Gangland: The Resurrection of Melbourne's Underworld {M.G.C}

The Deangelo's & The Cliffords

Maria-Stella

"Maria-Stella," I heard my father call through the intercom, his Italian accent, still thick and evident as ever, we'd moved from Italy to Melbourne about seventeen years ago, "come in to my office please," I got off my bed, where I was reading Romeo & Juliet for possibly the hundredth time, and headed to his office
"Si papa?" I questioned when I got there
"Are you headed to Natasha's party next weekend?"  He asked
"Si," I answered, when I was at home, I spoke in a mix of Italian and English
"I don't think you should go, mia cara ragazza," he told me (my darling girl)
"Perché padre?" I asked (why father?)
"I heard through my sources, that the Clifford boy will be there," he told me. My family had a long running feud with the Clifford's.
I didn't really know Michael Clifford all to well, yes we attended the same Private school since the age of twelve and had all the same VCE classes, but as our families had this feud, we didn't associate with each other; but even if our families didn't have this feud, I doubt Michael and I would be friends. We ran in different circles, I was the seemingly perfect princess, and he was the rebel, "and I do not want a repeat of last time,"
"It won't happen," I told him
"Brava regazza," he said (good girl), "now what are your plans for the day?"
"I'm going shopping with Natasha and then spending the night at her place, papa," I lied, we were going shopping, but then we were headed to a club
"No going to the Nightclub, figlia," he warned me, (daughter)
"No papa, not after seeing Michael there three weekends ago," I told him
"brava ragazza," he said (good girl), "your zio Mick is coming over, please, let him in when he comes,"
"Si papa," and I left his office

The feud started sometime in the nineteen nineties, just before we moved here. When Jason Moran murdered, my mother's brother, Alphonse Gangitano, at the beginning of Melbourne's gangland war on January sixteen 1998.
Michael Clifford is the nephew of Moran. That war lasted twelve years; it ended when Michael's great aunt, Judy Moran, was convicted of murdering, her former brother in law Des "Tuppence" Moran.
Now here we are, five years later, in the height of the resurrected Gangland wars. The Clifford's and my family the Deangelo's right at the centre.
Growing up in the middle of underworld figures, is not pretty. To an outsider, who has no idea about Melbourne's Underworld, you would think I had the perfect life. I'm rich, popular, have a boyfriend and got everything I wanted, but all that came with a price. I wasn't in love with Tony though, he was the son of my father's right hand man. Technically he was not my boyfriend, as we were to be getting married in six months. A marriage that had been arranged by our parents, when I was seventeen and he was twenty. And the money? It was dirty money. It came from drug deals and hits.

When I was younger, probably around fourteen, I had no idea what was going on around me. I had no idea what my family were involved in. Sex, drugs, and murder. It was on a trip to Queensland in the summer of 2008, with my girlfriends, that I discovered my families, criminal history. Through a television series no less.
We had moved to Melbourne in the middle of 1998, when I was to be turning six years old. We moved, as my mother's brother was murdered, and his wife wasn't coping too well. My father knew all along of what zio Alphonse was involved in, but never let on to my mother, my sister or myself about what was happening. He himself didn't get involved with the underworld, until about a year ago, when he found one of Clifford's men dealing on his turf, and trying to steal his secrets for how to make the perfect batch of cocaine. Yes you read that correctly, cocaine. My father is a drug lord, the most infamous in Melbourne, and is untouchable; as is Jackson Clifford.
Our families kept their illegal activities a secret all the way through the original war; at the request of their superiors, but as Graham Kinniburgh and Carl Williams are now deceased along with the Moran Family and with Tony Mokbel and Judy Moran in prison; I suppose our families got bored with being civil to each other over the last five years. My uncle Mick is Mick Gatto, another well known figure in Melbourne's underworld. He has at least got a little bit of sense in him, trying to convince my father not to start another war; but the attempt proved futile.