Bloody City: Temptations

Chapter One

Alessio

Screams broke the cool damp air of the concrete walls of one of many storehouses and buildings I used. The dimly lit hallways were purpose built to be cold unlike the extravagant villa I lived in. My footsteps echoed as a sign of my brutality. I was twenty- eight and the youngest Don this family had ever had.

At six I had killed a man using my bare hands, at eleven I'd learned how to shoot a gun using just hearing, at fifteen I was a well respected Made Man and had a death count of fifty.

I'd lost count of how many I had killed now.

I was a Capo at seventeen, and Underboss at eighteen. My brutal present on my twenty-first was my father gunned down outside his favourite spaghetti shop. I was Don and Head of the Family and in that time since the Salvatorini Familia had expanded from Liguria to span across almost all of Italy's West Coast and up from the center of the Appennines and through Switzerland to the North Sea and through most of France, and the riviera region of Italy to Seville and down to the Mediterranean, along with all Spanish and Italian islands back to Sicily and around the Adriatic Sea to Greece. I was Capo Dei Capi; the Godfather, over most of Italy, and the western swathes of Europe.

There wasn't a place in my part of the continent where my word wasn't law, where the Familia's wouldn't easily lay heel to my actions. I had built my reputation over time, I had done the dirty grunt work of being a Made Man but not a Capo, the fact that I had outfits working for me while my father was Don told the enemies of the family that the Salvatorini family wasn't to be bothered by anyone.

Behind the scenes though my family was a fucking primal gladiator pit of power plays and back stabbings. That was how my father had become Boss of the Family at just twenty five, I was his first son out of four, and the first born of six. That had meant me and my brothers were constantly expected to compete with one another but none of us did we knew our places. I was first born and the heir to the seat as Don. It hadn't always been so clear though, and I could still remember the beatings trying to make me and my brothers strong. 

The breaking point of our youths was when our father, Riccardo Salvatorini had struck Amara the older of the Salvatorini daughters. Matteo, Luca, Antonio, and I all had resented him with every cell of our prepubescent bodies until he had been unfortunately murdered. I had never confirmed the rumours about our father being found with five bullet holes in his body, one for every place he had struck our sister. I could still picture the blood pooling out of his body as I stood over him the scarlet liquid oozing from his body surrounding the polished black Louboutin oxfords I'd been wearing. I'd never said a word about it, but I had used it to purge the former ranks of my fathers court, hundreds had died as a result maybe a thousand people. But that was the way it was in this family, we swore on blood, our honour was dictated by it. My siblings and I had our own pact with each other something that was tattooed onto us, for me it was on my back. Sanguis Vinctus Donec Mors: Blood Bound Till Death.

My mother didn't know of course that I had been the one to shoot him, to take his cruel life away from him to prove that he was not invincible or untouchable, his own bodyguards had sworn their oath to the family not to him, and once I had provided valuable proof that he was a threat to what the Salvatorini Familia could achieve they had backed my decision.

It had taken me years to rid Italy of his influence but it had been done and now I strode through the hallways of what we called the Crimson Hall where almost all of our traitors or those deemed dishonorable to the family went. This specific occasions offense was pursuing a woman who wasn't of age, or even sworn to be his wife. Something that was often discussed month in advance at the minimum so that the two could be acquainted but their were exceptions.