Seventeen years ago

          It was surely going to be dangerous just by having Vincenzo Benito involved, and that alone was enough to predict a disaster, less to talk about a war outbreak between some of the strongest families in Napoli.

We knew each other since we were kids and believe me or not, no other Don had ever been more famous for a cold heart, sharp eyes, and precise aim than Enzo was.

His father found me one day on the streets of Napoli, lying on the ground on some wet cartoons, beaten, more dead than alive. I was ten years old, a starving orphan lucky enough to be stumbled upon by a rich man who was going to change his life forever.

I was beaten pretty much living in the streets and really bad that day. Some boys I met in the south of Napoli thought I was hiding money from them and after they smashed my face nicely and searched all of my pockets, finding nothing, they ran away, leaving me almost lifeless on the ground.

When Marciano Benito found me, Don Marce, as he ordered me to call him, and I never crossed his word, he took me into his house, soon becoming a father figure for me, and Vincenzo became my brother, my elder brother. He was twelve at that time.

I wished I could say the same about Salvatore, Don Marce's elder son, but that was not the case. He never liked me. He never wanted me around and he was always fucking suspicious about everything related to me.

So, when I heard that Enzo was going to be Don here, in Italy, instead of his elder brother, it felt like I was born again. I knew I was going to be fine. I was going to be safe, and I was happy. Salvatore would have had me killed with no remorse although I was never a threat to his title.

But my life completely changed when one of the Valentinis' ex-solders visited me last week, saying he had some particularly important news. And important they were! Mind-blowing, life-changing news.

You see, son, Paolo Valentini was the bloodthirsty enemy of Vincezo Benito, and I killed him just one week before the news his ex-soldier brought to me, while we all thought that the entire Valentini family and descendants and faithful people had perished in the raids we did.

I had no idea who this close friend of Paolo was and honestly, I was suspecting he even was one, so I decided that my territory was the best place to have that talk since he was the one that requested the meeting. I never wanted anything from that motherfucker or any of his acquaintances.

An enemy of Enzo is an enemy of mine so whatever his guy wanted from me he could shove it in his ass, and I was going to make sure he knew that.

Paolo was dead. Gone. Forever.

And Enzo was my brother, not by blood but by choice and nobody could break that.

So, I thought.

Paolo always wanted Enzo's head long before Vivi came into the picture. Enzo was his lifelong Nemesis. Everything Paolo did was to ultimately eliminate Enzo, by whatever means he had at hand, but he was so stupid that he never knew how to build that plan, THE plan to have Enzo killed.

And I was sure that today's meeting had everything to do with his hate towards Enzo and this guy I was supposed to meet surely had everything to do with Paolo's revenge.

After all, he lost the chance to marry Vivi and the fortune that was going to come with that marriage, because of Enzo, as if he planned it all along with a direct target of messing with Paolo's plans.

But it wasn't true, and Paolo knew it but still, he made fairly well known the infamous plan that supposedly was built against him, as if Vivi's runaway with Enzo was a planning specialty tailored to overturn his deals with her family.

Of course,e he knew it was not true, but he set his mind on making it his excuse for hating Enzo and hunting his Don title.

Everybody knew that Vivi loved Enzo to her death, with all her heart, and he loved her too. We were all afraid he'd never recover after her death. They were sickly in love with each other, and I don't think I've ever seen Enzo happier than he was when she moved into his mansion.

She put her life at stake and ran away with him although she knew death would catch her sooner or later, she knew her family well, but she was adamant about raising their daughter together, living together, being a family, disregarding the danger that came with it.

Your mother and Vivi's younger sister, Lucia Capozzi, told me everything.

We were together for a while until she got pregnant.

Don't get me wrong, son. Your mother was an amazing woman, and she would have been even a better mother, but her family thought she was too young to have a child and forced her to give you up to me before sending her to the States.

I know the whole story of her sister and Enzo, spoken straight from her mouth, and nobody in the Capozzi family has ever blamed Enzo for Vivi's death but for Lucia's stubborn father, your grandfather, the same heartless man that separated you from your mother.

He was the one to send the hitmen to kill her and still, he blamed Enzo for his daughter's death because his existence in her life ruined his plans and almost broke the business deals he had with Paolo.

You see, Vivi was promised to Paolo, as a wife, together with the merger of their families' business which Paolo was to become the CEO of.

Not the legit business was his target, but the underground business, the one that after the merger would have become the biggest in Napoli, and then nothing could have stopped him from taking over the Don title.

When she was told about her arranged marriage to Paolo, her dream to marry Enzo vanished in the blink of an eye, wiped out, and dismissed by default.

So, she decided to run away and move to Enzo's place, and together they planned to marry immediately, not giving a frozen ass to anybody opposing their love.

Soon after moving together, they found out she was pregnant and there was no way to let her go now.

So, you see, nobody has screwed Paolo's plans on purpose, and it was high time that he fucking gave up on this revenge he unjustifiably sought all of these years.

I was somehow relieved that Enzo decided to move to NY after he lost Vivi and his daughter. The smell of Paolo's revenge was not that strong anymore, but it revived as soon as Enzo was back.

And I was dead curious about what had been brewing in his rotten mind, by leaving his revenge as a legacy even after his death.

On the day and the time of the visit, I decided to wait for the guy in my office, at my mansion. My guys were instructed to bring him in when he arrived.

I was hoping his news was about Enzo's rocks. Or rock, for that matter, as it seems that the engagement ring for Eve was the only rock he wanted back.

A knock at the door of my office is followed by the voice of one of my men and I lift my head staring at the door for a few moments, feeling the gun at the hem of my pants with my fingertips and making sure it's ready for any stupid thing Paolo's man might have in mind.

