Snake in the Grass - Rewrite

Prologue

So it's all come down to this - on my knees in a warehouse, with a gun to my head, and a man who had come to love me like a son staring at me, ready to give the order to kill.

Salvatore Callipari was one of the most recognised high-ranking members of what we Italians called the L'Onorata Societa, or what most Aussies just called the Mafia. A great bear of a man with a muscled physique and a sharp face (now drooping a little with age), he still cut an imposing figure at over 70 years old, even when speaking in his most sincere voice.

There was no trace of that sincerity as he looked at me and stared down with what can only be called contempt, hatred and a tiny hint of sadness at what he saw as my great betrayal.

"So Giuseppe," he said, the hatred dripping from his lips as he spoke my name. "I take you into my family, I love you like you are my own son, and you turn out to be nothing more than a backstabbing traitor. And a cop to boot!"

"You're one to talk about backstabbing, Callipari!" I yelled in response. "You and my father grew up together, and you had him killed because he wouldn't pay you your fucking protection money! Money you take from the hands of hard-working family men. Figlio di puttana!"

Callipari gave a small look to his goon, who pulled his hand around and whacked me hard across the mouth with the end of his pistol; pain shot across my head as I felt one of my teeth go loose, and Callipari leaned towards me.

"Your father disrespected me, and a man like myself can not afford to be disrespected by stupid peasants," he whispered in my face in Italian. "Friendship or no, he had to be made an example of. Business is business."

I had no reply for how he casually talked about the murder of my father, labelling it nothing more than business; I simply gave him the best response I could - I spat in his face.

He simply wiped the spit off with the silk handkerchief he always carried in his suit pocket and sighed as he continued to look at me.

"I'm sorry for this, son," he said, patting me on the cheek the way he used to when I was a child.

Getting up, he said to his henchman, "Kill him", and began to turn to leave.

As I waited for the man to pull the trigger, my life flashed before my eyes.