Chapter 2 - ''Nate Kennedy, open this door.''

The entire ride had been dead silence, Aunt Judy not able to glance towards her nephew, thoughts spiralling out of control in her mind that she rolled down her window, feeling as if she was suffocating inside the car. As for Nate, he leaned his elbow against his car door, unsure what to even say. Aunt Judy's fingers had not stopped tapping the steering wheel sporadically and she hadn't yet even looked at him, as if she was disgusted by him. He was unsure why the air had suddenly gotten gloomy and awkward, which was why eventually, it became way too unbearable for him to stay quiet.

"Why does it feel like your mad at me?" Nate sighed, glancing quickly towards Aunt Judy.

Judy's grip tightened around the steering wheel, veins forming at the top of her hand. It was strange—one minute she appeared nervous, but Joe she only seemed angry with him, narrowing her eyes and scoffing when she glanced his direction.

She hadn't answered yet and it was way too long of a minute for Nate to keep waiting for one. "Why are you—"

"You fucked up, Nate." She shook her head, exhaling a long sigh as she made a tough turn, hitting the curb since her attention was barely on the road. "You messed up bad."

He raised an eyebrow, sending trembling fingers through his hair. "What do you mean?"

"Do you know who the fuck that was?" she hissed, glancing everywhere as if she could be heard any second of the day. It was clear she was on guard, but Nate hadn't realized it was this serious to cause Aunt Judy to barely be able to breathe and speak. She felt as if her lungs were growing heavier by the second, unable to inhale as much air as before and she leaned her face out of the window for a moment.

"Of course I have no idea who that was—"

"That was Dante."

Nate snorted. "So?" He shrugged his shoulders when he saw her eyes widen. "Who the fuck is Dante?"

"Dante Hercules," she sighed, her grip tightening around the wheel. "Even his name sounds dangerous. No one really knows what his family does. There are so many rumours about them," she explained, shaking her head as she realized how severe the mistake had been. "I personally think his parents are apart of the mafia. Others say that they used to be assassins, foreign spies. Some even say his father moved from Japan and had been affiliated with the Yakuza."

Nate inhaled a sharp breath and when Aunt Judy heard that, she nodded her head, understand what he must be feeling. His gut seemed to be twisting, now realizing why the blond had scars across his face, or why there was such dark aura surrounded Dante when he stepped down from the car.

"What I do know is that they make people disappear. They're involved everywhere—politics, legal system, they scare judges, they even infiltrated the police. They are everywhere. And the worse is that their family is huge—each of them make fifteen to twenty kids to maintain their large impact everywhere." She send quivering fingers through her hair. "I know Dante has almost thirty cousins here." There was sweet forming on the corner of her forehead. "I don't even want to think of the number of them in surrounding cities or even overseas."

"How did I never hear about them before?"

Aunt Judy shook her head. "You won't hear about them—it's word to mouth. Nobody really knows what they do and they're really good at keeping it within their circle. Regardless, anyone that rats them out ends up just...vanishing."

Nate felt as if his throat was shrinking. This sounded as if it was a horror story, and now he wished he hadn't even exited the car at all. The worse part was that he hadn't even stopped at just telling Dante to stop messing with his aunt, he even menaced to murder him.

"We need to get you out of this city."

Nate couldn't help but agree—that was not the avenue he wanted to continue upon this early in a new surrounding. "We need to get out now."

"He could kill you, Nate."

"I fucking know that Auntie, thanks." He snapped, annoyed that he hadn't been told all these things before even arriving to this city. He had never heard of anyone named Dante Hercules, his name sounded ridiculous anyway. Besides, he never even thought he would come across a mafia member, or an assassin, or a yakuza—honestly, all these terms were way too much for him to take in that the only thing he thought was, "Let's go home now and start packing."

Aunt Judy did not fail to violently whip the vehicle for a u-turn, ignoring all the honks that resounded and pressed as hard as she could on the gas.

"What are we going to tell my mom and dad?"

"We don't have to tell Melle anything," Aunt Judy reassured, nodding her head in hopes that she could convince herself of that as well. "Think about it; you live alone anyway so you can lie and say you're still in Mecan."

This plan sounded horrible, but based on Aunt Judy's words and reaction to seeing Dante, it was clear that that was their best bet in staying alive. "What if they come down?"

"We can act as if we went on a trip without telling them."

The car fell quiet, Nate biting his bottom lip as he realized that the rest of his life would be lies after lies, deceiving his parents for god knows how long. Even worse was that he had no idea where he was even supposed to, nor what he would do even when he moved. They would have to find an entirely different apartment, purchased furniture once again, even find a new school to enrol—he was scheduled to start in two days.

He wanted to stay with Aunt Judy, start his new school in the next few days, find new friends and have as many guests over in his brand new apartment, finally living alone do the first time. As much as he was afraid, the fury was starting to overshadow it; he didn't want to have to lie to his parents while he fled the city, afraid of an outcome that may never even happen. Besides, why would a mafia assassin yakuza want to murder newly senior high school student Nate Kennedy? Out of all they most likely had to deal with?

The moment they stepped inside the apartment, Aunt Judy sprinted past the front door and stormed towards his apartment. He followed shortly after, seeing her frantically throw a few clothes from his closet onto an opened suitcase, opening his dresser to pile essential clothings as well.

"You can't take everything in one go," she explained, almost talking to herself. "I'll meet up with you and bring them later on." She even pulled the blanket from his bed and rolled it into a ball, throwing it beside the suitcase. Nate had never seen her in such uneasy state, sprinting from left to right without even a millisecond of breather.

She only stopped when she realized that Nate had been standing still ever since they had arrived, staring at her pile his belongings without any help. She then straightened her spine and violently widened her arms as she spat, "So you're not going to help me? At all?"

Nate sighed, staring at his palms for a moment before squeezing them into fists. "I can't just drop everything, Aunt Judy."

Judy raised her eyebrows, throwing the clothing in her hands onto the floor. "What do you mean Nate?" When he failed to respond quickly enough, she stepped towards him. "Don't you get it? He makes people disappear—"

"But I can't run away and start somewhere new." He lifted his shoulders, glancing towards her for a moment before lifting his eyes towards the ceiling, exhaling a long exhausted breather. It seemed as if an eternity had passed already ever since their encounter with this mysterious Dante and he wished they hadn't even left the home this morning. Regardless, all of Aunt Judy's ideas didn't seem good enough, all for futur predictions that may never even happen. "Who's supposed to pay for the new apartment? Down payment? Sign the papers? That was all my parents."

"We will figure something out later, Nathan." Her tone had tightened with a slight hint of begging, hoping that he could see her point of view and begin helping her gather enough stuff for him to be alright for a little while until they figured what would be the best course of actions. "Please, help me pack your stuff."

Nate paused for a moment, staring at the lines from the wooden floor, observing its symmetry and diverting his thoughts for a second. He knew she wanted to best for him and was attempting to protect him, but this was far from protecting him. They needed to face the mistakes they had done and Nate slowly opened his mouth, preparing the words in his mind how he would explain that he decided staying would be the best option for his heart, hoping that Dante never hassled them ever again.

However, before he could do so, three loud knocks on the front door made both their hearts skip a beat. Their gazes met and Nate thought his heart had permanently stopped when he heard the familiar husky voice hiss, "Nate Kennedy, open this door."