That evening, as the sun sank over the valley around Trento, I finally decided to make my move.
The air in the house felt thick, heavy with the smell of the dinner we had just finished: beef tenderloin with a side of fresh arugula.
I knew that to pull off my plan I had to be precise, invisible—like a ghost slipping through the shadows of the night.
My mom's phone wasn't much of an obstacle. She barely used it, just for calls or texts, nothing like social media or games such as Candy Crush.
She always left it right there on the living-room table, on the white doily, like something forgotten.
All she had to do was step away for a moment—maybe to the kitchen or the bathroom—and I could grab it without her ever noticing.
When she came back, she wouldn't even register that it was gone, since she only picked it up now and then.
With my dad, though, things got a lot trickier.
He used his for work, checking emails and messages, and only in the evenings, when he came home exhausted from the bank branch where he worked as a financial advisor, did he let himself unwind a little.
That was exactly why I had chosen those evening hours: after dinner he would head to his bedroom, lie down on the bed with pillows piled behind his back, and spend about an hour scrolling through TikTok, chuckling quietly at dumb videos.
Then, without fail, he would fall asleep with the phone resting on his stomach, rising and falling with his deep breathing.
Taking it from him was no easy task—if I pulled it away too abruptly he would jolt awake.
Then there were his sharp ears, honed over the years by listening to colleagues in nearby offices talking to clients.
If I pushed his bedroom door open too hard, the creak would ring out like an alarm and he would sit bolt upright in an instant, demanding "Who's there?" in that authoritative voice of his.
I decided to start with my mom's phone—the easier target.
It was almost ridiculously simple, almost too good to be true.
After dinner, while she was clearing the table, she got up to take the dirty plates to the kitchen.
I could hear the water running, the clatter of rinsed cutlery, the lemon scent of the dish soap drifting through the air.
My brother was already watching a YouTube video on his laptop at his spot in the living room, because there was only room in the bedroom for my setup.
Unlike me, he wasn't allowed to stay up late; that was why, the moment dinner ended, he would dash to the computer without wasting a second.
I didn't know the exact reason, considering that at his age I was already staying up all night gaming, fighting off sleep with endless rounds of Valorant.
"Maybe they don't want him to wreck his sleep schedule like I did," I thought to myself with a smirk.
My dad, meanwhile, had already gone to his room with TikTok open as he walked—you could hear the faint tune playing in the background.
I seized the moment. I strolled over to the table casually, as if I were just passing through to grab a glass of water.
I reached out, snatched the phone, and slipped it quickly into my pants pocket.
I took it to my room, closing the door softly so no one would notice.
I knew my mom's passcode by heart—she had never hidden it from me.
I opened WhatsApp and started scrolling down through the contacts, moving slowly so I wouldn't miss anything.
I had to go back in time, five to eight years, using the date of the last message as my guide.
It was the only way to find them—I had completely forgotten the names of Alessandro's parents.
I just hoped a profile picture would jog my memory, something familiar that would make me think, "There!"
I scrolled for minutes that felt like hours, scanning names and faces.
At one point, there it was: a contact with a profile picture of a family of three standing under a blooming cherry tree.
The mother with her blonde hair loose, the father with a kindly smile, and Alessandro wearing that smile that instantly brought back our school days together.
It was definitely them.
I opened the chat and went through all the messages: there were far more than I had expected, a steady stream of conversations about birthdays, shared vacations, and arranging sleepovers between the two of us.
But what I really cared about were the voice messages. There were only two from the mother, Anna—short and to the point, as if she preferred typing to talking.
The father, Vincenzo, had sent four, longer ones, with that southern dialect that gave away where he was originally from, before he had moved north to Trento.
They didn't seem like the kind of people who sent a lot of voice messages. I myself had probably sent no more than five in my entire life, always preferring text.
To cover my tracks, I came up with a smart plan: after forwarding the voice messages to my own phone, I deleted them only from Mom's device.
That way, nothing recent showed up in her WhatsApp history to make her suspicious, but I could listen to them on mine as many times as I wanted.
I tapped "Forward" on each one, selected my own number, then chose "Delete only on this device".
It worked perfectly. I put the phone back on the living-room table without her noticing—she was out sweeping the terrace.
I caught my brother's eye. He was staring at me from his gaming chair, eyebrows raised as if to say, "What were you doing with Mom's phone?"
I pretended I hadn't seen him and headed toward my bedroom door.
He didn't say anything, but I could feel him watching me as I got ready for the next target: Dad.
I would have to wait a little longer for him—at least another hour.
I was sure he was still awake right then, lost somewhere deep in TikTok, the bluish glow lighting up his tired face.
At exactly 8:30 p.m., I began.
Everyone else in the family—except Dad and me—was gathered on the living-room couch, completely absorbed in the Disney movie Ratatouille. There was no chance they would catch me.
