Chapter 2
I grew up in a mafia family.
My grandfather came over from Sicily half a century ago to stake his claim in the countryside outside Florence, Italy. He established a small kingdom within the Cosa Nostra. After my grandfather’s death, my father turned that kingdom into an empire.
I was the fifth of six brothers, so I knew I would never head up the family. That honor belonged to my oldest brother Dario, who deserved it. He was a born leader – and he sacrificed the most out of all of us. He took the fall for the family on a corruption charge and went to prison for four long years.
When our father died – murdered, we later found out – Dario was the one we all voted to lead us.
So I knew from an early age that I would never be at the top…
But I always knew I would be of service.
I was trained from the time I could walk to be a fighter for the family.
Though the second youngest, I was by far the biggest of my brothers – 6’7” and 270 pounds. Papa used to joke that a strain of giant blood must run in our family.
But I didn’t want to fight.
I wanted peace…
But that’s in short supply when you grow up in the Cosa Nostra.
At only 26, I had seen assassinations… car bombings… over two dozen gunfights…
And yet, I hadn’t experienced anything like the insanity of the last couple of months.
A raid on our home by a gangster named the Turk…
Dario almost killed by an old woman seeking revenge…
A Sicilian gangster who wiped out a rival family and tried to kill us, as well…
And now the betrayal of our family by our own flesh and blood.
We found out when my brother Adriano married Bianca, my new sister-in-law.
A month before, a rival family in Florence – the Agrellas – had conspired against us.
Bianca had seen a stranger talking to one of the Agrellas just hours before the bastards sprang their trap.
Assassins showed up at a hotel to kill Adriano, Bianca, Lars, and me.
We escaped by the skin of our teeth…
But we never discovered who the mysterious stranger was that Bianca had seen.
That is, until he congratulated her at the wedding reception.
It was our cousin Aurelio –Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.
The son of our uncle Fausto, who had been our father’s consigliere for 25 years.
Our world was turned upside-down in an instant.