? Echoes of Kindness ?
5 years ago
Montivara Mountains
The river moved in slow, shimmering ribbons, its surface rippling with the hush of summer wind. An egret cried in the distance, and somewhere upstream, frogs croaked lazily beneath the reeds. Eight-year-old Alex sat cross-legged on the grassy bank, his small hands pressed into the earth, watching with wide eyes.
A lone swan drifted a few feet from shore—elegant, white as morning snow, its long neck curving like a question mark over the water.
Alex leaned closer, blinking.
“A swan… that did that to the boy you treated, Father?”
Gilbert, seated beside him with his sleeves rolled up and his knees drawn close, nodded.
“Yes, son. Poor lad looked beyond scared. Shaking like a leaf. Said he couldn’t move, like he was paralyzed.”
Alex frowned. “Maybe he scared it.”
“I don’t think so,” Gilbert said, his voice calm but weighted. “Swans are highly territorial. The boy was just playing near the bank. Too close, maybe. But he meant no harm.”
Alex’s eyes returned to the swan, still gliding serenely through the sunlit water.
“But it looks… peaceful.”
Gilbert chuckled—a dry, knowing sound.
“Those are the most dangerous creatures, Alex.”
“What do you mean?”
Gilbert tore a blade of grass, rubbed it between his fingers.
“When you see a lion, a tiger, even a wolf—you know. From a distance, your instincts kick in. The growl, the glare, the way their body coils with warning. You back off. You’re told to fear them.”
He gestured toward the swan.
“But look at this one.”
The swan turned, its wings catching the light like silk.
“It misleads you. White as innocence. Quiet. Graceful. Almost like a symbol of peace. You’d think it’s harmless, even noble… until you’re at the receiving end of its fury. Then it’s too late.”
Alex was quiet for a moment, then asked.
“Are there more creatures like it?”
Gilbert’s eyes narrowed faintly.
“Yes. Not just animals. There are people like that too.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
“I… no, not me. But a friend of mine, back in the city. He knew one.”
Gilbert’s gaze drifted—past the trees, past the horizon, toward a place he hadn’t spoken of in years.
“This man,” he said slowly, “was gentle. Warm. Always the first to lend a hand. Helped the elderly, gave food to the poor. People loved him. Trusted him. And then one day, they learned what he did behind closed doors.”
Alex turned toward his father, his small brow furrowed.
Gilbert met his eyes, and his voice lowered.
“Alex… if you ever meet a man who charms you despite the wrong he does, who makes you like him, even as you know better… Fear him the most.”
The hallway was quiet as Alex and Dante stepped into their room. The door clicked shut behind them—soft, but loud in the silence between them.
The Veracci deal had gone peacefully. No casualties. No blood.
But that wasn’t what stuck with Alex. That wasn’t what made his skin crawl.
Dante flopped onto his bed with a sigh. “You’ve been quiet the whole way back, buddy. Everything alright?”
Alex didn’t answer right away. He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
“…Vince,” he muttered. “He doesn’t make sense.”
Dante looked up.
“He’s hard to read, yeah. But he’s kind. Friendly. You liked him—I saw it.”
“I know,” Alex said. “That’s why he’s creeping me out. Even more than Dominick.”
Dante frowned, studying him.
“Man… you gotta get out of that whole good-and-bad mindset. Seriously. It won’t get you far in this world. Vince, the boss—Dominick—they’re mob, yeah. But they’re family to me.”
Alex slowly raised his head.
A moment passed as he processed Dante's words. This kid—proudly participating in criminal activity, and calling the same men throwing him into the danger 'family' made Alex feel disgusted... The feeling was stronger than he expected, as he himself has just been affected by Vince's charm, thinking that this people are to be looked up, to be liked—even if it was for just a moment.
“…Dominick is my uncle,” he said quietly.
Dante sat upright.
“What?!”
“I never told you.” he looked away, jaw tight. “My parents have history with him. He’s my mother’s brother.”
“…You’re serious?”
“He kept them safe." Alex continued, still averting his eyes. "Kind of. I don't know the details, but he got me to do what I do now for their safety. I knew he was a criminal. But I never thought he is this twisted. Playing with people's minds and hearts. Using children like us in his plays. I’ve seen what he does, what he is... How can I call him family?”
Dante didn’t interrupt. Just listened.
Alex turned his gaze to him—slow, deliberate.
