BIA Ch. 10

“Do you believe what I’m saying?”

Bran, who had been straightening his disheveled clothes, looked at Isaiah wordlessly. Then what? That was the look in his eyes. Isaiah hastily offered an excuse.

“No, Chester wouldn’t believe it for a long time. Manny wouldn’t either.”

“At least Isaiah Cole in his right mind wouldn’t be sitting on the toilet, crying his eyes out.”

At Bran’s words, Isaiah immediately recalled the video Chester had shown him. Well, if a man kills people like that… he wouldn’t be crying on the toilet. Certainly.

Even so, it was a truly indifferent reaction. Isaiah glanced at the man’s face, sculpted in various ways and then spoke in a low voice.

“Manny… said I shouldn’t let you find out.”

“But why are you telling me everything?”

Bran asked immediately.

“Because I think you were the last person I was with before I lost my memory.”

“Why is that?”

Bran asked again, tightening his tie. Isaiah unknowingly averted his eyes from that piercing gaze.

“Well, the fact that I was last with you, not Chester, right before the successor announcement… that is…”

“Does that mean you betrayed Chester and sided with me?”

There was no time to even clear his throat at the blunt statement. Bran, who had spoken without hesitation the words Isaiah couldn’t bring himself to say, crossed his arms and chuckled.

“Still, I’m glad you seem to be able to grasp the situation properly.”

Bran showed a positive reaction for the first time. In fact, it was a compliment bordering on endless sarcasm, difficult to call entirely positive but it was still good. For Isaiah, who had been treated like a nuisance, a burden, and an empty can by Chester ever since he had woken up in bed that day, he couldn’t help the corners of his mouth lifting.

“That’s right. You decided to stand by my side tomorrow and help me, not Chester.”

Bran said, leaning against the door of the private compartment with his arms crossed.

“There’s no need to call it betrayal. It’s only natural. Chester was doomed anyway. There’s no reason to die a dog’s death by his side. There’s no loyalty there either.”

Bran, who had been continuing in a dry tone, suddenly closed his mouth. Then he gently pressed his forehead with his fingertips.

“Damn it. I had no idea I would say this again today.”

I’m going crazy. Bran laughed as if in disbelief. A rare variety of emotions could be felt in his tone and expression. Emptiness, futility, and… rage.

Still, perhaps because he was a learned man, his language was very polite, unlike Chester or Manny, who were quick to curse. He wouldn’t use profanity under any circumstances. He would try to shoot a gun instead.

“I’m sorry, really… I don’t know why this happened.”

Isaiah apologized, dejected once more.

“Does personality also change when you lose your memory?”

Bran, now standing with his posture straightened, looked at Isaiah curiously.

“Well, it’s not so much that I lost my memory…”

“Yes, whatever it is, I clearly understand that you’re not in your right mind right now.”

I’ll talk to you later. Bran said, checking his wristwatch.

“I don’t have time for a long conversation now.”

“Later? Where…?”

“Tonight. I’ll come to your apartment.”

Even though he hadn’t meant it that way, the idea of Bran coming to his apartment at night felt strangely suggestive and Isaiah was embarrassed for no reason. Afraid his face might flush, he quickly said.

“I don’t mind, but Chester will probably be there. He’s also trying to figure out what to do about my condition.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

Bran uttered the words shortly and abruptly left the bathroom without another word. Isaiah, sitting on the toilet, stared blankly at the open doorway. Only after a long while did he come to his senses and stand up.

Chester, who had hugged Bran in a friendly manner in front of his father and then turned away, didn’t stop criticizing, slandering, and cursing Bran throughout the car ride back. In particular, he would belittle Bran by saying, “He’s not even like a mafia!” at the end of every sentence, but there wasn’t any grand reason for it.

“That bastard’s way of making money is all wrong.”

Chester’s biggest complaint was that Bran looked down on prostitution, drugs, and weapons trafficking, the usual main sources of income for the mafia.

“Then how does he make money?”

