12: Bianchi

Flashback

(12 YEARS AGO)

An eighteen-year-old Mateo stands alongside the man whom he calls his mentor and savior. The man has asked Mateo to just observe the family of five having a picnic in the park, while the two sat on the bench – watching them. They are surrounded by the man’s bodyguards in disguise. Mateo knows how important this man is, therefore he wasn’t taken back by the security. Even Mateo has a gun tugged in his jeans, just in case he or this man gets attacked. He can risk his life for the said man. The man is called, Aldo. Mateo doesn’t know if this is the man’s real name, but everyone knows this man as Aldo, and so does he.

Aldo looks older for a man in his forties. Mateo believes it is the stress of his work that gave the man wrinkles, and peppery hair. Mateo knows that the nature of Aldo’s work brings a lot of challenges for him, both mentally and physically – and well, morally, but as Aldo told Mateo once, “You bury your moral and humanity six feet underground bef