I crept up to Dad's bedroom door, heart hammering, palms damp.
I placed my hand on the cold metal handle and eased it down millimeter by millimeter, agonizingly slow.
Every tiny creak—that faint, almost inaudible metallic click—made me freeze, holding my breath for a full ten seconds, hand locked in place.
I listened to the quiet, wondering if he had heard anything.
When I was sure he hadn't, I kept going until the handle was all the way down.
As the door opened just a crack, I silently thanked Dad for oiling the hinges on every door in the house the week before.
He had done it after Mom complained about the annoying squeak. Without that, the whole thing would have been impossible—the door would have shrieked like nails on a chalkboard and woken him instantly.
Once inside, the air in the room felt warm and heavy with the day's lingering heat and sweat.
I tiptoed across the soft carpet and moved closer to the bed.
Dad was snoring lightly, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, the phone resting on his stomach.
I took it with the utmost care, fingers barely grazing the case, eyes fixed on his closed lids for any flicker of movement.
One last tremor of hesitation, then I lifted it clear and pulled it toward me. His breathing stayed even, undisturbed.
I had it.
I slipped out of the room, leaving the door ajar—just a sliver—so I wouldn't have to go through the whole handle routine again when I returned it.
Back in my room, I woke the screen.
Then I stopped cold: I didn't know Dad's passcode.
He was incredibly private, a man who kept his secrets locked away like money in a bank vault. Only Mom knew the passcode, besides him.
My mother was the opposite—open and trusting. She shared her password with all of us kids as a sign of family faith.
Then it hit me: facial recognition.
Dad had that feature turned on because he hated typing in the code every time, and right now he was out cold.
All I had to do was slip back in—the door was still ajar.
I padded in silently, barely brushing the floor with my feet.
I leaned over his sleeping face, phone ready to scan.
Ring ring!
The phone erupted into a loud vibration that bounced around the dark room.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, but there was no time to think—I couldn't stay hovering over him.
I glanced at the screen in panic: Andrea, Dad's colleague from the same department at the branch, the friend whose wedding we had even gone to.
I set the phone on the nightstand as fast and quietly as I could, then dove under the bed, heart slamming against my ribs.
Dust tickled my nose something fierce, but I had to tough it out or the whole plan would go down the drain.
"Mmm… who's calling at this hour?" he mumbled, voice thick with sleep. I heard him scrub a hand over his face, trying to chase away the grogginess.
He grabbed the phone and answered. "Hey Andrea, what's up? Need something?"
The call lasted about ten minutes, and there I was, hiding right beneath him, listening to every word.
They were talking about suspicious activity on an account: for more than two months, a client had been moving a large sum from one account to another every single week.
It didn't really interest me, but under the bed I didn't have much choice—I could stare at the slats or listen.
"All right, we'll go over everything calmly tomorrow at the office," Dad wrapped up, ending the call and setting the phone back on the nightstand with a sigh.
I waited another ten minutes, until he was snoring deeply again, before I dared crawl out.
My knees ached from the cramped position, and sweat was trickling down my back.
Once I was out, I picked up the phone and aimed it at his face. Facial recognition unlocked it on the first try, even with his eyes closed.
I was in.
I slipped back to my room without a sound, opened WhatsApp, and started hunting for messages with Alessandro's parents.
I was stunned: nothing but dry, formal texts with Anna—no voice messages at all.
With Vincenzo, though, it was a surprise: more than twenty long, chatty voice messages and even three family videos.
A huge amount compared to what he had exchanged with Mom.
"Perfect," I thought, a triumphant grin spreading across my face.
I forwarded everything to my phone and deleted the traces only from his device, same as before.
I went back to his room one last time, set the phone on the nightstand, and left the door ajar.
I didn't close it all the way to avoid any last-minute noise, and besides, if he noticed, he would probably figure Mom had come in to check on something—not me.
Back in my room I collapsed onto the bed and quietly celebrated the victory while my heartbeat finally slowed.
Later I sent the files to China and, just to be safe, to Nijiro too.
China replied almost instantly: «Great work. I'm feeding them into the software. Tomorrow I'll dig for more stuff on their socials.»
With Nijiro I had to wait until morning—it was 4:30 a.m. for him in Japan.
His answer came at dawn: «Nice one. Now we wait for China to wrap up, then we're set for the big call.»
That night I barely slept at all, tossing and turning with adrenaline still buzzing through me.
I had pulled off a critical mission for Project Japan. For a moment I felt like I was already there, floating between the dazzling lights of Tokyo and the hush of Kyoto's temples, even though I knew the path ahead was still littered with hurdles.
Japan felt closer than ever, and piece by piece I was certain I would make it back to the country that had completely captivated me.