“A gambling site.”

“Ah, operating it to generate profit…”

“No, we hack illegal gambling sites, use that to blackmail the companies, and extort money from them.”

“……”

“He’s a lost cause anyway. Father suggested he create and operate one of those sites, but he said it was too much trouble.”

“If he gets flagged by CI^[1], he would be constantly monitored, and that’s dangerous. The merry-go-round was already in motion back then.”

“Is that an excuse?”

Before Manny could finish speaking, Chester shouted.

“The trick is to make money while avoiding that. That bastard is far from being a mafia.”

Chester continued to criticize Bran for not being mafia-like, but to Isaiah, there was nothing more mafia-like than this. Wasn’t it so? The people running illegal gambling sites could not be good civilians. They would surely be mafia like Bona Mana, or a group of internet fraudsters with similar criminal records. Since they were mafia, they would think to threaten such criminals and extort money. How could an ordinary person do such a thing?

“So, Bran doesn’t touch drugs or prostitution at all?”

“He does touch them. But compared to other businesses, it’s peanuts. That bastard doesn’t even have the qualifications to be a mafia.”

It was unclear whether Chester’s words were praise or criticism. Manny, from the driver’s seat, interjected.

“Why? He had pulled off a big drug heist once before.”

“Almost at the beginning, when he first joined our organization.”

“Fuck, don’t even bring that up! Why on earth would that crazy bastard touch another organization’s merchandise!”

Chester yelled, kicking the driver’s seat.

“Touched another organization’s merchandise… You mean he intercepted it?”

Isaiah asked, incredulous. Sure enough, Chester angrily replied.

“Yes! That crazy bastard.”

“And of all things, he had to touch La Cosa Nostra’s merchandise.”

“La Cosa Nostra? What is that?”

Chester’s eyes widened for a moment.

“Oh, right. This bastard is out of it right now.”

After a brief nod, Chester grabbed Isaiah’s small chin angrily.

“Even so, how could you forget even this? Just how foolish have you become!”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Is an apology enough? Huh? What are you going to do tomorrow?!”

You idiot, you useless bastard, if you don’t get your memories back by tomorrow, I will not let you go, do you understand, you faggot? After unleashing a torrent of insults, Chester finally released Isaiah and said.

“Look, American mafia organizations are largely divided into two. One is La Cosa Nostra, and the other is everything else.”

He explained that while in Italy, Cosa Nostra referred to Sicilian mafia organizations, in America, the term La Cosa Nostra was used to collectively refer to all Italian-American mafia organizations.

“La Cosa Nostra has established rules amongst themselves, and they are quite strict. La Cosa Nostra members are not supposed to fight each other, or encroach on each other’s territory. It’s all very complicated. They hold regular commission-like meetings to punish those who violate the norms. It’s quite a scene. On the other hand, they are incredibly tight-knit. If an organization outside of La Cosa Nostra attacks one of them, they all band together for retaliation.”

But Bran, without any fear, had intercepted drugs belonging to the Varone Family, a member of La Cosa Nostra and one of the five major organizations of Eloy.

“He probably stole it unknowingly. It was around the time he had just joined our organization. He probably just heard that there would be a big score somewhere soon and went ahead and took it. Until a few days prior, he had been holed up in the university library, just studying. How would he know what La Cosa Nostra was, or whose dog the Varone Family was?”

As a result, La Cosa Nostra was thrown into chaos. They frantically searched for the drug thief, but his methods were so clean and he had left no evidence that they could not find him.

Moreover, at that time, very few people knew Bran’s face, making it even more difficult to track him down.

“If Bran had sold the drugs immediately, he would have been caught quickly. Drug thieves are typically caught not during the theft, but during the resale.”

However, given the circumstances, Bran could not sell the drugs right away. So, he hid the enormous quantity of drugs in a secret location. A year after the theft, the situation exploded. Mario, the boss of the Varone Family, broke the Omertà^[2] and testified in favor of the government in court.