Formaggio opened the box, which was inlaid with several small compartments, like tiny rooms. Trish Una stared at the small boxes with wide, terrified eyes.
She clearly saw several young girls placed inside some of those small boxes!
She was exactly the fifth one.
This was like the story of Thumbelina she had once heard, an existence out of a fairy tale.
The man with the short gray hair glanced at her and said, "My apologies." He then suddenly raised a beautifully crafted small knife, skillfully twirling the blade, and cut Una's finger while she was still in a daze.
She began to shrink at a visible speed, and fear brought a silent scream, until the people around her seemed hundreds of times larger. She was like Gulliver, who had stumbled into the land of giants. Formaggio reached out, picked her up, and carefully prepared to close her inside a small box.
"Are you really sure?" Melone smiled, looking at the terrified mother sitting on the ground. "Are you really sure you never slept with someone named Solit Nasso?"
"No, no, please let us go," she cried out to Melone, her voice hoarse.
"Captain," Johnson Joffrey walked into the room and grabbed Formaggio's wrist. "I don't think this is right."
Una, still in Formaggio's hand, and the other girls in the boxes looked at Johnson with a mixture of fear and hope. He held Formaggio's hand and looked up at Risotto, saying, "I think none of these are the Boss's daughter."
"?"
Perhaps this was the only way. The members of the Assassination Team acted with a life-or-death urgency. After the Port Battle, they had discussed Johnson's origins again. Johnson's candid admission about his biological father being a vampire had dispelled many of the Assassination Team's suspicions.
At least Johnson had no relation to the Boss.
The Assassination Team, after all, was a group of major villains, and being DIO's son made them think it was quite cool.
Melone stood up expressionlessly and interjected, "If we act together, it would take at least three days to capture all 27 girls here."
Three days?!
That's too slow, and Pericolo is also looking for the Boss's daughter!
"It's useless to capture them if they're not the Boss's daughter," Johnson Joffrey said.
"The Boss's daughter we're looking for might not even know she's the Boss's daughter," Prosciutto immediately retorted. "That's why we're capturing all the girls."
If he doesn't know which one it is, just capture all of them. What a ruffian's Golden Spirit.
Johnson Joffrey had to provide a piece of information: Trish's hair was pink, and she was thirteen years old.
"What I mean is, for those with mothers," Johnson said, "if the mother doesn't even know Solido Naso, then it's even less likely to be the Boss's daughter."
"The mother might not know either," Pesci staunchly supported his elder brother.
"Johnson has a point; if even the mother doesn't know about the Boss's existence, let alone the daughter herself," Mista also said.
Johnson believed that Trish only started looking for her father using the Boss's past alias based on her mother's dying words after her mother passed away, and that's when Diavolo truly learned of his daughter's existence.
Now, it's very possible that Trish's mother isn't dead at all, because Diavolo himself doesn't know about his daughter. However, according to Mista, Bucciarati's Team's mission is to obstruct the Assassination Team, allowing Pericolo to find Trish first.
How did Diavolo know about his daughter?
Tsk, Johnson Joffrey shook his head, thinking he had underestimated Passione's Boss too much. The Assassination Team must have been too high-profile when they arrived in Sardinia, and he must have noticed.
Johnson Joffrey, helpless, had no choice but to release Formaggio's hand and let him put Una inside.
Formaggio closed the box, which made a click as it locked. Inside the box were blankets and air holes, like a cage for a hamster.
After packing up, this group of gangster ruffians left the place without a second thought.
"All the girls named Trish in Olbia have been captured," Melone said. "There are still three more in the entire province of Olbia-Tempio, located in Palau, Monti, and Telti."
"This won't do," Risotto said. "It's too slow, Melone. We need more detailed data analysis, and we need it faster. This isn't a suggestion; it's an order."
Melone nodded.
"Let's leave Olbia now."
...
In a hotel in Olbia.
Perhaps ordinary people cannot understand it, but Diavolo, the Emperor who rules Italy, prefers to live in the shadows.
You also can't understand why Diavolo painstakingly built Passione at the risk of his life, yet gained no obvious material enjoyment, status, or happiness... He is so rich, yet he doesn't buy any luxury goods? He has such prestige, yet he doesn't enjoy the flattery and admiration of his subordinates? He is so capable, yet he doesn't open a legitimate multinational trading company but instead dumps dupin on children?
Does Diavolo just enjoy the thrill of strategizing while sitting in a dark room?
His very existence is abnormal. To understand such a person, you can only say that he is inherently evil. Ordinary family misfortunes or childhood shadows cannot excuse him; his existence is simply wickedness.
A man who finds pleasure in crime, yet falls in love with a stranger and has a daughter?
"T-R-I-S-H... So you named her Trish."
Diavolo murmured the name, then leaned his tired body against the back of the seat, unable to imagine that the daughter who symbolized his past still existed somewhere, constantly awakening his past memories.
Bucciarati's Team had been tracking the Assassination Team and finally understood their objective: to find a girl. Less than three hours after the port battle, they had already captured eight young girls. Of course, they weren't searching aimlessly; these girls all shared a common name: Trish.
Diavolo typed on the keyboard, sending this name to Pericolo, giving his search a direction.
Even he didn't know his daughter's name, so how did the Assassination Team know it?
——
I've written articles analyzing Dio, the salaryman, and Father Pucci, but I haven't written about Diavolo. His existence is truly perplexing. He has the intelligence to build Passione, yet he hides like a fool. Sometimes he's very complex, sometimes very simple, truly incomprehensible. Sometimes I see that he seems to have some feelings for Trish, for example, when he first met Trish, he said, 'This is the power of blood.' Later, because Trish said, 'He wants to run away,' he didn't want to lose his dignity and ran back. He's already a scumbag, yet he still cares about dignity? It's really strange, Diavolo. So human nature is truly complex. It's as if his existence was just to make Giorno a gang superstar.