At long last, vengeance.

The city streets are unusually empty, there is a lack of any sort of life: no children are playing on the fountain side, no pigeon is in sight, resting atop any of the many statues scattered around the plaza, the bars and shops are all open yet no person is tending to them and no one is there to request any service. As I look around I cannot shake the feeling we are in an abandoned city, but my father is quick to notice and reassures me with pat on the shoulder that we've got the right place and nothing is wrong: In front of us is the restaurant where my grandmother works, and we are here just to grab a quick meal after all. Sure, it may feel slightly unsettling, but that's all there is to it.

Walking down the stairs and past an open space which offers a glimpse of the kitchen, I'm filled with relief at the sight of two cooks preparing dishes for... nobody, really. Just here, the restaurant is barely alive.

As we take our seats at the table, the eerie atmosphere grows heavier and heavier with the passage of time, the silence is deafening, just emphasized by the background noise.
The place is so quiet that we can hear our own heartbeats through our bodies, the ticking of the wall clock is soothing but ominous in nature, like it could be interrupted any moment by something, anything, just waiting to strike. The dark wooden floorboards under our chairs are ever so slighting creaking based on the way we move around on our seats, unnerving in the same fashion that the sounds of my father's mechanical arm and hand tapping on the table is frustrating, like he is unaware of our circumstances.

The midday lights of the Sun high in the sky are a warm distraction from the ambient we are experiencing, but as I look out the window for a distraction, a shadow passes over us. Swift in motion but with no body to cast it from the rooftops on the other side of the glass panel, suddenly fills my heart with anxiety. -It's the same as it was four years ago- and my mind starts rushing to all sorts of conclusions and in the hopes I've been imagining things, I glance at my father, but as it turns out there was a waiter next to our table, who's brought us our orders while I was distracted.
"You were spacing out, so I've ordered for you as well, I hope you don't mind? I've ordered your favorite just to be safe" and as I look down in front of me it turns out, he did order me my favorite dish, 'pasta alla carbonara'. To me these were the first spoken words ever since we set foot in this city, and breaking the silence engulfing us did indeed feel like the taboo I had convinced myself it would be.

By now I've been staring at him for the past couple of minutes, seeing him enjoying his soup, spoon after spoon, was somewhat unsavory in a way. How can he look so unfazed by the heavy tension in the air knowing full well what happened four years ago? How was I supposed to just wait and keep calm when I could feel what was about to happen? It needn't a genius to figure out after all, and soon enough my question got its' answer.

Just like a thunder striking in broad daylight, the window on my left shattered with a loud bang and by the time I turned my head to see a 'ninja' like the ones from four years ago, I could spy with the corner of my eye my father already reacting. Holding his bowl in his mechanical arm, he smashed it in their face with the full force of the piston running along his forearm, smashing the bowl in a thousand ceramic fragments flying across the room and sending the ninja limp on the ground, knocked unconscious.

It was at that moment that it dawned on me: what I was feeling all this time was not anxiety, but anticipation, for this exact moment. I quickly jump to my fit and side with my father. Looking to my right I see the chefs rushing out of the kitchen, having dropped their generic attire for their much more untasteful ninja robes. I quickly take the chair from behind me and hurl it at the two of them and staggering them for a few steps, promptly followed by me vaulting over the small fence separating the tables from the hall and delivering two kicks to their faces. As I stand up I realize... they are already laying unconscious on the floor? That has been a rather unsatisfactory revenge for the events of four years ago, which lead me to ponder for a moment if the whole time spent training in Karate and Kung-fu with my father have really been of any use. Nonetheless, I shake off this feeling and turn to my father in the hopes I could aid him in any way, but it seems he had his situation under control better than I had, as he is standing atop a fourth, fifth and sixth now unconscious ninjas.

He then turned around to face me and with a tired yet somehow relieved voice he mumbled "We have to go now, the Sicilian Ninjas have found us."

We slowly walk out the restaurant shoulder to shoulder, in silence, reflecting back to what just happened. suddenly the incident with my uncle wasn't such an isolated case anymore, it had happened for a reason, or they wouldn't have come for us two as well. But who are they exactly? My father did call them Sicilian Ninjas so there's that, but how or why does he know? To these questions he wouldn't give me an answer yet.