Chapter Seven

"We should have a dinner party! Now that we have a real dining room—and everything else is done! We can show off the new house to all of our friends!"

Giorno listened to his mother blabber on at dinner that night, while he scraped the meager amount of pasta out of his bowl. Luckily that night he had been able to eat something earlier so he wouldn't go to bed hungry.

"Whatever you want to do," Giovanna told her noncommittedly.

Giorno's mother beamed and turned to him. "I want you to find fancy recipes. I want to make an impression."

"The brat can't make fancy shit, he can barely make pasta," his stepfather snorted.

"I'm sure he can follow a recipe, right, Giorno?"

"I can try," Giorno said.

"Well, don't screw up because you'll make your mother unhappy," his stepfather growled.

Giorno looked down into his empty bowl and got up to go wash it. "Just let me know what you want," he said with resignation.

A dinner party could go one of two ways. Either having more people around could be good for his case, especially if they saw the bruises still very obvious on his face. Or, everyone his mother and stepfather associated with were no better than they were—which was more likely—in which case, he would be no better off than he was now.

Still, maybe someone would question his state, maybe someone would call in the police, though Giorno wasn't sure how much they would do.

He cleaned up after dinner while his mother searched a recipe book and then went to bed, knowing there was going to be a lot of work in the next couple days.


Bruno woke groggily, neck and back aching the instant he started to move. He pried his face off of his desk as he sat up, rubbing his neck with a wince, glancing at the clock. It was almost 7 am. He had been working late, looking into anything he might be able to find about Giorno's family without any success. He must have fallen asleep on his desk. Again.

He straightened with a groan, stretching, and stood up, heading to the bathroom to freshen up a little before grabbing a new suit for the day. They would be heading back to the part of the city Giorno had been in, taking to the streets and seeing what they could find. They had been doing this the past couple days, so far with no success, but Bruno held out hope. He had to. If he didn't, he might just give up entirely and he couldn't do that to Giorno. He owed the boy more than that. They all did.

A little bit of cold water splashed on his face and neatly done hair was all he was going to get that day. Hopefully someone had already made coffee that morning.

He thankfully found the pot nearly full when he got to the kitchen, and grabbed a cup before heading into the office.

Fugo was already there, Abbacchio sitting at his shoulder as they looked at the computer screen.

"Find anything?" Bruno asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"I thought I would look through Giorno's bank statements," Fugo said. "He had his wallet with him, I figured that he must be spending something, so I thought it might give us an idea of where he is."

Bruno went to lean over Fugo's chair, glancing at the statement he had pulled up on the computer.

"This is from the day after he disappeared," Fugo said, pointing to one withdrawal.

Bruno's eyes widened when he saw the amount. "Sixteen million lira?"

"Yeah," Abbacchio said. "And it gets weirder."

"Why?"

Fugo scrolled through the numbers. "Well, after that, there's multiple withdrawals from various clothing stores, and what seem to be furniture and decorating stores."

Bruno blinked. "Okay, well, we know he was at that one textile shop."

"But the others are boutiques, women's stores mostly, I looked them up," Abbacchio said. "Expensive, high-end clothes. And Giorno certainly wasn't buying anything for himself, especially with whatever he was wearing when we saw the replay."

"Besides, Giorno knows he can always get free suits from Passione's tailor," Fugo said. "He wouldn't need to go shopping for anything formal."

"Unless he is trying to keep low, or…" Abbacchio said with a shrug, trailing off darkly.

Bruno glanced over the numbers again. "Well, he's certainly racking up quite the bill with these purchases."

Fugo pursed his lips. "It is possible that he wanted to buy something for his family. Maybe they had damage to their home, or perhaps they never had much money and Giorno wanted to do something nice. He could have been wearing the old clothes so as not to get dirty if they were doing work."

