- - - CHAPTER 1: I ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS - - -
The previous Cavallone Don's study was full of old clutter and new dust. Drawers were jammed shut, several cabinets were missing their keys, and loose papers were strewn around with no order or reason.
Since his father's death, Dino had been dedicating any and all his spare time to digging through the financial disasters that were the Cavallone ledgers. But, of course, three months could only get him so far when he was wading through decades of negligent bookkeeping and debtor mail.
Only three months.
"Boss," Romario sighed as he emerged from the corner he was sorting through and laid another manilla envelope on, what was now, Dino's desk. "A contract pertaining to the construction of a resort."
"I haven't heard of any resorts being built under us," Dino frowned and opened the folder.
"Because it hasn't," Romario explained tiredly, leaning over his shoulder to show a concept render and floorplan of an ambitious construction. "This was signed ten years ago. They haven't even broken ground yet."
"And the payments started as soon as it was signed," Dino groaned, reading through the layout of the contract his father had signed long ago. "Gosh, 500 thousand a year. And it's registered as an automatic payment, when did Dad learn how to do that?"
"Your father was very good at removing obstacles when he had a goal."
"I know you don't like speaking ill of him, Romario, but you've got to admit," Dino muttered, before continuing to read.
"Could we just renege the contract? We'd have the grounds since ten years have passed, that's enough for a termination for cause." Romario offered, taking the floorplans from the table and frowned. While extravagant and appealing to the eye, they were impractical.
"We could," Dino winced before pointing out a section hidden between useless numbers jabber on supply predictions. "But, it says here we'd have to give a sum of 100 thousand on top of the year's 500 thousand as default for the builder. Even if it's the developer's fault…"
"He must have sweet-talked the Cavallone Ninth. Your father wouldn't leave someone stranded like that."
"Either way, we have to pull out. If that resort hasn't gone up in the last ten years, it's not going up any time soon. We don't have the money to keep funding talk."
"Boss, if we spend 600 thousand now, we're going to have to cut more costs for a while," Romario warned.
"We've always been cutting costs, Romario, we're just aware of it now," Dino sighed and pushed the file away from him. "Can you get someone to bring the year's expenses document? I'll go through it and see what we can shave off the top for this."
No matter how many times Dino went through the shelves and busted open filing cabinets, he kept finding new contracts. It seemed like new financial records just seemed to render into existence in the previous Don's office.
"Has anyone found the key to the black cabinet yet? I don't want to have to break another one," Dino asked as he slumped into his chair.
"No, the Ninth was careful to hide his keys even from me," Romario admitted and Dino gave a weak noise of misery.
The young Cavallone heaved onto his feet and grabbed a crowbar from where it leant against the wall, used too many times already, and went about prying open the reinforced cabinet. Knowing his luck, it would be another slew of overdue debts that had racked up interest again.
The drawer opened with a screech and a clunk. Dino didn't hold his breath this time as he started flipping through the papers, reading titles and dates with a tired grimace. So many of these were overdue or out of date, and none of them were in order of chronology or category, jumping from the early 80's to the 90's to the 70's and back again.
Dino pulled out the drawer and carried the whole thing over to his desk for sorting, Romario taking the crowbar to the rest of that cabinet's drawers in the meantime. He rubbed his temples as he started organising them in his piles: urgent and expensive, urgent but less expensive, not urgent but expensive and not urgent and less expensive. Within those, they were set in chronological and alphabetical order.
There were three more clunks and Romario brought over the other drawers, sitting on the spare chair they had dragged in days ago as he joined in the sorting.
Dino had just started whittling away at the year's expenses when Romario stood from his chair and cleared his throat. The little Don looked up before rightening when he saw his closest aid's expression of thinly veiled excitement.
Was there something going on? He couldn't remember anything-
"Boss, it's time for dinner."
"Oh," Dino blinked. Right.
. . .
Dino Cavallone had done it. The impossible. The unthinkable. With all the odds stacked against him, he had done it. He had survived scuola superiore, 高中, oberstufe, trung học phổ thông!
He had survived high school.
"Congratulations, little Boss!" Brutus cheered, his seventh glass of whisky in his hand.
"I knew you had it in you!"
"We're so proud!"
"No, I'm not crying shut up!"
Dino laughed from the head of the table, his Family rioting and partying as they toasted and boasted about his success. He wasn't the top student in the school, far from it, but he had managed to get out of that Mafia High School with all his fingers and minimal blackmail material in other people's pockets.
