Rage. That's the only words that could describe what Ian Rider felt when he learned of the death of his brother. Blown up on the way to start his new life with his wife and child. Ian thought it had a grim poetic justice about how no matter who you are, you never get out of the spy game once you've been sucked in.
It hurt Ian every day when he looked into Alex Rider's face knowing that the people who killed this child's father was never going to get what they deserved.
Ian had every opportunity to go into SCORPIA and take down the people that took his brother away from him. But each time he steadily refused, not that he wasn't tempted.
No, each time a SCORPIA mission came up Blunt offered it to him but each time he just couldn't bring himself to accept it. Some people might think it was cowardly, saying he was too much of a wimp to take on a organization that managed to take out the great John Rider. But Ian knew for a fact that fear had nothing to do with it. He accepted each mission that he took that it could be his last.
Rider was a very hated name in SCORPIA and Ian knew better than to rock the boat.
Not out of fear, of course, but out of responsibility.
He had a child to think about. How Alex Rider managed to get him wrapped around his little finger Ian will never understand. The boy had managed to do it though. Alex brightened his day every time he had come home from a gruesome mission. Whether he was depressed or angry about the turn of things Ian's mood always mellowed out when his nephew would come up to him and greet him home with a hug. The hugs weren't as frequent as the boy got older. When Alex was little he didn't understand that his work would take him away but as the teen got older he began to accept the fact that Ian was away a lot, it was a normal routine for the boy. When Ian got a phone call from his private phone line it meant his uncle was going to be gone for awhile.
Alex always grounded Ian. Put his priorities in order when Ian himself couldn't seem to make it fit.
He knew some people in the workplace judged him for not getting revenge on SCORPIA but some did have kids and knew that they came first. He knew for a fact John would have understood.
Rider refused to let SCORPIA screw Alex's life up more than they already had. Alex deserved to have some sort of regular life that he could.