"Come on, Fugo," Abbacchio growled. "You know that's bullshit. The kid didn't bring anything with him either, remember? Not even so much as his toothbrush. Even if he hadn't planned on being away that long originally, why didn't he ask us to send some of his stuff to him? That note has been bothering me this whole time, it was never addressed to us directly, it could have been written for anyone."

"It could have been written for his school," Bruno said suddenly, and hurried to his desk, retrieving the note and glancing over it again. "Now that I think about it…what if Giorno doesn't want his family to know that he's working for Passione? He said he was writing a letter to his school but instead had it sent here."

"Then how would he explain how he had gotten so much money?" Fugo asked. "A sixteen-year-old couldn't dream of getting a summer job that made this much."

Bruno sighed, rubbing his head. "True. Sorry, I'm not thinking."

"We're all grasping at straws right now," Abbacchio muttered as he stood. "What do you want us to do today?"

Bruno sighed. "I've been neglecting duties. Protection money needs to be collected."

"Mista and I can do that," Fugo offered.

"Thank you," Bruno said gratefully before turning to Abbacchio. "You and Narancia and Trish will come with me then, we'll head back over there. Check out some of these shops to see if they remember seeing Giorno."

Abbacchio nodded. "Let's get some breakfast before we go then."


"Giorno, I forgot to grab some of the stuff for the dinner party and I don't have time to go out today. Run to the store and get it for me, okay?"

Giorno glanced up. "What do you need me to get?"

She huffed a sigh and quickly scribbled out a list. "These things. And make sure to get good stuff!"

"All right."

"Oh, wait!" she said and grabbed her purse from nearby, rummaging through it before she found her compact, which she tossed to him. "Cover that disgusting bruise on your face. You don't want people asking about it."

Giorno tucked the list into his pocket and took the makeup kit, heading toward the bathroom. He wasn't exactly a stranger to using concealer to hide bruises. His mother had made sure to teach him that early, had even bought him his own with the frequency he needed it. He quickly covered the bruise as well as he could and went to retrieve the keys to the car.

As he sat in the driver's seat, staring at the keys in his hand, he again thought about just running. But he knew exactly how that would go. He had to get it into his head—there was nothing better for him. Only worse. So, he might as well attempt to keep it at the status quo. That at least was something he could deal with. It was something he knew.

And maybe…maybe now that all the renovations were done, his mother would let him go back to school during the next semester.

That thought at least sparked a little hope in Giorno. He turned the key and drove to the store.

Unfortunately, the regular store didn't have everything his mother needed, so he walked down the street to a specialty shop and thankfully found what he needed there.

As he was coming out, he heard someone shout from across the street.

"Giorno! Holy shit! Giorno, is that you?!"

He glanced over, seeing a dark-haired boy he didn't recognize, trying to make his way across the street, but it was crowded this time of day. Giorno frowned; did he know him? Was he possibly someone from school? He looked about Giorno's age, so that was probably true, though he wasn't sure why he was also all the way over on this side of town.

Someone in a hurry suddenly slammed into the boy and he went down. Giorno worried he had hurt himself, but another man hurried over to reach down and help him back up.

Giorno wouldn't worry about it, not wanting to have an awkward conversation about where he had been and why he wasn't at school. He just continued on his way back to the car as he melted into the crowds, heading back before his mother got angry that he was taking too long.


Bruno and Narancia had struck out checking in the shops to see if the people knew anything about Giorno. Even showing his picture didn't get any reaction, aside from the shops who knew who he was. They said they would keep a look out and let them know if anyone used Giorno's card there again, but it still didn't give them the answers they were looking for.

They were on their way to the next shop on the list when Narancia suddenly darted away from Bruno's side, urgently pointing across the street, getting lost in the crowd of people.

"Narancia!" Bucciarati cried. "Stay with me!"

He tried to hurry along, then saw the boy get shouldered out of the way by a large man in a hurry, throwing Narancia to the ground.

"Hey, watch it, stronzo!" Narancia snarled.