Romario stood from his seat and cleared his throat, quieting the room from its roar. He sniffed loudly and raised a glass.
"I'd like to make a toast! We lost a lot this year. A friend and leader we will never forget," Dino smiled weakly and looked down at his plate, sitting at the head of the table where his father had sat for years. "But we look to the future, with our little Boss finally not so little anymore!"
"You sure, Romario? The Boss is still falling asleep in his breakfast most mornings!"
"Hey! I had exams!" Dino defended.
"For the past eighteen years?! What horror!"
"Oh! Shove off!"
"The boy still doesn't swear! Blessed little Boss!"
Dino waved his hand as if to tell the teasing members of his family to go away, but there were smiles on everyone's faces.
"Our little Boss is a man now, running with the big boys," Romario continued, riding that cheerful mood. "And we as the Cavallone wait with bated breath for where he'll lead us to in a new generation!"
"Here, here!"
"And we wish him luck in his travels!" Romario added as everyone raised to the toast.
"Here, her- What? Travels?" Dino blinked.
"Indeed, you'll be travelling soon," came the voice that haunted Dino's nightmares.
"Ah, Reborn, you're back," Romario greeted like Dino hadn't nearly inhaled an entire cup of water into his lungs.
"Yes, all the preparations have been made," the little devil incarnate responded easily. "Dino, enjoy the time- Stop choking already. Enjoy the time you have left."
"Could-" Dino paused to hack up a piece of his lungs, "Could you sound less threatening!? Romario, what is he on about!?"
"Reborn was kind enough to get you early enrollment to your university for next year," Romario smiled, looking so proud at the idea of Dino in University.
"...He enrolled me in the University of Catania?" Dino asked slowly, desperately trying to prove himself wrong, but every little molecule of him was screaming that he was once again wrapped up in whatever bull Reborn had pulled.
"No," Reborn smiled.
Ah.
Dino felt his heart drop. He was screwed.
"This is where you'll be going."
Reborn reached into his hat and pulled out a brochure. Dino took it with great reluctance.
The brochure was bright red and featured slogans all over about empowering students with practical application and industry interaction, but all of that was ignored for two little words in the very back of the brochure.
NSW, Australia.
Oh, he was screwed.
. . .
Dino awoke to his bedroom door being flung open and a small army of people flooding his room. He groaned as he sat up, his clock reading well into the midday, but his sleep-deprived soul reading 'too damn early for this'.
"I told you not to stay up too late last night, Boss," Romario scolded gently as he handed the sleepy Don a cup of water to help wake him up.
"I know, but I had to make sure we had our barony bills in order, they're due in a few days." Dino took a sip, before yelping as his face was pushed into the cup.
"A good Boss listens to the advice of his subordinates," Reborn scolded. "You should know better, Dino."
"What's even going on?" He asked, wiping his face with his sleeve, watching the people begin to rummage through his room.
"You need to be packed," Reborn answered, walking over to the bookshelf and tossed down books to be packed. "The first semester starts in three days."
"Wait, you can't be serious!" Dino cried as he stood in his room, Romario watching over a pair of maids, Ella and Cecilia, as they packed his suitcases. "I thought you were going to do another 'haha Dino I can't believe you bought it' deal after I panicked for a while!"
"I'm very serious Dino," Reborn said as he sipped on an espresso. "Your flight is in just a few hours, you'll fly straight to Sydney's international airport. I suggest you bring some entertainment, it will be a 22-hour trip."
Maybe it was the denial, maybe it was the ill-founded hope, or maybe it was the unpredictability that was Reborn's calling card, but Dino refused to believe he was actually going to Australia all the way up until the plane landed on the tarmac in Sydney's International airport.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sydney International Airport. Local time is Sunday the 20th, 5:43PM and the temperature is 36 degrees celsius. For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign..."
"You actually sent me to Australia," Dino wheezed as he stood in the baggage claim, watching suitcases rotate along the conveyor.
"I'm glad you noticed," Reborn chirped, unfazed after slipping through customs without so much as flashing a passport.
"I don't know anyone in Australia."
"That's the point," the little man said. "This is the next step of your training."
Dino snapped to attention and scrambled to grab both his luggage and whatever tanker Reborn had packed for him. He hauled Reborn's up on his back and heaved as he bent at the waist under the weight.
