10 years ago

Growing up people have always considered me to be crazy, a lunatic like both my uncles Cyril and Tullio were. I never believed them before, yes I looked up to my uncle's even more so than I did my father at times, but I wasn't crazy like they were. At least I thought I wasn't, but now standing in front of the man I called Fratello for as long as I can remember I could feel my blood boiling, my skin itching, and I could see every speck of dust, dirt, and grime in this underground dungeon where me and the man currently chained to the wall with a gag in his mouth where born well over forty years ago in this exact location. It's been a week since my good and longest friend of al Mattia De Santis and I captured my only blood relative that's still alive. For six long and hard years my wife Tatiana, Mattia, me, and the family of my wife as well as all of our soldiers, have been looking for my youngest boy and name mate to my youngest uncle, Tullio. For those six years, I have had to watch my children grow up without their brother, and worst of all I had to tell my son Cyril name mate with my oldest uncle that his little brother was gone and that I wasn't sure when he would come back. If he will come back. But still now with Paolo captured, I have no idea where my bel ragazzo is located, it hurts me to think about those mismatched eyes or the way he used to belly laugh at something falling whether it was just a stuffed toy or watching his older brothers play fight in the living room. It's been too long since I had last seen or even held Tullio, it's slowly eating away at my sanity but that is of no use now. Paolo with me in the dungeon where our mother gave birth to us, where she died doing so. it all became too much. The kidnapping of my son, the betrayal by my only brother, the search for both of them, the hurt and anxiety. It all became too much and it is all his fault. I came down here today to finish this once and for all, me and my men have already tried to get the information out of him by torture for days on end without any breaks or moments for Paolo to rest. but he didn't let go of anything. This could either mean that he knows the location and is just too stubborn and spiteful to submit or he doesn't know where Tullio is either, which I'm scared to think about all the possibilities if that was the case. Either way, the once burly figure of Paolo has shrunk over these six years and even more so after a week of starvation and dehydration now he is only a foggy memory of who he once was. But those brown eyes of his stayed the same, never backing down even in death. He was trained to be a soldier just like me by our elders when we grew from boys to men and it still shows. His mind is sharp and he is cunning. He has always been able to talk himself out of trouble but not tonight, not anymore. he will pay for what he did and even after all of this, if I will ever be able to look my son in the eyes again and even after I lay in my grave my spirit will haunt him till the end of days. I am going to make Paolo wish that he died with our mother in this exact cell that seemed like a whole nother lifetime ago. And only then will I be able to find the tiniest shred of piece.