“Why do you work for them, Dante? How’d they recruit you?”
Dante took a slow breath, then let his body fall back onto the mattress. He lay flat, eyes fixed on the cracked ceiling above. For a while, he didn’t speak.
Then—
“My parents fought… all the time,” he murmured, voice low and steady, distant as if recalling someone else’s life.
“I was six. Their only kid.”
His hands clenched slightly at his sides.
“But that one night… it went further than usual. I was too small and young to understand, but apparently my father cheated on her, and she ended up… hitting him on the head with a glass bottle.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
His voice carried the hollow weight of memory, the long years of arguing and tension and the night when it exploded into something uncontainable.
Alex listened.
"I don't know what happened after that. I just ran away that night. Lived as a stray for months, like the others you see out there. In this filthy city.”
His throat tightened.
“One winter, I was freezing in the street. Thought that was it. No coat. No food. Just waiting to die... Until Dominick showed up and gave me a roof. This roof. He’s no saint. I know that. But when I was dying, no teacher helped. No priest. No nobleman gave me a second glance. He did... Not you."
The words hit. Alex's heart skipped a beat.
Dante carried on.
"You would never understand. You've never been homeless. You've never been hungry until a few weeks ago. You've never slept right next to a dumpster. You've never felt cold in the winter. You've had loving parents. And Dominick... despite everything and what's he puts us through, I think he cares about me. About us. We’re not just tools.”
His voice softened to almost a whisper.
“Maybe… maybe he sees me as… a son.”
Alex’s voice was quiet, but sharp.
“Then why aren’t you at school?”
Dante blinked. He was still looking at the ceiling—but now his eyes had widened, just a little.
“A parent sends their kid to school. Teaches them. Guides them.”
Alex’s words came slow, deliberate.
“What did Dominick teach you, Dante? Other than how to lie. How to spy. How to collect scraps of information like some trained pet.”
He shook his head as he continued,
“Look at him. He comes by the apartment once, maybe twice a week. Gives orders. Leaves. That’s not family. One day you will grow up. You'll be old enough to carry a gun."
"Will you pull the trigger if he asks you to?"
"Will you take a life for him?"
Dante’s breath caught.
The questions landed like blows. Each one opening cracks in the carefully built wall he had told himself was a home.
“Dante—”
“Enough,”
Dante snapped, his voice was angry, it carried pain. The same pain Alex had felt after realizing he is liking Vince despite his conviction to never fall for criminals—when you realize the ground you stood on was never really solid to begin with.
“Good night,” he muttered, rolling away in his blanket.
Alex stared at the back of his friend’s head, heart pounding.
He wasn’t the only one falling apart.
Minutes passed in silence. Then, without a word, Alex got up, marched across the room and yanked the blanket clean off Dante’s bed.
“Hey—what the hell?” Dante sat up, blinking in disbelief.
“We have to face it, Dante!” Alex’s voice trembled. “Not run from it!”
“Just let me sleep—”
“No!”
Dante blinked.
“What?”
“Answer me!” Alex shouted. “Why aren’t you in a better place if he cares about you?! Why are you running errands for a mobster?!”
“I don’t care!” Dante shot back. “He’s the only one who helped me, Alex! The only one! Who else did?!”
“ME, DANTE! ME!”
Alex’s scream tore through the room—raw, wild, broken, freezing Dante.
“I’m helping you. Now.”
Dante stared at him. “Alex…”
Alex’s eyes were burning with helpless grief. Grief at the man who had convinced Dante that this life was the best he could hope for.
“You think I'd leave you freezing outside if I knew you before?"
"You think I'd turn my head away, pretending I didn't see you? You or any homeless kid out there in the slums?"
"Don't hate me because I showed up a few years later than Dominick. Because I don't have the power, the money or spare roofs."
"I... I don’t want to see you become like them,” he whispered, voice breaking, shoulders shaking. “You stopped stealing… just because you saw me working. I never even asked you to. I won’t forgive myself if one day… you end up like them…”
Dante couldn’t believe it. Alex was asking the questions he’d buried for years, looking at his future while his own present was being crushed.
“I won’t,” he said.
Alex looked up, worried, yet hopeful at the tone.
Dante nodded. Firm.
“I promise.” then, softer, “One day I’ll find a way out—for both of us.”
After a moment, he gave a tired smile.
