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ITALY WAS SUPPOSED to be fun. It was supposed to be a way for you to clear your head after a terrible year of college, a vacation of sorts (though most would say a gap year shouldn't exactly be called that). And it was at first— weeks of walking through the streets of Italy with a smile on your face, taking pictures of attractions you didn't think you'd ever get to see the year before. Now, on the island of Capri, you had no other expectations but that your time there would be nothing less than relaxing.
You were wrong. Of course.
In all honesty, when were you not wrong? You were wrong about college, thinking it would be just as easy as high school despite all of your teachers constantly telling you and your classmates that it would be much harder. You had always brushed it off to them exaggerating it all— yeah, they were right. You were wrong about how easy it would be to make friends, how college wouldn't take over your life, how you wouldn't gain those freshman fifteen, how you wouldn't fail your first midterms, how you wouldn't be so depressed over it all that you would end up taking a gap year. Yeah, being wrong nowadays seemed to be your forte.
Now, in this case, you were wrong about believing that the mafia only existed on television or in movies. Who could blame you, though? The mafia? In Italy? With men who had silly mustaches and would turn around in their chair slowly while petting a cat or something? There was no way those kinds of people existed in real life. And to a certain degree, you may have been right for the first time in a while. But just because mafia bosses that looked like that probably didn't exist, it didn't mean the mafia in Italy didn't exist. So, yet again, you were completely, and utterly wrong.
The fact that you had been wrong hadn't become clear to you until you had decided to eat lunch by the crystalline waters in the Marina Piccola. The colorful little harbor was picturesque as the sun beat down onto the table umbrella shielding you from the relentless UV rays. You were surrounded by sounds of chatter and waves beating against the boats in the harbor, beautiful people walking up and down the pier beside you. You couldn't help but relish your Caprese salad and bask in the cool sea breeze.
"Sho goud," you hummed through a mouthful of tomato and mozzarella, swinging your legs back and forth in delight. You were definitely coming back tomorrow for more Caprese Salad. Seagulls cawed as they flew down from the sky, catching your eye as they skimmed over the water's surface. A smile tugged at your lips— there was no denying you were definitely in paradise. You let your gaze follow after the birds, landing on a sailboat that was still a couple of kilometers away from land.
"Man, being out on the sea sounds so nice," you muttered to yourself, letting your head rest in the palm of your hand. To distract yourself from the thought of spending more money than you already barely had, you tore your gaze back down to the arrangement of cheese, tomato, and basil. But just as you went to dig into your (heartbreakingly and surprisingly) expensive salad, a loud voice caught your attention.
"Is there anyone waiting for the yacht, 'The Lagoon'? There's a message from 'The Lagoon' from a certain Mr. Zucchero! Please come to the surveillance room to receive the message!" You briefly translated the words from Italian to your native tongue before looking around you. No one seemed to answer the man so you shrugged and stabbed a fork through a particularly good-looking piece of tomato. You were just moments away from taking a bite when two gunshots rang out.
