Brotherly Love

19. Finding Out

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Third Person

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The following week had gone by rather quickly, Donatello and Emiliano were due to arrive later this evening. Iris and Dante had made sure to stay clear of each other so they could avoid another argument, and all the brothers had began to spend more time with Nario they wanted him to have a good childhood and sometimes forgot that he had also undergone a huge loss at such a young age, even though he didn't really understand what was going on.

Iris was in the library, her fingertips brushing against the spines of the old books that sat patiently in their rightful place waiting for their stories to be retold. As she looked on the shelves she saw a smaller book sandwiched between all the others, clearly in the wrong place.

Pulling it out she inspected the leather journal that was safely enclosed by a single tie, as she undid it something silver fell to the ground. Bending down she picked up the silver chain with a moon charm hanging off it, identical to the one in the door at the end of the hall.

As she looked back at the first page of the book it read;

Journal of Alessandro Moretti

She knew she shouldn't read it, it was confidential and not to mention private. Iris knew she would hate if someone were to read her most delicate thoughts but her curiosity was slowly devouring her from the inside and she gave into her desires.

A single sentence was embedded in the first page and it was clear it no mistake it was a message, a warning.

Family is not defined by blood where your loyalties lie is where your family bonds are tied.

So many thought were ringing through her head but the most prominent one being 'what was it with these people and family'. Maybe it was because she had never truly had a family that she didn't understand what it was like to have someone out there you were willing to die for, no questions asked.

She'd never had a father to teach her the stepping stones in life, never felt the anger only a sibling could provide or the cousins in which the would discuss who the strictest aunties were and which uncle was the most fun.

The smallest glimpse of a family she had was Amalea, the woman who taught her about her first becoming of a woman, who bought her Valentine's Day gifts and taught her the meaning of self-worth so that she'd never settle for less.

Though some of the lessons Amalea had taught Iris had collected dust, she wasn't with Iris physically anymore and that allowed Iris to forget what she had been taught, she was only a child after all, and like kids do she needed the guidance to become the person she was destined to be.

So entranced by the book she hadn't realised she was now sat on the ground legs crossed, eyes dancing along the page eating up the thoughts of Alessandro Moretti. She'd never known what had happened to him, she could tell it hurt Amalea to think about so she never pushed.

But as she flipped the page it was if the secrets held between these family walls suddenly spilled out.

One of the most profound treasures of the human race is the power of mankind, we all have a light inside us waiting to illuminate the darkness in ways none of us could've imagined.