Page 61 of Black Reign

Possible.

Maybe he isn't remotely wealthy.

I don't think he is.

Comfortable, perhaps.

Ghost understands expensive things, but differently from men like Marc.

He knows wine because he appreciates it, not because someone gave him a cellar.

He knows tailoring.

Cars.

Art.

Old books.

Italian coffee.

But there has always been something self-made in the way he talks about money.

Or perhaps I invented that too.

I've invented quite a lot.

In my head, Ghost grew up somewhere in Italy.

Not Rome.

Too obvious.

Maybe farther north.

A village where his mother still makes pasta on Sundays and complains that he works too much.

His father fixes his own car.

They didn't have much when he was young.

Not poor enough for tragedy.

Just enough that a brilliant boy learned early that if he wanted a better computer, he had to build it.

I picture him taking apart discarded machines at twelve.

Writing code at fourteen.

Getting caught inside some university server he wasn't supposed to access and impressing the professor enough to avoid prosecution.

Maybe someone gave him a scholarship.

Old European boarding school.

Stone walls.

Uniforms.