mozzafiato ➝ peaky blinders

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manhattan, usa
august, 1924

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Once again, the Changretta family roamed the streets of New York. And in their wake, people cowered, hid, did anything they could to make sure that by the time they were gone, they were still well and breathing.

At their centre was Vicente Changretta, the leader, the father. His face was wrinkled, his eyes sunken, sullen. He wore a beige coat with giant padded shoulders and a fur collar, and a similarly coloured fedora at a tilt on his head. He thought that his clothes made him look like less of a frail, domestic gentleman and more of a ruthless Italian gangleader. 

He wasn't entirely wrong.

Then, at either side of him, were his sons. One was named Angel Changretta. A man of many names and many crimes. He had a misleading round face and a lacking stature that gave him the look of a  docile young man, not the dangerous mobster that he was. 

The youngest was called Nico. He was his brother's superior in many ways: he had a dark, brooding charm, a sharp dress sense, a face that could look innocent, enticing, or chilling at his whim, and had a way with words that came in useful in any given situation. He was a murderer. A womaniser. Dangerous.

As formidable as both of these men were, they were practically tame compared to the oldest brother.

Luca Changretta, towering above his brothers and even his father, dressed in a long black coat and sharp hat with a tommy gun in his arms and a toothpick clamped between his teeth, stood out in the group of men. Not only for his appearance or his height, but because he had killed far more men than his whole family combined. 

In some way, he was attractive; he had dark scheming eyes, a large, crooked nose that somehow suited him, and a constant knowing smirk playing on his lips. But his looks were overshadowed over by his murderous tendencies.

He was notorious, ruthless, the worst of them all.

It was because of those qualities of his that it made it hard for people to believe he had a daughter.

In the midst of the many Sicilian mobsters that followed the Changrettas wherever they went, was Gianna Changretta, a girl of eighteen years.

She looked a little like her father, a little like Nico, a little like her mother. Long black hair, pale green-blue eyes with a constant heavy-lidded, hard look in them, full lips and a tipped nose. Her eyebrows were thick, her hair naturally wavy. Pretty, but in a rough way. 

She was so entirely different to girls her age; while they wore colourful dresses and stiletto heels, carrying silk handbags over their shoulder, Gianna sported piercings and tattoos, wore tailored suits, and carried a silver automatic gun in her holster.

She fitted right in with the mob. 

Had she been a man, and perhaps a little older, no-one would have looked at her twice.

But, she was neither. 

Because of her youth and gender, she came as a shock to some; they saw her only as a girl amongst superior men. They wondered what she was doing with them. They wondered if she was really competent enough to be in the gang, if she was only there due to their shared blood. They wondered how Luca had managed to love someone enough to have a child with them, to love the child themselves at all.

But they never said anything of the sort out loud. Luca would no doubt cripple a man if he heard them so much as bad-mouth his kid.

And Gianna would probably do worse.