Bruno hurried over to him before he pulled his knife, reaching down to help him up.

"Are you all right?"

"No! I just saw Giorno! Bucciarati, we have to go after him! He was right over there!"

Bruno's head snapped around as Narancia scrambled to his feet. "Where?"

"Across the street—come on!"

They raced across, a car honking angrily at them, and hurried down the sidewalk.

"Giorno!" Bruno cried, startling several people he ungracefully shoved out of the way. "Giorno!"

He thought he saw a blond head through the crowd, he dashed in that direction. Please, please be him…

"Bucciarati!"

Narancia's warning came just as the boy grabbed his shoulder and hauled him back, away from another car, yanking him to the ground on accident.

Bucciarati fell hard, scraping an elbow as Narancia overbalanced and tumbled beside him, both of them panting as the driver cussed them out.

Bruno scrambled to his feet again, rushing forward, searching for the blond head, but saw nothing. He staggered to a halt and leaned against a lamppost, breathing heavily as he felt the waves of defeat wash over him.

"Giorno," he whispered.

"I'm sorry, I should have run after him, I tried," Narancia babbled, eyes wet. "Maybe we can still find him. We can call Abba, he can use Moody Blues…"

"He had to have gotten into a car again," Bruno said dully. "He couldn't have disappeared that quickly otherwise."

"Why didn't he just come over when I called him?" Narancia groaned, hands clutching at his hair. "It was like he didn't even recognize me at all."

Bruno felt dread settle into his stomach. What if that was actually true? What if this was some kind of Stand attack instead? Maybe they had been looking at this all wrong…

"Come on, Narancia, let's call Abbacchio and Trish and have them come meet us. We'll look around a little more here before we head back for the night."

Narancia nodded but the dejected look on his face tore Bucciarati up inside. He pulled out his phone and called the others, feeling a little more than dejected himself.

He began to wonder whether the Giorno they were chasing had ever even been more than just a mirage.


The car ride back was quiet. Abbacchio glanced toward the back, seeing both Narancia and Trish silently looking out the windows. They'd tried to find Giorno again, searched the entire area, but he seemed to have disappeared. Abbacchio's hands clenched around the steering wheel tightly. This was starting to get ridiculous.

When they got back, Narancia and Trish went to explain to Mista and Fugo about what had happened while Bucciarati headed straight for the office. Abbacchio sighed tiredly and went for the kitchen, making a fresh pot of coffee.

When it was done brewing, he took a cup to Bucciarati and found the man typing furiously at his computer, clicking through files.

"What are you looking for now?" he asked tiredly, setting the cup on his desk.

"This whole thing has had me thinking," Bruno said, "What if Giorno doesn't even know we exist?"

Abbacchio blinked, wondering if Bruno had finally cracked, but the man turned and held up a hand.

"Hear me out…I could understand that he wouldn't acknowledge it to Signora Mancini, but, by all accounts, he was alone this afternoon when Narancia called him, and if he was worried we'd find him, he would have gone to ground after being called out by Signora Mancini. It's just…the sudden disappearance, the change in appearance…What if it's part of someone trying to make Giorno think he's someone else?"

Abbacchio frowned. "You think it's a Stand attack?"

"I think we've already looked at every other option."

"Okay, but that woman we saw really did look like she was related to him. Why would his own family bother to do something like that?"

"Money perhaps? We don't know what Giorno's relationship with his family was like. He's never said anything about them. And if they found out that he was now the Don…money is a strong influencer, even when it comes to family."

Abbacchio nodded, seeing the pieces fall into place. "That would make sense. And, of course, they'd want to make Giorno forget that so he would have no influence to get help. They could use his money and he'd be none the wiser, not even knowing he had that much to spend."

"Exactly," Bruno said, voice tight with anger. "I'm just looking for any Stand users on file that might be able to do something like this."

Abbacchio nodded. "I'll go call a couple of my informants too."

