I'm not alone. I'm not alone.

It's been so long. I feel so guilty.

"I want to know what made you think this was a good idea," Tonno whispered furiously, "Carmine is not a woman to waste resources in things like these, Marco," he continued. Although he sounded furious, his expression told the boy he was actually very worried. That was the only reason Marco didn't take it too much to heart, but it still made him feel even worse. He was the one who caused all this.

"We thought it would make her do something. Well, I thought," he swallowed a dry sob, "I thought she cared."

"She's a mafia boss," Tonno told him, softening to a sad murmur, "They cannot risk these kind of situations."

Personally, Marco thought Carmine had some kind of agenda. She hadn't looked particularly sad at the news that Colombo had been kidnapped, she'd almost looked... relieved. Marco was beginning to hate her.

"Calm down," Luce whispered in his ear. They were halfway in the town's deserted alleys, with only rats and suspicious shadows for company.

"I can't," he told her desperately, "I did this-"

"You tried to do your best," Tonno took a deep breath, "It's not your fault the guards were ambushed. Don't do something like this again."

Marco nodded, closing his mouth. He'd do his best to help get Colombo back. Even if Tonno warned them to stay behind, he wanted to help. This was his fault.

...

They'd arrived first at the front of the restaurant where Marco had convinced their guards to wait with Colombo while he had gone to buy a snack. He'd sneaked out the back to return to their home. But Colombo wasn't there, and the guards downed and forgotten in a street corner, not very far. Tonno had shaken a few men before they'd finally relented to speak about the gangsters trying to drive away the Giglio Nero. They were a medium band of thugs that wanted the territory.

Tonno was not pleased.

The building they came to was like many others in Italy; clustered with their neighbors and twisting, built one along the other haphazardly from a time where people were more worried with being closer to a city and its protection than about organized streets. All the same, the streets were emptier than one would expect, as there were businesses only conducted at night.

It made Marco uneasy.

The lights were dimmed, most blown out. Marco and Luce followed Tonno inside the tiny door, descending stairs at a carefully hurried pace. The door to the basement looked ominous.

"Both of you," Tonno paused so abruptly that Luce walked into his back, and Marco had to flail so as to not lose his balance, "I am allowing you to come with me. But you will stay behind me at all times, and should I tell you to run, you will obey me. Understood?" Marco nodded, stunned. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Luce doing the same thing. That tone of voice their older brother sometimes used was frightening.

Tonno opened the door.

Marco felt it took an eternity.

...

The basement, if it could be called that, was wide and well lit. Full of people waiting for them, guns and wrenches and other such weapons in their hands. The stood closer to the walls, jeering, and Marco spotted dark blond hair on a crate, behind one group.

There was one person closer to them, outcast to the group that had Colombo. Marco deduced he was either the Boss, although unlikely, or someone made Point of an attack. Probably powerful, enough to tire out Tonno, and then, if the teenager was defeated, the rest of the group would fall on them to finish the work.

"He brought the Heiress!" Someone shouted with glee from the back, "It's the end of the Giglio Nero!"

Marco ignored the rising raucousness from the mob and focused all his attention on the Point. His hair was blood-red and messier than Tonno's, he slouched his shoulders, seeming uncomfortable with the noise, shifting feet periodically. He kept his hands in his pockets, where he might have hidden something, but his stance was solid. It would not be easy to even push him, let alone get him thrown on the ground.

Tonno had frozen in front of them. Marco didn't know what was so mesmerizing about the other teen, except maybe his red eyes, but Tonno seemed transfixed. The mob was already cheering their victory. Too soon.

The redhead blinked at them- at Tonno- and seemed at a loss for words.

"Vero!" Someone from the mob called gleefully, "Crush them with that move of yours!"

"...Vero?" Tonno repeated quietly, "Really?" There was amusement in his voice.

The redhead, Vero, smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "When you run out of ideas..."

"Still better than Tonno," their brother snorted. The redhead released an incredulous giggle.

The mob was quieting. They had realized something was wrong. Vero craned his neck slightly, shoulders relaxing. "...that's her?"

"...yeah."

"Oh. Well then."

And the redhead almost cheerfully turned on the mob.

...

Marco carried Colombo on his back, and held Luce's hand. Tonno had ushered them out as soon as the other teen turned his back on them, but the flimsy wood door was not enough to block the screams and sounds of stone crushing flesh and bone. The ground had shaken and they had been terrified of the roof falling on them, but the earthquake was bizarrely localized. Luce had fretted about their younger brother until Tonno had returned with the younger one in his arms. Not long after, the shaking subsided and Vero stepped out of the basement, softly locking the door behind him.

"We should go," he told Tonno softly, "sooner we're out of sight, sooner we'll be forgotten."

Now, Vero guarded their backs, ensuring no one spotted them leaving the place, while Tonno led the way back to the mansion. Marco felt it was folly to trust someone they had just met, but...

But Tonno knew him. The kind of bond that made someone thoughtlessly turn against a mob like that needed to be forged thick, and over a long time. They were old friends.

Marco let the thought stew in his head until they reached the mansion away from the town. They snuck in without alerting the family and headed to Tonno's room.

Luce was visibly relieved that Colombo wasn't harmed, apart from a nasty bump on his head and a few cuts and bruises. The hand shaped bruise on his upper arm made Marco feel like finding the one responsible and suffocating them in their own filth.

One goal at a time, he supposed, watching his brother talk in hushed whispers with the other teen as soon as he had gently rested Colombo on the bed.

He wondered why they were discussing length of years.

"Marco," Luce called softly.

"I won't do it again," he said stiffly, still eyeing the teenagers, "Sorry."

"...that's not what I-" Luce sighed softly, "Just be careful, okay? I would have been alone if they'd gotten you too."

He froze. "No," his voice was rough, and when he looked at her, he saw Luce was startled, "I'd never- not to you- I won't let anyone."

His heart beat erratically in his chest, a myriad of emotions mixed too deeply and washing over him too fast for him to identify. The horror at hurting his sister was easily identifiable, however. He would never let anyone hurt them. He was small, a child still, but he was not going to let someone else do to them what those men had doen to their parents. He may not remember clearly, but he knew it had ended with their murders.

...

Marco did not open his eyes. The light was not strong enough to wake Luce, snuggled against his side as she was.

"So you came just a little while after me?" Tonno's murmur floated through the room. The candle flickered.

"Yeah," Vero told him, equally low, "You were gone for about two weeks already. Everyone panicked. I think I stumbled into something I shouldn't, though..."

"A peculiar little crack in a wall, in an alley some streets away from my path home?" the dark humor in Tonno's voice made Marco sweat.

"...yeah. But I'm pretty sure I was pushed into it. I saw it, well, glow, and was about to go back and tell everyone, but I think someone followed me. When I came to-"

"-you were stranded in this Italy."

"Yeah."

"I don't know how to go back," his brother's voice wilted, and the shifting sound made Marco think he'd slumped down wherever they were sitting, "I tried to talk to someone who might know, but I can't even reach them, and there's no else I know-"

"Calm down," Vero's soft voice interrupted Tonno's sudden frenzied speech, "Breathe deeply, and let go slowly."

Marco listened as the redhead talked his brother down from his anxiety.

"I don't know either," Vero mumbled afterwards, "Everyone I even thought of talking to just... can't help. Not right now."

A hiccuped-sob.

Marco felt something in him twist irreversibly at the sounds of crying.

"At least we're not alone."