chapter 35

"So Bob, I have several questions I've been meaning to ask you for a while now, If you don't mind, of course," I said with a solemn look on my face as I addressed the butler.

"I don't mind, I also had some questions to ask you about, but you can go first," Bob replied with a relaxed tone of voice.

"I'll take you up on that offer then," I said with a shrug and then continued. "I saw the way you fought, and I know for a fact that you should have been able to protect Elly's family, so how the hell did that happen?" I asked with a frown on my face while making eye contact with him.

"sigh, I had wanted to wipe out the gangsters when I figured out what they were after indeed, But Elly's father, Richard, that old fool, insisted that I've done more than enough to repay him for saving my life and that he'll take care of it somehow," he remarked with a sigh, and I just raised an eyebrow at that waiting for him to continue.

"there was no arguing with the man, so I decided to give him a chance to take care of it and only step in if things began turning to the worst likely situation," he continued his explanation with a sad voice.

"fate, however, had other plans. When things finally turned for the worst, I was already preparing to make a move, Richard's wife, Sophia, disappeared with their savings, and Richard asked me to go after her to make sure she was safe," Bob said as he lowered his head to look at the table and drew an even bigger sigh.

"I spent two days going after her tracks all over the city until I found out what happened to her. She had was tricked by Dante Nitti, Frank Nitti's little brother. He told her they only wanted the money, which her husband refused to give them, and that they'll leave them alone if she brought it to them behind Richard's back," he said, and there was rage in his voice as he spoke.

"the bastard took the money, then killed her and fed her corpse to the pigs. I spent another two days to find him and another torturing the shit-eating scum before killing him," he concluded, his rage dissipating from his voice replaced by emptiness and nothing else.

"When I got back to the mansion outside the city, I learned from Elly that Richard took his rifle, went out, and didn't return. I ran out of the estate and back into the city as soon as I heard that, and after some digging around, I found out that he attacked a safe house belonging to the Nitti family and died for blood loss after killing everyone there," he said with a tired voice, as his face seemed to whither as if he had grown several years older.

"after even more digging, I found out that the man in charge of the safe house Richard attacked had ambushed Richard outside of the mansion, roughed him up, and told him that he would sell Elly to slave traders after taking over the estate and killing him," he said as he shook his head and recovered his calm.

"There was nothing else for me to do but return to the mansion and inform little Elly of her father's fate, but I didn't have it in me to tell her about her mother. She seemed so relieved that she one parent still alive somewhere, even if she thought that parent had abandoned her," he concluded as he called a server and asked him to bring the strongest drink they had.

"I understand why you couldn't protect them, but why didn't you help Elly take revenge, then?" I asked as I watched snatch the bottle that the server had brought and started drinking directly from the bottle.

"I offered to do that believe me, but that girl takes over her father, and I thought it was a good idea to let her do it since it would toughen her up and give her purpose to dedicate herself to," he said with as he sighed again and kept drinking from his bottle.

"Fair enough. Now it's your turn to ask," I said with a sigh of my own at how everything seemed to go wrong at the same time. When it rains, it pours, I guess.

"well, what I want to ask is very simple. I want to know about how you learned the marine's six powers?" he asked, while eyeing me suspiciously.

"I figured them out myself while I was stranded on a deserted island, of course," I answered in a confident tone, as if I was stating the obvious.

"And how did you know about them in the first place? You don't just come with this kind of thing while taking a shit in the forest," he said in suspicion with a raised eyebrow, but I already had an answer ready.

"I found a buried pirate treasure that had a journal describing the writer's encounter with marine soldiers who were using them," I said with a shrug of my shoulder, not showing any expression on my face.

"and what about you? How did you know about them? You even used soru while fighting Wilson," I said, deflecting his question right back at him.

"that's a story for another time," he said as he got up and made his way to his room without waiting for me to reply, leaving me alone on the table.