"Abbacchio," Bruno stopped him before he left and there was something nearly devastating in his look that slowly punched another hole in Abbacchio's chest. "I was so close. If I had been a fraction quicker, I would have been able to see him again…to ask him to come home." He stopped, pressing his lips together firmly before continuing more steadily. "We can't allow this to go on much longer. We need to bring him home."

Abbacchio nodded. "We will."

"By any means necessary," Bruno added darkly. "We can't afford to leave any stone unturned."

Abbacchio nodded again in agreement and left the room, going upstairs to grab his address book from his own desk.

When he got to the top of the stairs he saw the door to Giorno's room partly open, and he froze suddenly, heart leaping for a split second as he heard the shuffling sounds of a person inside.

As soon as his mind reminded him it wasn't going to be Giorno, he realized that if one of the other kids was in there, Abbacchio should probably be on call for support of some sort.

He exhaled heavily and strode quietly over, pushing open the door.

He caught sight of Narancia inside, bending over a tank that sat on top of Giorno's dresser.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Abbacchio asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Narancia jumped slightly and looked over his shoulder. "I'm just feeding Giorno's frogs," he said quietly, holding up a glass jar and a pair of tweezers.

Abbacchio raised an eyebrow as he came over to glance into the tank, seeing three frogs sitting happily in their mini environment, chasing flies around.

"I'd actually forgotten about them. I glad you remembered," he commented.

Narancia sighed as he put the lid back on the tank. "Yeah, it's hard to get bugs, though. Giorno always just made them from paper scraps, but I have to wait until it's dark to catch them with a light outside on the patio."

"I'm sure the frogs appreciate it," Abbacchio said.

Narancia shrugged, glancing around the room. "I can't…I can't do anything about the plants though. I've been watering them, but…the flowers are still dying."

Abbacchio looked around at the various potted plants that Gold Experience could always keep looking fresh, but now did look pretty sad.

"I was so close today, Abbacchio!" Narancia suddenly blurted, moving to slump down on the side of Giorno's bed. "And some bastard ran into me! I could have caught up to Giorno otherwise and—and we could have brought him home!"

Abbacchio's jaw ticked as he saw the kid's eyes get wet, reaching up to grasp his hair.

"I don't like it when my family is separated; we've gone through too much shit for that."

He sniffed and Abbacchio sighed, going to sit next to Narancia on the bed. The kid instantly wrapped his arms around Abbacchio's waist and buried his face in his shoulder. The goth settled a hand on his head.

"We have to bring him back," Narancia said firmly. "Promise!"

"I promise," Abbacchio said firmly, giving Narancia a squeeze.

They sat like that for a few minutes before Narancia pulled away and scrubbed at his eyes. "Sorry, I just…"

"Don't apologize," Abbacchio told him. "We all miss him."

Narancia blinked and sniffed, before a small smirk crossed his face. "Even you, Abba?"

Abbacchio rolled his eyes. "Of course, brat." He stood up. "Why don't you take the plants outside for now? Some sun and fresh air might do them good."

Narancia nodded and Abbacchio ruffled his hair briefly before he continued on his previous mission of looking for contacts he could call about Stand users.

However, as he picked up his address book, another thought occurred to him that they hadn't tried yet. His stomach sickened at the thought, but yet, if it would help…

If Giorno was practically a citizen right now, then he really was just a missing kid. So maybe they should start treating him like a missing kid instead of the missing Don of Passione.

He swallowed hard and went back down to the office where Bruno was still hard at work.

"Find anything?" Bruno asked him.

"I'm still looking," he said uncomfortably. "Can I see your wallet for a second?"

Bruno frowned but pulled the wallet out of his pocket. Abbacchio opened it and slipped a picture of Giorno out of it, holding it up. "Can I borrow this?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, I'll be back later," he said, and tucked the photo into his pocket.

"Abbacchio?"