"How is dragging me to the southern hemisphere supposed to help me?"
"This will be a skill-building experience. You've had it too easy-" Dino choked back a scoff. "You've had your Family name to back you, and your Right Hand at your every call. It's time you learn to carry yourself, to build from the ground up."
"Reborn, I can barely speak English. I only just passed that class!"
"The best teacher is experience," Reborn assured as they stepped out to the bustle of the pickup zone.
The two loaded into a silver taxi and, with a few quick words from Reborn, started sailing down the highway. Dino spent the nearly 40-minute ride desperately scrolling through his phone, a full day out of service had left him nervous about the Cavallone state of affairs; he had left so much unfinished.
Would Romario remember to collect the monthly protection fees? He hoped Brutus found the memo he had sent about the stables' oat and hay delivery coming in a week earlier than usual this time. Was anyone checking on the roster for the jet's rental calendar? Did anyone tell the Stable Master that he was out of the country?
But all that was on his phone was an automated welcome message from Optus sim card. It was a stark contrast to how it usually was; most of the day, Dino's phone was vibrating until it generated its own heat in his pocket. Having it silent now…somehow wasn't relieving. He felt out of the loop, under-informed, what if something went wrong-
"We're here. Get out."
Dino wheezed as he was kicked from his seat and sprawled across the sidewalk. Reborn used him as a step on the way out of the taxi.
The taxi driver gave him an odd look as Dino took his bags, but didn't say anything as he got back in his car and drove off.
The young Cavallone heaved up the bags and dragged himself after Reborn who had strolled into a gated off division of housings, all made of uniform brick and some kind of ribbed metal roofing. There were bicycles, mismatched potted plants and various hack-job outdoor seating sets crammed into small, concrete porches. Doors were held ajar by wedged shoes and suitcases, a soft bustle about the place as he heard people calling out to each other in a mish-mash of accents and languages.
"Reborn, where are we?" Dino asked carefully as they passed the housings by and came to a large building.
"Macquarie University," Reborn answered simply and came to a stop under the shade of a large eucalyptus tree. "Where you will be spending the next four academic years. I'm sure you read the brochure."
"...It was in English," Dino stressed.
"I'm glad those remedial language classes proved useful," the devil incarnate smiled.
Dino swallowed down the desire to scream, a pressure building deep in his throat and burnt of stress.
"Now, go on, my useless student Dino," Reborn urged and gestured to the doorway plastered with laminated posters and timesheets. "Let's continue your education."
The Cavallone swallowed thickly, suddenly wishing he had taken a bottle of water from the airport as the dry air got to him. He stared at the reception door for a moment longer, before glancing to Reborn, ready to all but beg to be taken back to Italy-
"Reborn?" Dino looked around. He was alone. "Oh no."
Dino glanced back to the reception door, desperately trying to read what little words he recognised and what he could extrapolate from Latin borrow words. God, what was he going to say? Did they expect him to already know what room he was in?
Dino desperately started rummaging through his pockets and pulled out a wad of paper that he had haphazardly shoved away nearly 22 hours ago. He had his student number, and - ah! Dino shuffled the papers until he saw a rental agreement: He had a single bedroom dorm. But no dorm number.
"Okay," Dino wheezed to himself, reading over the form until he felt like he could adlib recite it. "Okay, okay. So student number, name, and one bedroom. That should be enough to get started. Oh God, oh god, okay, quattro is 'four' and-"
Dino muttered to himself as he, with great reluctance, pushed his way through the reception door. A young woman looked up from her computer behind the desk and smiled brightly at Dino.
"Hi!" She greeted, pushing aside some documents to make room on her desk.
"Hello," Dino responded feebly, internally wincing at how thick his accent sounded. Ah, thank God Reborn had left already. But also damn it Reborn, get back here! "I, uh, need check- wait, no. Please-" Dino deflated, "…Room please?"
The woman continued to give him the same smile, patiently waiting for him to work through his words. She probably dealt with a lot of foreign students at the reception; It made Dino feel a bit better.
"You're here to check into your room?" She clarified, speaking with her own soft accent. "Sure! Let's get started. Can I have your student number?"
"Numeria, numbers," Dino uttered quickly and turned to his paper to slowly recite it out.
"Okay, and can I have your name?"
"Dino Cavallone," he knew that one.
"Aaaand, found you! Oh, a private room! Very nice. It's good to have your own space."
