The Pin’s hosted a mean party, he couldn’t deny and he’d looked forward to every single one after that.

When his grandmother had showed him the letter, he’d run his hand over the seal again and again. Edward remembered complimenting on how neat and bold it was.

Painted in a bright maroon colour, the insignia had the Pin’s name boldly at the centre of the circle while around it was some sort of Chinese language, a pact that the family stood by.

He hadn’t yet touched this letter, but Edward had seen it and it looked similar.

He wrapped himself from the waist down in a towel that stopped just short of his ankles.

While the upper part of his body was dry, the hairs on his legs were slick with the warm water and stuck to his legs like glue.

Edward padded with his wet feet from the bathroom across his carpeted floor to his dressing table where he took up a brush and ran it multiple times through his hair.

The food cooling on the bed didn’t bother him as much as the letter beside it, but Edward was taking his time getting to it.

His phone rang from where he had left it on the bedside cupboard and Edward moved quickly to answer it. It was Viktor. He has called him before Greta knocked but there had been no reply.

”I’m listening,” he said into the receiver as soon as he clicked the green button.

”Did you get the letter yet?” Viktor asked after he’d greeted his boss.

”Yes. Who delivered it?”

”I don’t know sir. It was there this morning on the front desk when the receptionist came to work,” Viktor informed him.

His sentences were a bit rushed and he was panting. Edward figured he had just come out of the gym. That explained why he hadn’t picked the call earlier.

”How did it get there?”

”No one knows. The night shift said no one came into the building at any point while they were around.

And the replacement shift was there before any of them left. The building was secure at all times.”

The more Viktor told him, the more convinced Edward became as to who had sent him the letter.

”The letter, did it come with anything else?” Edward asked as he moved to the bed. He slid the tray closer to the edge and picked up the letter.

”I was just getting to that part. How did you know?” Viktor was confused.

Edward flipped open the letter and read the first line. “Because I’ve been receiving letters like this since I was a kid.”

There was a pause. “What?”

”What did the letter come with?” but even as he asked, Edward already knew the answer.

”A paperweight.”

Ah, so the stories were true. “Where’s it?”

”I couldn’t trust the dispatch rider with it so I left it in your office.”

”Good. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

That meant Viktor was to be there in thirty minutes as well, or less.

”Yes, sir.”

Edward cut the call and dropped the phone with the letter on the bed. The smile on his face defied the frown that had been there all those years ago at the mention of the party. He was raked by a feeling of nostalgia and longing as he remembered the past once again.

*******

The Pins were another crime family that operated in the Asian region. Tai Pin, the head of the family had gone to the same secondary academy as Edward’s father and the two had remained best friends even after graduating the institute.

They had both started off in the mafia world together before getting married and starting their own families.

Tai Pin had gotten married to a tall, slender woman of the fairest skin named Song. Edward remembered having a child’s crush on the woman, had even preferred her to her three haughty daughters: Mai, Su Ya and Chapa.

The trio along with a few others from different families had been the bane of his teenage existence.

Each time they all hung out at the Pin’s place, Mai would always lead the gang into playing silly pranks on Edward and the other boys.

Song had always come to their rescue and Edward had grown close to her as a result of the attention she always showered on them.

Two years before his parents had died in that car crash, the Pins had moved from China to a small village in Jordan. Tai Pin had gotten tired of living the mafia way especially then that his daughters had grown.

He wanted them to marry respectable young men and to do that needed to separate them from the underworld. Because Edward’s father was the highest ranking boss and best friends to Tai, it had been easy for them to step down without any drama.

The Wus had offered them protection and a warning had been sent out to the other families to let the Pins leave in peace.

By reason of his position and the authority he held, Yama Wu’s wishes had been granted and the Pins had disappeared China without a trace.

In the beginning, there had been communication between the two families until gradually it had dwindled and then finally stopped.

Edward had speculated that they had moved from the initial address they had given when they had written to them several times with no reply.

”I believe it’s for the best that none of us know where they are,” Yama had told his family after their third letter had been returned with no reply.

After that, they had stopped writing to them at all and didn’t get any letters again until the death incident.

Tai Pin had reached out to the family through a letter expressing his deepest condolences. They had watched a broadcast where the death had been announced and wanted to know the date of the burial so they could send some flowers.

The letter had come with an address Edward could write to and he’d suspected that wasn’t where the Pins were living.

He’d still written back anyway and had been tempted to ask, but after so many months not knowing there whereabouts, Edward figured it wasn’t as important then.

It was his father that had brought the families together and now that he had died, Edward wasn’t sure what would hold them together again.