He didn't reply because if he stopped even for a second, he wouldn't do this and anything, even something this desperate, would help at this point.

Just like Bruno said—any means necessary.


Giorno put away the last of the groceries, listening to his mother bustle around. The dinner party would be tomorrow, and she had been working non-stop trying to get everything just perfect, to put on a show for her friends that would con them into thinking that they were rich, and important. When in reality, they were anything but and they just had to look at Giorno to see that.

At least Giorno's mother had given him one of his stepfather's shirts to wear and though this was too big on Giorno, it looked barely worn and as much as he loathed the man, it was better to borrow something than wear the old, small, stained shirts he had.

He spent a good amount of time looking over the recipes his mother wanted to serve, hoping he would be able to make them. He had gotten a lot of practice cooking the last few weeks at least, so maybe he wouldn't be so bad. Still, a couple of them seemed overly complicated.

He couldn't help but think of that boy who had called him by name on the street. Had he been a student Giorno had known? And if he was, then why was he all the way over here instead of at school? Maybe he'd had to transfer back home to a public school or something. But everything about the encounter just seemed off. Like Giorno should definitely remember that boy, but he just…couldn't. Every time he thought too hard about it, his head started aching.

He sighed, going back to studying the recipes. There was no point in thinking about it anyway. He couldn't afford to have friends here, couldn't afford to let anyone get close to him, just like at school. If they found out about the abuse it would just make things worse, and there was nothing they could do to help him anyway.

Maybe that was a sign that Giorno was starting to give up hope again, but what could he really do? He knew there was no one who would be saving him from this.


Just the sight of the building nearly sent Abbacchio into a cold sweat. He wasn't even sure that he wouldn't be jumped and beaten the instant he walked in. He knew no one here wanted to see him, but still…he couldn't just sit in his car for an hour before he chickened out and drove away. He didn't have time for this.

He tore the keys out of the ignition and climbed out, shoving his hands into his pockets as he made his way toward the door.

Eyes were on him immediately as he stepped inside and it was like a hush went through the normally bustling building.

Abbacchio straightened his shoulders and ignored the eyes on him, zeroing in on the kid working the desk. He didn't recognize him so he must be new. Especially since he wasn't looking at Abbacchio like he was lower than trash on the street.

"Hello, sir, can I help you? Do you need to file a report?" the young man asked.

"Don't talk to him."

An older officer shoved his way over to Abbacchio, glowering up at him. "You have a lot of gall showing up here, Leone."

"You know you're not welcome here," another said, at Abbacchio's back. The ex-cop fought the urge to turn around, instead meeting the eyes of the man in front of him.

"I get I'm not welcome here," he said darkly.

"Then what the hell made you think you could waltz in here, hm?"

"Because I need a favor."

Laughter erupted from the other officers as the kid at the front desk was looking more and more confused by the second. Another man leaned in close to him, pointing to Abbacchio.

"See him, kid? That's Leone Abbacchio. He used to be a cop too—worked at this station. But then he got his partner killed because he took dirty money, and with no better prospects, he went off to be a bruiser for a Capo in Passione." The boy's eyes widened, almost looking scared of Abbacchio, and the ex-cop tried to tamp down his anger, clenching his fists once before he loosened them.

"Look," he snapped. "I know I'm the last person who deserves to ask for a favor—and I also know that half of you have taken more money than I ever did—still do." There was a dangerous shuffling, but Abbacchio ignored it, and reached into his pocket, pulling out the photo of Giorno. "But I've got a kid who's missing, okay? We've been looking for him for almost a month and we still have nothing. So, if you can help find him by some small chance, then I'm willing to walk in here and beg for help—even from you."

The officers glanced at each other, making no move to do anything, and Abbacchio felt fury wash through him. He took the picture and shoved it into the face of the officer standing in front of him.