“Now go to sleep. You’ve been through enough today.”
Alex hesitated, then nodded slowly. His eyes still full. His heart still heavy. He turned and climbed back into bed, but his mind didn’t rest, focusing on one thing tomorrow.
Next morning
The shop door creaked open, breaking two days of silence.
Old man Harris, behind the counter, half-asleep and slumped forward, didn’t even glance up.
The place felt hollow now. Regret lingered heavier than the dust.
“Mr. Harris!”
The old man paused.
That voice—familiar, sharp, young. The boy he’d pushed away.
“Alex!” he blurted out, heart racing. A strange mess of joy, shame, and worry.
He hurried around the counter, hands trembling.
“I was looking for—”
“I want to work here again.” Flat. Simple. Almost begging. But Alex’s eyes weren’t the same.
He’d always been mature. But this—this was different.
“I don’t need an apology. I just want my job back... What do I have to do to get it back ?"
Harris stepped forward, then—without thinking—placed both hands on the boy’s shoulders. Firm. Solid. Real.
“You never lost it, Alex.”
Alex blinked, that weight lifting—just a little.
“I can… work here again?”
“Of course!” Harris barked, half-grumbling, half-chiding, shaking him slightly like the world’s most irritated grandfather.
Alex chuckled—quiet, unsure. He hadn’t noticed the tear in his own eye.
Not the kind he shed the first time Harris hired him. That was joy.
This… this was something else. Relief. Grief. Normalcy.
“I just... want to talk to someone like you every day.”
Harris wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t charming.
But he was real. And Alex needed real.
He had enough ghosts.
Dominick, the myth, the Undertaker.
Vince, the two faced demon.
The missions. The guilt.
But this? This was a job. A shelf. A broom.
And a man who, in his own grumpy way, cared.
“Tch…” Harris grumbled, standing up and brushing past him like he wasn’t about to tear up. “Damn kid… makin’ me worry for nothing…”
The words came out instinctively, as if his mouth moved on its own.
“It wasn’t nothing.”
The boy looked up, and for a second, Harris saw something deeper behind that tired smile.
“But I’m back,” Alex said.
The smile that followed wasn’t the same the old man Harris knew.
Inside, a thought flickered through his mind, a quiet, aching whisper he couldn’t say aloud:
"I wish I could talk to someone about this... but I can’t... Not Mr. Harris. I’ll make him worry for nothing... And who knows... what he might do to me if he finds out I work for the mob."
So he swallowed it, grabbed the broom and got to work. But Harris kept glancing over. The boy was quiet. Too quiet. Not his usual collected silence, either—this one felt... hollow. Like he was doing everything he could not to exist too loudly.
After a while, Harris couldn’t take it anymore.
“Alex.”
The boy paused, mid-wipe.
“…Yeah?”
“What happened?” the old man asked, genuinely concerned.
Alex froze. His fingers clenched slightly around the rag.
Harris’s voice was gentler this time.
“I mean it. Where’ve you been?”
Alex didn’t turn around.
“Nothing happened,” he said.
Harris frowned.
“Kid—”
But before he could press further, Alex turned and asked flatly,
“…Did you know there’s a rat here?”
Harris blinked.
“…What?”
Alex carried on.
“I saw it right when I came in. Big one, too… maybe the same one from last week.”
“Damn rat's back?! I knew I heard chewing! You wait here, I’m getting the other broom—no, wait, I’m getting the trap! No, wait—I’m gonna salt the entire storage!”
He stormed into the back with a comical amount of determination, muttering curses and drawing up full battle plans like a general going to war.
Alex stood alone again, watching the curtains sway from Harris’s dramatic exit.
He gave a small, tired smile.
Harris was busy now. Distracted. Safe.
Just how Alex needed it to be.
He turned back to the window and resumed cleaning, the ghost of that smile lingering only for a second longer before it vanished in the glass.
Still... the boy needed help. Needed someone to talk to.
No family here. No real friends. Dante himself is conflicted. Old man Harris is out of the question.
But there was one person. Someone his age, but not really. Someone too calm, too strange, like she’d lived twice already. Minutes after she spoke to him, after that odd, poetic speech, Alex had gotten the job at Harris’s. He didn’t believe in fate. But he remembered the feeling.
Once he finished for the day, he’d head to that fountain, hoping to see the violin girl again.
Noor.
Thank you for reading :)
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