Chapter 62 - 62

"So what was with all that?" Ian asked as he gave Seth a confused look.

"I guess I should start by explaining who I am outside of work." Seth said with a laugh as he shook his head.

"Yeah, start with that." Ian told Seth with a nod.

"Clearly you've guessed by now that I'm not just some employee." Seth said with a grin.

"Clearly." Ian mockingly said with a laugh.

He flinched as he noticed the two men who had been shadowing Seth suddenly make a move towards him.

"Relax, he is a friend." Seth told the two men, who once more took a step back and retreated.

"Sorry about that." Seth said with a frown. "So what do you think I am."

At first Ian hesitated, he had a theory but it seems so unlikely that it was the only possible answer.

He decided to simply risk it and tell Seth of his suspicion.

"Do you belong to a gang of some sort?" Ian asked as he shifted in his seat. He knew it was a crazy question to ask, but he was curious.

Seth laughed at Ian's question, shaking his head.

Ian knew it was a stupid question, he wondered why he had to ask it.

"You aren't entirely wrong." Seth said with a smile, shocking Ian.

"What?" Ian asked, unable to believe that his crazy suspicion was actually quite close to the truth. "Well, then what's the actual truth?" He asked, eager to hear what he had gotten wrong.

"Mafia, not gang." Seth said with a grin. "To be exact the Dean Family Mafia, I'm the eldest son and the supposedly designated heir."

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" Ian asked.

"Nope." Seth responded as he shook his head.

"Aren't they the same thing though, Mafias and Gangs?" Ian asked, in his head they were somewhat the same. They both did illegal things and moved in groups.

"Well I guess to most people you would think that they are the same." Seth said as he combed his mind to find a way to explain the differences.

"So what's the difference?" Ian asked.

"Mafias are basically organized crime, within ourselves we have our own hierarchies and it works more like a government. The gangs on the other hand are mostly groups of people who rule a particular turf or area." Seth explained.

"Honestly it's much more complex than that, but those are the differences that you can easily spot. Mafias have a finesse to them, while gangs are straight up dirty." Seth said with a grin.

"I'm guessing the two don't get along based on how you just called the gangs dirty." Ian said as he laughed at Seth's description.

"Historically we don't." Seth said as he shook his head. "Wars used to break out between both sides, everything was chaotic, but we are all friends now and we all report to one man or, well, family."

"You do?" Ian asked. This was news to him, not a lot of people knew anything about the city's criminal organizations.

The gangs were very visible, but not the mafia. Ian didn't even know that there was a mafia in his country.

"We call him the King of the Underworld, and he is more powerful than any of the families or gangs. He also keeps everyone safe, maintaining a balance between the world everyone knows about, and ours." Seth explained.

"If this King of the Underworld is so powerful, why hasn't anyone heard of him?" Ian asked his friend.

"It's for his safety." Seth told Ian. "Imagine if everyone knew who he actually was? They would all come after him. There are only a select few that know his real identity, just know that he is incredibly dangerous."

"So you know who he is?" Ian asked.

Seth nodded in reply.

"I'm the next head of the Dean Family, of course I know who he is." He said with a grin. "People are not who they seem. Most people have skeletons in their closets that will truly horrify you."

Ian simply nodded, not knowing what Seth meant by his words. He simply assumed that Seth was referring to himself. Being part of the Mafia meant Seth had done things that would probably shock Ian.

After a short silence Ian asked his next question.

"Why are you in the Reyes Group?" Ian said as he looked at Seth. "If you're the next head of a mafia family, why are you toiling your days as an ordinary employee?"

"I don't want to be part of the mafia." Seth said with a shrug.

Ian glanced at the two men that he assumed to be Seth's bodyguards.

"Don't worry, they know." Seth said with a grin. "Everyone in my family knows that I want out, but they won't let me."

"Wouldn't it be a bigger problem for your family if they forced you to take over?" Ian asked.

"No, not really." Seth said as he shook his head. "I'm a natural at it, everything about the mafia comes easily to me. It's not something I even have to work hard for and I even earned my own place among our men."

Ian remained silent as he listened to Seth's story.

"Normally, since my dad is the current head of the family, I don't really need to get my hands dirty." Seth explained. "I can just sit comfortably from our home and rule the mafia from there."

"So why didn't you?" Ian asked.

"Because I wanted to know what life was like as a member of the Dean Family mafia." Seth said with a shrug. "I was curious. I grew up with these men respecting me for no reason at all, I wanted to know what they had to go through. So when I was fifteen I snuck out of home."

"I bet your parents weren't happy about that." Ian pointed out.

"They weren't." Seth said with a laugh. "The thing is, no one wanted to take me in. They all knew who I was, so they all knew that making me go through what a normal member did would get them on my dad's bad side. That's when I met him, the future king of the underworld."

"Did you know it was him?" Ian asked.

"No, not at all." Seth said as he shook his head. "He dragged me along to join one of the groups under my family that had no idea who I was. It was there that we made our way up, then he left, moved to the gangs and I was left on my own. For years my parents searched for me, then I came home."

"Just like that? They didn't question where you went?" Ian asked.

"Yup, they just said they trusted my instinct. That's when I decided to remain active in the mafia while studying in university." Seth explained. "I was studying and helping people do hits and smuggling weapons at the same time." Seth said with a laugh.

"And the whole time, your parents had no idea?" Ian asked.

"Oh, they knew, they knew a few weeks before I came back." Seth told Ian as he shook his head. "They eventually found out that I was with one of the groups under the family, they just decided not to tell anyone. And my father ordered everyone not to say who I was."

"So what happened after?" Ian asked his friend.

"Well, I climbed my way up until I became one of the youngest group heads under the Dean Family mafia, and that's when my dad stepped in." Seth said with a frown.

Ian could tell that whatever it was, it bothered Seth deeply.

"During one of the meetings with the heads of the Dean Family, I was anxious." Seth said with a sigh. "I had come over from school and was seated where my group was assigned. As my father entered I tried to keep myself hidden, I knew he never looked that far down the table, we were a small group, small but growing."

Seth took a deep breath and sighed at the memory.

"That's when he sprung it on me, on all of us in the meeting. He stood tall at the head as he announced that his son had been undercover in the gang for years. And he announced that I would be the next head of the Dean family Mafia." Seth said with a sigh as he shook his head.

"As he revealed that he knew the whole time, my face turned pale, I didn't want people knowing who I was." Seth explained as he recounted the day.

"Were you afraid of them thinking you climbed the ranks quickly because you were from the Dean family?" Ian asked.

"No." Seth said as he shook his head. "I didn't want them to know because I knew they would treat me differently. I was no longer their peer after that, I was their boss. Nothing was the same after that day."