He was a tall, skinny guy, coming in together with two of his men. I looked behind them where my men were standing and they nodded me back, confirming that weapons had been removed from the visitor's possession.

His look was hard and haughty, staring back at me with a tension that I didn't know exactly how to grasp.

"Mario..." he said and nodded in a sort of greeting.

"Michele. Come in. Have a seat," I said politely but kept my senses on high alert. I wasn't sure yet what he wanted from me.

He walked towards the chair in front of my desk and sat on it, spreading his long legs in front and grabbing the armrests of the chair with his long fingers.

"I guess you don't have a clue about why I am here," he spoke in a heavy tone.

"I know it must be about Don Enzo which is pissing me the fucking off because the only thing you deserve for that is a fucking bullet in your head," I spat in one breath between clenched jaws.

"If you believe you can do that, you are welcome to try anytime you want and we will see in which fucking head the bullet fits better," he rattled back at me. "No, it's not about your Don, because surely he isn't mine."

"Then what is it about? Short, to the point, and then get fuck out of here," I said but before I was done cursing, one of his men threw a bunch of files on my desk, right under my nose.

I held high the intense stare we both had, glued to each other and never lowering my eyes before he stood up and turned around, leaving my office just as fast as he came in.

I exhaled the air collected in my lungs, arching my nostrils like a bull seeing red, and a few moments later, while I tried to recover, I lowered my eyes to the newly brought files.

They were Napoli police department files, with the seal engraved in the upper left corner of each one.

"Lara Campino - case 40367/1996"

"Roberto Ferri - case 40368/1996"

"Gambini Possi - case 40369/1996"

All files were investigations of the explosion in one of the Valentinis' clubs, way back, in 1996. I was too young then and still kept far from the family matters, but I remember so well everything about it. It was Enzo's raid against Valentinis. One of the many and we all thought I was the last one who needed to be done with them.

Valentinis kept sending threats to Enzo and Vivi the moment she ran away with him. And that didn't sit well with anybody in the family, Capozzi or Benito.

Vivi was brought to our home about two months before the Valentinis' club had been attacked and everybody inside killed to the last soul. I knew it was Enzo's plan, I was there when he detailed it with the guys.

And when it was done, and he came home Enzo was anything but happy that night.

I remember I found him throwing up in his bathroom, his shirt and hands soaked in blood and when I went in to ask him if he was alright he pushed me out, throwing me on the floor of his bedroom and locking himself in. Fuck, he was too young for all of that killing.

For a whole half an hour, he smashed the entire bathroom and I stayed there and listened. He yelled and cursed, tormented in guilt and pain.

He never wanted this life. He never wanted to be a Don and still, he was his father's right hand as Salvatore knew nothing but getting high and drinking most of the time, occasionally getting fucked in his club. He had damn good ladies over there, I'll give him that.

I took the files in front of me, one by one, reading the names of each victim they created a file for so that they could keep and analyze any remains in the ruins of the explosion.

And the last one got my undivided attention.

"Paolo Valentini, born August the 15th, 1966, son of Carlo Valentini and brother of Felice Gratti, born Valentini, April the 10th, 1970, Giuseppe Valentini, born March the 23rd, 1979, and Mario Valentini, born September the 11th, 1978."

So, officially I was dead. It was pretty easy for Don Marce to take me into his home and give me a new name.

Had they really not known all these years who I really was and supposedly found me on the streets and saved me?

Had I really been saved or just taken in as a seed of hate planted into the family rival to my own, so that later on I would be the sweetest revenge, having their enemies killed by their own blood?

My hands were shaking as fuck although my body was frozen and my brain stopped working, lingering my eyes on those very last words.

I grew up on the streets as a child knowing I had no family, no home to go to. I learned about the hard life of a boy forced to steal, and play games to fool others so he could buy something to eat.

I lived on the streets of Napoli under the open sky, sleeping in the yard of some deserted old house to shelter myself from rain and storms, and then, at that very moment, I found out that I actually had a family, a rich family, one that could have taken care of me, one that could give me a feeling of belonging, where I could have lived a normal life, raised by a mother and a father.

Instead, I was taken under the protection of the very family that had to live with the hate of my own family.

I had brothers and sisters. I had a mother and a father, the very people I was taught to hate and fight against.

And the worst thing of all, I killed my own brother, Paolo. I shot him dead. I looked him in the eyes and shot, three bullets in the chest and one between his eyes, those eyes staring at me, defying me without fear although he knew he was going to die.

Did he know I was his brother the moment he was sure he was going to die? Did he defy me knowing who I was or, hopefully, he never knew?

Holding that file in my hands did nothing but turn me against the one I knew to be a brother and the one to be a father, Vincenzo Benito and Marciano Benito.

They took me in, raised me, and made me a murderer, the murderer of my own flesh and blood.

But they'll pay for that, I'll make sure of it. Everything is settled to the last detail and Enzo will lose the most precious thing to him. Again. And I will not feel any remorse.

I'm writing to you this letter, my son, so you will know your history, your origins. Your family is your home and I want you to never wander on unknown roads in your life.

I never want you to fall into the same trap as I have and if something happens to me tonight, this letter will be my gift to you.

Keep this letter always with you. Read it, again and again, and remember, La famiglia e tutto. Non lasci mai la tua familia. Non tradisci mai la tua famiglia e la tua famiglia non ti tradira mai. (Family is everything. Never leave your family. Never betray your family and your family will never betray you).

And if I don't come back home tonight, remember! Vincenzo Benito, the scum who has ordered me to kill my family will have to pay one day for the death of my brother and my death.

Because tonight one of us will die. And if he's the one to get away with it, the revenge of my death is your duty, my son.

~~~~~
Dear Reader, thank you for being here. ☺️