It’s been over a year since I last saw Dominic and all I know from the letter today is he’s alive. Waiting is all we’ve been doing. It doesn’t feel right not knowing from one day to the next if I will ever see him again. I’m not sure which brother could just sit back and not worry.
“I know. I guess it’s good he sent this letter. It gives us hope,” Massimo says.
“Yeah.”
“He’s still helping us and I think it leaves us with the question on whether or not we continue with this quest. It’s been years. I have a kid on the way and you have one. Should we be encouraging war? I don’t want to seem like I’m continuously placing my family in danger.”
I see exactly what he means and I know now why there’s no note. Because it puts the question to all of us.
Do we continue?
Massimo and I are both fathers, married to women we love with all our hearts.
But the past still haunts and lingers in the corner of my mind.
“These people are jointly and severally and guilty together. They plot to kill our father. Mortimer was a pawn. I want them all Massimo. It’s not about encouraging war. It’s about ending it. We reformed the Syndicate and they didn’t want that. I’d say they still don’t. They’ve just been quiet.”
Massimo officially reformed the Syndicate last year and invited Aiden, Claudius and Vincent to join us. That’s all, for now. They’ve joined us with their counterparts. We stuck to tradition in that respect.
“Quiet and maybe watching,” he says.
“Mortimer said more will come and the bigger pieces on the chess board haven’t started playing yet. Time is irrelevant here. Just because they haven’t struck yet doesn’t mean they won’t. They just might not be ready right now.”
“Well, I think this both has to be something we all agree to do. I’m in. What say ye?”
I think about it and glance up at the window above us. I can see Isabella rocking Giacomo to sleep. The two of them are my world.
I promised my bellezza I’d take care of her, and there would always be light wherever she went with me.
I have to do this to make sure I can keep that promise.
I nod. “I’m in brother. I’m in.”