Dino smiled politely as she spoke, listening carefully to jog his memory on English grammar and pronunciation. The faster he learnt colloquialism and abbreviation, the faster he'll blend in.
'It's', not 'it is'. Blend them.
"The rooms are locked two ways," the woman started to explain clearly, showing Dino a key - likely his own. "You need to scan your student ID and then use your room key. If you have trouble getting in, there are call points marked on the map to get security to help you."
Dino nodded, watching her emphasise card and then key.
"Now, this says you already have your student ID and campus card."
Dino blinked then started palming his pockets. Did he have an ID? He never applied for one, oh God - He pulled out a little beige card with stripes of red, the university crest and a photo of himself looking rather neat and put together.
When the heck had- Oh. Reborn, of course. At least he had used a flattering photo?
"Yes, I have the ID," Dino finally announced, before pausing. 'The'? Or 'A'? Wait, grammatically it'd be an 'An' since 'ID' started with a vowel.
"Great! That makes this lots faster - Now, here's your key. It looks like you already filled out the paperwork online, which is great, so we can skip all that boring stuff."
Had he? Dino didn't remember doing any university paperwork. But then again he had done a lot of reading and signing, maybe Reborn had just slipped it in? No, he was being careful to read everything thoroughly - so when?
"Here's a little baggie - not the drugs kind I swear," Dino felt there was a joke he was missing out on but smiled nonetheless. "Just a regular welcome kit. A map, some brochures for O Week. A toothbrush too in case you forgot yours."
"Oh, thank you," Dino uttered as he looked inside the bright red bag, realising that yes, he had forgotten his toothbrush in Italy. And socks.
"No problem. Now, any questions before I send you off?"
Dino blinked, brain too cramped and stuffy to process information, let alone think of questions.
"No," he said slowly and the woman smiled like she knew exactly what he was thinking.
Dino had written down his room number and had even marked it on his village map, but it took him an embarrassing amount of time to find his room. He found the village lake and that east laundry room, desperately craning his neck to try and read the house numbers without getting too close as students piled their ways into rooms and made small talk with their new roommates.
When Dino found his room, it looked exactly like all the other buildings; made of red brick and black sheet metal for an industrial look. Getting past the lock was another issue altogether and despite how the woman at the desk had instructed him, Dino failed enough times to get stares from his neighbours.
"Great introduction, Dino," he wheezed to himself as he finally managed to shove his door open at the buzz.
Dino wheeled his suitcases into the small house of a dormitory. The door closed behind him and Dino was left standing in that dark, quiet place.
He was alone now. Entirely without.
With a breath, Dino moved to the centre of the living space, feeling disconnected to his body. He went to sit down and missed the couch, instead slipping onto the hard rug.
His mind was quiet, too many thoughts ramming together until they were trapped in a deadlock of white noise paralysis. His arms felt heavy, shoulders weighed down. He was so tired.
He didn't know what to do. About any of this. The Cavallone were in no position to go without a Don, their finances were all completely shot and it was urgent. Some of those debts had return dates that were mere months away.
And he was here, half a world away, alone. God, he was alone. It was so quiet.
Dino sat on the floor, body unmoving and heavy as the clock on the wall ticked in his ears.
Then his jacket moved, little wheezes coming from the pocket as something wriggled and writhed. Enzo's green little head peered at the world cursorily.
Dino looked down at the little turtle as he tumbled down, legs popping back in his shell and rolling down Dino's stomach into his lap. A small chatter came from within the shell, confused but otherwise unaffected.
Dino watched as Enzo slowly stretched back out and set to exploring. Slow and steady, the turtle plodded the terrain, cautiously bumping his beak against the coffee table and trying to take a munch of the hard carpet.
Dino took a huge breath in until his shoulders raised, and then let it out as loudly as he could. He slapped his cheek and ruffled his blond hair before the Cavallone boy got to his feet with a harrumph.
"Okay, Enzo! Let's check out the base."
Dino scooped Enzo up off the floor and surveyed the main room. A living and dining room, open planned space with university-supplied furniture and appliances. There was a fair bit of storage, most of it open with hangers and open shelves.
At the back with the small dining table fit for a very intimate six, was a nook for a kitchen and a door that led to a small patio. The kitchen had an oven and stove top with a vent hood, fridge, microwave and a sink off to the side. It was cramped too, but considering it was a house for one, Dino could understand. Plenty of storage though, with overhead and under-counter cabinets.
