[CASTELLO DI CARTE MAFIA CHRONICLES, #1]
𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀
When my mother's deteriorating health pushes me into rethinking my career choices, my boss does what he does best; he shoves me into the world I never planned on venturing into. The job is simple:...
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Nine years ago
I had killed a man an hour ago, only to become something I had never imagined—the boss of the most powerful crime family in the New York Cosa Nostra. The capo of the Vitale Crime Empire.
Everyone expected me to give a speech about this uplifting experience, to tell them of the plans I had for the future of this syndicate. To say I had any would've been a lie. Everything about this was sudden, a catastrophe I couldn't put a stop on.
But, lucky for me, the moment I stepped on the stage, a courier arrived in my name—a box wrapped in colourful papers and adorned with ribbons like a fucking Christmas gift—stopping me from giving a speech I hadn't even prepared.
"Open the box," dozens of suited men now under my reign yelled, curiosity piquing in their voices.
I had no choice but to oblige.
I hadn't received a present in ages, at least not in boxes unless they were dead bodies of traitors and liabilities, or expensive drugs, weapons and liquors. This box looked too tacky to be one of those.
And the contents were even fishier.
A disk was encased inside with the words 'Happy Initiation' written on it with a marker and italicised calligraphy as if it was for a christening ceremony. I wondered which Mafioso had time for shit like this.
"Where do I play it?" I asked and looked around. I couldn't remember the names of half the people present in the room, yet I pretended as though I did.
The former capo and my uncle, David, had warned me about this. "Be discreet and have a keen eye, Adonis. Know those around you and watch their every step." Over the course of my life, he had said many things, but I hadn't imagined those words to become the key to my survival.
Many envied the position I held. Many would try to kill me for it like they had done the one this position rightfully belonged to.
I was only a surrogate, who from now on would have to carry the title and pass this burden onto the generations to come. The generations of Vitales.
"There's a telly in the main room, Capo," one of the soldiers said.
I had to blink twice at the man who had stepped forward to make sure he was looking at me and not my uncle, who was standing in one corner of the stage. I had uttered the word Capo many times but had never been called it. The feeling was strange, yet the sense of power thrilled me.
We moved to the main room, all impatient about the disk, but none more than me. The soldier quickly plugged it in, and handed me the remote. I turned it on.
The first thing to appear on the screen was a naked woman. Not just any woman. My little sister Amara. Except, the people around me didn't know that. For good reasons. For them, this was just another whore.
