagine this" Nicolo saw in the front mirror how my face was shrunken.
"I can't wait to get there" Pius was as happy as a kid who got a toy he had been eagerly waiting for for a long time.
...After half an hour...
Our old house was in the middle of a large garden. As the car drove a little further, I saw a large dark tree with spreading leaves on a hill. That was where I used to pay when I was a kid. As the car drove through the canopy of trees, our old home was engulfed in our view. The uninhabited house was invaded by vines and waterbodies.
"We need to go to the basement now" Nicolo walked through the bushes to the back of the house. The two of us followed him without any idea. "Pius" Nicolo gave a signal to a Pius. At Nicolo's signal, Pius began to work, raising the door that had been covered with mud. There were two ways to access the basement, one outside the house and the other inside the house. We had no way to use the way inside the house since we had no way to enter the house. Eventually, Pius managed to raise the door and cut the vines around the lock with his pocket knife.
"So, ladies first" Pius looked at me while he was rubbing his hands on his pant.
"Well," I stepped to the door to the ground.
"Are you crazy? Who knows what kind of animals are inside this" Nicolo stopped me from going inside by grabbing my hand. "I'll go first" Nicolo crouched down and crawled into the basement.
"Come in" He shouted from the inside so we both entered the basement after running down the dilapidated metal stairs.
"Um, the smell here" Pius sniffed.
"Where's our weapon safe" Nicolo looked at me. He knew that my memory was good.
"Next up, in the second corridor" I pointed to that side. Entering that corridor full of spider webs, we had to move on, removing spider webs. We could reach the weapon safe.
"Okay so how do you open this now?" Pius crossed his arms over his chest.
"That's what you have to do" Nicolo looked at Pius over his shoulder.
"How do I? The other one, without any tool?" Pius shrugged.
"But you are the only one who knows how to break the biological defense systems. It's now inactive. What to do now? It's imperative that I open this up. Urr...this fucking safe" Nicolo was restless.
"Hey, boys, I think it opened" I drove their attention to the safe.
"How did you?" Nicolo looked at me in a confusion.
"I used the password," I said with a little pride.
"Do you still remember that? What is it?" Nicolo asked as he stared at the lockers in the safe.
"i12kissu" I also drove my attention to the safe.
"What a silly password" Pius rolled his eyes.
"There's no weapon in this, what are you seeking for?" I placed my hand on Nicolo's shoulder to get his attention.
"This" When he took his hands out of the safe, he had a diary in his hand. It was a very familiar diary to me because my brother Nicolo used this when he was like 15 or 16. When he wasn't using that diary, it was with me and I couldn't how he had put that diary in the safe, maybe before we left MA. Among the discolored pages, mold was bound, subject to the law of nature. Some of the pages turned to dust when he touched them with his fingertips and fell off, subject to mite infestation. Nicolo opened a red envelope between two pages and pulled out a photograph that was slightly clearer.
"Who're those?" Pius peeked over Nicolo's shoulder and looked at the photograph. I also approached Nicolo because I wanted to see clearly who was in it. In that photo, there were three boys and a girl.
"Guess" Nicolo ran his fingers on that photo.
"This is you...and....this is Enrico" I pointed to two boys who were in that photo. Nicolo was about 15 years old when the photo was taken.
"Can you figure out who this is?... This is Andrea" Nicolo bit his lower lip.
"Oh my God!" Pius' jaw had dropped.
"Then this is Oliver, that old friend of yours? I remember, he suddenly disappeared" I pointed to the boy who we did not recognize. Nicolo gave me a look so that I could get an idea about my question. Yeah, I was correct.
"But his real name isn't Oliver but Dexter" We could barely hear the last words Nicolo said as he swallowed them.
"What the actual fuck?" Pius snatched the photo from Nicolo's hand.
"I knew neither that Oliver and Andrea were Venus' children nor they were brothers. I left Venus' gang because he tried to molest Amelia. That's all. Even after I formed my own gang, I didn't work against him because I lived with help of that man for about two years. I'm not a forgetful beast. He was the one who came to bother me and forcibly destroyed" Nicolo rubbed his lower lip with his thumb as if trying to erase memories of the past.
"The situation is dire. That means Dexter knows you well" Things we could not imagine, I wondered how could that happen.
"How do I find Soren? Even if I find him, how can I explain to him what happened to him?" Tears welled up in Nicolo's eyes because of the unconditional love he had for his son.
"You aren't alone, we're here" I placed my hand on his shoulder and made him look at me.
"Nicolo wasn't someone who gives up anything easily. This time we want that old Nicolo," said Pius. Nicolo looked at us, wondering if it was time to reawaken his violent youth.
After spending another hour or so in our old home, we left, physically saying goodbye to old memories,
.... At Dexter's house...
"Hey boy, can't we do something like this? Jack, The boy who was beaten by Soren at the school. I think, he is waiting to take revenge on Soren. Tomorrow night is the best time. Tell Jack to stab Soren" Dexter smiled cruelly, showing his teeth which had been discolored by smoking.
"It's good. I'll tell Jack to get ready" Diego smiled and that could make his veins stretch near his collar bones which had shrunk due to the drug use.
.... At the college...
"Is Soren in such a big problem?" Diana mumbled. Soren explained to Diana what had happened to Soren as promised.
"Yeah, I'm sorry" Shawn looked at the ground.
"I never thought that would happen. He isn't a bad person although he's playful. What will happen to his education if he is ruined like this? You also know that there are only two weeks left for the final exam. Soren hasn't been to college in about two weeks. What if he failed the final exam?" Diana widened her eyes.
"You're the one who can help Soren this time?" Shawn was flipping through his chemistry book, looking for something.
"How could I?" Diana got up from the bench where she was sitting.
"You can" Shawn handed her a piece of paper. Diana unfolded the folded piece of paper. Looking at it for a few seconds, there were thousands of emotions in Diana's eyes. It had a pencil art drawn by Soren. Below that was Soren's signature.
"I think you might understand something. The decision is yours. I'm going then. See you tomorrow" Shawn said and left, leaving Diana to think of something. Sitting on a bench in the shade of the willow tree, Diana began to think about the fate of the artist who had sketched her so wonderfully and skillfully.
"I do what I think is best" She carefully put the piece of paper that Shawn had given her in her bag and got up and left to go home, enslaved by many emotions she could not even comprehend.