Dino moved back through the living room and into the small 'hall' set with three doors. He opened the right one and found a linen closet with a set of spare sheets, a few towels and an empty basket.
The door in front of him, Dino noted, was the only white door in the room, the rest being some startling shade of orange, opened up to a bathroom. It was small and simple but it ticked all the boxes: sink, toilet, shower. Dino was going to miss baths though.
The last door to the left was once again that startling orange this university seemed so keen on in their dorm interiors. That and red. Dino winced and pushed it open, stepping in to find what would be his bedroom for the foreseeable future.
Once again, it was barebones, most likely to allow tenants to manoeuvre the space to their liking. There was a queen bed, a desk in the corner and a wardrobe hidden behind two mirror sliding doors. The window situation was only slightly depressing, with two small windows meeting hard at the corner above the desk. It left the walls severely blank.
"Feeling a bit like a cell, isn't it, Enzo?" Dino laughed nervously and Enzo gave a sighed wheeze in response. "I guess that's it for the tour."
Dino returned to the livingroom and actually sat on a couch this time, trying to ignore his rumpled reflection in the television's black screen. He set Enzo down on the floor and opened his suitcase.
Immediately, Dino went into a panic.
Dino was here, in a civilian university, surrounded by civilians with their civilian lives and his suitcase was full of mafia stuff!
Dino spluttered as he reached for the handgun and whips - before yanking back and slamming his suitcase shut.
Ok, slow down and think. There's an order to this mess.
Secure your base of operations. Check for bugs, taps, and cameras. Locate escape and entry points.
Dino zipped his case and reached under the couch, swiping his hand on the underside of the coffee table and the back of the television. He checked the microwave and the vent hood, the light fixture and behind the mirror in the bathroom. Dino stripped and then reassembled the wall clock, and felt the door frames and the couch cushions. Dino took out the batteries and wrapped the alarm beside his bed in the spare towels before shoving it deep in the back of his closet.
It was only an hour later was Dino happy with the state of his room, completely tap and bug free - save for that slate beetle he found under the patio's pot plant.
Wonderful. Now he could panic about the mafia stuff.
Dino pulled the blinds down on each window, stepping over Enzo who was pottering about at his own pace. There were three folders that Dino was especially concerned about from his luggage; they were debts to some very big names in the mafia that even civilian police would recognise.
So, after stuffing away a gun, courtesy of Romario, in what was now his underwear drawer, Dino sat down and started frantically scratching out every sensitive name and mention of the Italian mafia with a ballpoint pen.
"Why? Who thought it was smart to call the place Mafia Land on Mafia Island?" Dino wheezed in stress as he went over the penthouse the Cavallone rented out on the island. "How is that in any way covert!?"
Dino was starting to wonder how they hadn't been caught yet - before remembering how much of the legal system, both Italian and international, was in the Vongola and Giglio Nero's pockets.
"Oh yeah, that makes sense," he murmured to himself and continued to censor the documents like a dictatorship.
. . .
When Dino looked up next, it was because Enzo had finished his ventures and had started to ram into his shoe.
Dino blinked and massaged his eyes, suddenly realising how dry and achy they were after reading in such dim lighting for hours. The sun had long gone down and he had neglected to turn on any lights after shutting the blinds, leaving him in the darkness.
After finishing his censoring, Dino had moved into his university documents. He had set up and logged into the student portal and, rather late into the game, figured out what degree he was actually studying for. He was doing a double degree: A Bachelor of Business and a Bachelor of Primary Education with a major in Economics.
The education part had thrown him for a loop until Dino remembered that during a Family dinner, Dino had offhandedly mentioned that he had thought about studying teaching. He had said Reborn 'inspired him'. To be able to cite and call out his crazy and never subject another youth to his tactics. But Reborn didn't need to know that.
Dino pawed around for his phone and winced as the screen lit up. It was nearly three in the morning.
The Cavallone groaned and just slumped over on the couch, grabbing Enzo off the floor and tucking the turtle to his chest with a grumble.
"What did I do to deserve this, bud?" Dino asked plaintively.
In the darkness of the dorm, Dino could almost pretend he was still in Italy, somewhere deep inside the safety of the Cavallone Estate, surrounded by solid walls and Family he trusted. Dino curled up on the couch and hugged Enzo until his shell dug into Dino's chest.