"You know I would never come to you if I wasn't serious, or desperate," Abbacchio snapped. "He's a sixteen-year-old kid, and he's missing! That's what you're supposed to do, in case you've forgotten—find missing kids." He turned, showing the picture to all the men standing around him. "Take a good look. His name is Giorno Giovanna, but he might be using a different name right now. His hair is currently cut short, he was last seen in the south-east corner of the city." He slapped the picture down on the desk and turned to the kid. "Yes, I want to file a report—for missing persons." He spun around to all the others. "You don't have to like me, you can still blame me for everything, I'm not gonna hold that against you. But I'm not asking you to do this for me, I'm asking you to do this for a lost kid who might be in a really bad situation right now."

Finally, one of the officers stepped forward and reached behind the desk to grab a piece of paper.

"All right, we'll look for the kid," he said. "But not because you asked."

"That's fine," Abbacchio grunted as he helped fill out the information. "And look, it's possible he's with a family member, but we have reason to believe he's not there willingly."

"We'll determine that if we get to it," the officer said.

At least they were listening; that was about all he could hope for. Abbacchio watched as the report was filled out and then scribbled his phone number on the paper.

"Call me even if you get a sighting of him," he said and turned around, already heading toward the door.

As soon as he was outside, Abbacchio's knees started shaking and he barely made it to his car before he was forced to double over, dry-heaving. God, he didn't realize he could still be affected so badly by this. It was like everything from years ago was crashing down on him all over again.

He straightened slightly, catching his breath and fumbling in his pocket for his keys—he felt like he needed a drink, but he wouldn't get one. He wasn't that man anymore.

"Um, Signore!"

He spun around, shocked to see the young officer rushing out of the station, waving a paper.

"You forgot to get a copy of the report. I also scanned the picture so you can have that back if you need it."

Abbacchio took the items he was handed, stuffing them into his coat as he unlocked his car. "You seem like a good kid," he said. "Take my advice and get the fuck out of there."

The kid's eyes widened and Abbacchio didn't give him another look, but got into the car, heading back home.

Mista and Trish were making dinner in the kitchen, Narancia sitting at the table, looking exhausted and still pretty dejected.

Abbacchio headed toward the office where Bucciarati and Fugo were bent over several files, flipping through them.

"No, I don't even think he's in the city anymore," Bruno muttered, closing a file and setting it aside.

"Well, this one's dead," Fugo replied, tossing the file into a growing pile on the floor.

"Any luck?" Abbacchio asked them.

They glanced up. "Most of the Stand users we had on file are ones we've taken out in the past few months," Fugo said wryly as Bucciarati marked a big red X across the file he was looking at.

"The problem is that we have no files on any users that weren't associated with Passione, or didn't make themselves trouble," Bucciarati added grimly. "And there were a few. Did you get a chance to call any of your contacts?"

"I…no, I was working on something else," Abbacchio said and reached into his coat, pulling out the copy of the report and setting it on Bucciarati's desk.

"What's that?" the Capo asked.

Abbacchio swallowed hard. "I filed a missing persons report. The police are looking for Giorno now too. I don't know how much good that will do, but any extra eyes are better than none."

Fugo sucked a breath in and Bruno was staring at him in shock.

"Leone, god… I didn't mean for you to have to do that," Bruno said quietly.

"Yeah, well, don't ever mention it," Abbacchio said warningly.

"Thank you. Really. Anything will help at this point."

Abbacchio pressed his lips together. "I told you I wanted to find the kid as much as you did."

"We all want to find Giorno," Fugo agreed as he tossed another file aside. "And now that we're on a different track, I think we'll have better luck."

"I hope so," Bucciarati said quietly as a somber determination filled the room and the three of them continued their search.


If anyone is interested in Giorno and Bucciarati art nouveau style prints or jjba themed journals, I'm running a pre-order on my Etsy shop right now! You can check out the info on my Tumblr at/ lady-wallace or my instagram at/ ladyofinkandpaper