Worth Killing For, Worth Dying For - Larry

Loyalties and Love

"All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride." ― Sophocles

The thing about Catholic hymns is that no matter how hard you try to tune out the deep, throaty chants, especially on a Sunday morning, you can't. It's almost impossible—well, no, Louis Tomlinson doesn't believe in impossible. Difficult, it's difficult to block them out, especially after singing some of the same Latin songs every Sunday for twenty-four fucking years. The Tomlinson's have never missed a single mass.

"Regina, mater misericordiae: cita, dulecedo, et spes nostra salve. Ad te clamamus, exsules, filii Hevae."

Holy Name Cathedral is one the most beautiful, Gothic cathedrals in the country. It's a castle of white, sparkling marble, real-gold accents, and encrusted jewels. It's a sight, with flawless stain glass windows, high arches, and towering steeples. Rebuilt after the famous Chicago Fire that ruined most of the grand city, the cathedral sits amidst the quickly sprouting modern buildings, like a misplaced antique monstrosity. He's had time to stare at the same, fancy walls for too many years to get his breath taken away.

"Ade te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimaruim valle. Eia ergo, advocate nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte."

He mumbles along, eyes gazing throughout the large space, until Johannah Tomlinson nudges her son in the arm and sends him a look. That's something that Louis will never be able to understand on some level—how his mom can be soft towards her children, with an easy smile and tender hands, when those same hands have been tight around the necks of her enemies. Just a quick grimace from her can take the life of the most dangerous men. With her appearance of a wealthy business woman and doting mother, you would never guess that grown men bow down to her, that she has wealthy businessmen around the world looking up to her, that she orders hits on those who have deemed her wrong. Johannah Tomlinson runs Chicago in five inch Manolo's and Chanel pencil skirts. She's the head of all Italian organized crime in the city—half of the world, if they're being humble—and you wouldn't be able to tell by how Daisy Tomlinson, at fourteen years old, is cuddled close next to her, but everyone else in the dirty business is afraid of the woman.

It doesn't matter where you're from, or what you do, but the last name Tomlinson is well known around the world. Tomlinson is synonymous with worlds like ruthless, dirty, and merciless; even if on the outside Louis and his siblings are dressed to the nines in suits and dresses—the perfect, blue-blooded, Italian-American family.

It's not something everyone would understand, that's why the Tomlinson's are at the top of the game. It goes back to the early nineteen hundreds, when great grandfather Francisco De Rossi stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, alone at ten years of age. No one actually knows how he got on that boat from Italy in the first place or how he snuck in without any documentation, but he landed in New York City in tiptop shape. Louis has always had a feeling that great grandfather De Rossi was a criminal all his life, even while playing soccer in the streets of Sicily as a child.

The second De Rossi stepped off the boat; it turned into a blood bath.

Great grandfather didn't have anything—no money, no family, no shelter, he couldn't even speak a lick of English, but he was bright. He lived on the streets for a year, until one day he was caught stealing a tuna fish at the market down by the docks. The owner of the large fish stand was a worker of Louis Tomlinson, Sr: one of the most hard-nosed street bosses in Brooklyn, New York. De Rossi's hand was threatened to be chopped off, as per usual with mob rules, but De Rossi was smart.