Maria had a little down time from her work for Godfather Mako. She'd been on a business trip most of the morning, out in Los Angeles. It was an inconvenient trip, and Maria much preferred to be home in Chicago, but she had received word from an old business associate that the cocaine prices were sky high. One trip out West with a bag full of Chicago's finest and she'd have herself a handsome pay day, with plenty left from the cost of her flights to kick up to the Bossman. A Godfather, after all, cannot have too many shoes. Or something. Whatever it was he wanted the money for, Maria was sure he'd spend it well, anyway. 

She'd been eager to get back to her beloved Chicago as soon as possible, but alas, it wasn't to be. No flights out of the city were available for several hours after her transaction had been carried out. Not one to squander her money in the bars of the city, and not a fan of heavy meals in the middle of the day, she decided to take a walk in one of the parks in the city, with a sandwich and a diet coke, in an ice cold glass bottle from a nearby deli. Chicken salad, with just a touch of mayonnaise, it was. 

The sun was high in the sky and the park warm in the Californian heat, and Maria felt her enthusiasm for wandering the park waning. Spotting a bench near a small lake, she headed over, sat down, and set about eating her sandwich. It was while she dug about in her bag for a key to flip the top off the coke bottle that her hand hit the small notebook she liked to carry around for idle moments. A smile on her face, she dug it out.

The notebook was a collection of her ideas, experiences... and stories. Not in the same way as her journals were, though. This book was intended for her own child someday. Something to read to him or her as she grew up, something to induct them slowly into this way of life. She turned to the page she'd last written one, and head bowed, began to add to it. 

When almost twenty minutes had past, she wrote 'The End' with a flourish, and a smile to herself, and flipped back to the beginning to read back her work out loud. 

Goldilocks and the Three Brothers

Once upon a time, in New York City, there lived three brothers. 

The brothers were the sons of one of the most formidable bosses of New York at the time, a different age. A time before our world knew districts and saw only cities. A better time, in many ways. The three brothers all dreamed of being the successor to the legacy of their Father. They all felt that they were the bravest, the toughest, the strongest.

Patrizio, the eldest of the brothers, though there was only a year between himself and the middle brother, and another year for the youngest brother, was a beast of a man at only the age of twenty. Quick tempered, but so physically powerful that it was said he could drag one of his fathers vans with just one hand. It was rumored around New York that Patrizio was already a killer too. Around a year earlier, a man had gone flying through the plate glass of the Singer Building, from way up high. Dead on impact. Patrizio was working with one of his uncles at the time. Not a man to mess with, wasn't Patrizio. Many thought him the most likely to succeed his father, but despite his temper and his strength, he wasn't a wise man.

Edoardo was the middle of the three brothers, nineteen, and almost the opposite to his brother. Smart, sly and cunning, his mind worked like a well oiled machine. He suffered as a child with the influenza, was like a walking bag of bones even to that day. When he wasn't strong enough for sports as a child, he studied with books. His mother had the highest of hopes that he'd escape the life his father lived, but just like so many children of our world, the guns and the glamour suckered him in just like all the rest. 

Fabrizio was the youngest of the three. Handsome, funny, charismatic and a mean shot with a pistol. Fabrizio could hit a target from range that rivaled even that of his fathers. He was neither as strong as Patrizio, nor as smart as Edoardo, but Fabrizio had the golden touch. At just eighteen, he was running odd jobs for his fathers crew, had his own car, had a beautiful girl. And in that girl, his biggest weakness. 

Aoife was her name, her real name. Her golden blonde hair danced down her back and her eyes with a blue as deep as the ocean itself. They called her Goldilocks, her family and friends. There were surprisingly few with blonde hair around those parts. She was a breaker of hearts and a ruin-er of men alright - a year older than Fabrizio, she'd been a secret sweetheart of Patrizio in their younger years. The small scar running parallel to her left eye, they said, was testament to the ending of their relationship. She lived just around the block from the brothers, and despite her Irish family, had always been friendly with all three. She'd studied with Edoardo through his lonely years, fooled around with Patrizio before his father had found out he was involving himself with a girl from outside the Italian community of New York, and gradually, as Fabrizio grew older, fallen for his charms. 

There was always danger though, in mixing with the Italians, and Aoife knew that. When Patrizio's father had found out about the two of them, Patrizio had lashed out in anger as he ended their relationship. When Edoardo had been sat quietly and alone, some of the plans he had concocted were downright terrifying. When Fabrizio sensed danger, he drew his gun so quickly that Aoife often wondered if he had any sort of idea at all where he pointed it. 

Yes, she knew all of those things. What Aoife didn't know, however, was that she was to be the victim of a hit.

Sick of the sight of the young girl, and wishing to test the resolve, the ruthlessness and the honor of his sons, knowing his own health would soon fail him, the father of the three had come to an almost perfect solution. Taking care of the girl and ensuring the Italian blood of his line would be one benefit. Teaching his sons a lesson in putting business before pleasure as a mafiosi would be another. And for the third, he'd see which of his sons could bring together a plan to kill her most quickly. For it would be a race, and the prize would be taking his place in the mob world.

He delivered news of his challenge to his sons, and so, the next day, with grim resolve, the three set out to complete their task.

Patrizio was the first of the three to reach Aoife. Filled with anger, at his father, at the girl he had already hurt, he had set out, had found her on her way back from the convenience store. He'd grabbed her by the arm, taken her around into an alleyway, and had drawn his gun. But something in his heart saw the fear in his eyes, and he hesitated, dropped his arm down, loosened his grip on his gun. Aoife might not have been the child of a mobster, but she knew what must be done. Taking advantage of the moment of remorse, she grabbed the gun, her heart racing, and fired a shot just off centre of Patrizio's heart. Watching the blood blossom out across his chest and the light leave his eyes, she began to think. It was as she began to think that she saw a figure emerging from the shadows. 

She took an automatic step away from the lifeless body of Patrizio, wiping the blood from her hands on her jacket while still keeping hold of the gun. Whatever had caused Patizio to flip meant bad news for Aoife, meant any number of Italians might now be out for her blood, meant that her Ma had been right when she'd warned her to stay away. It was for that reason that when she caught sight of Edoardo, she didn't relax.

In the same second as he saw the corpse of his brother, Edoardo saw the gun in Aoife's hand and understood that on some level, she knew. She knew why he was here. She knew he wasn't as strong as Patrizio, knew he'd never killed before. Knew that in pulling the trigger once already that day, that she had an advantage over Edoardo if she needed it. He gulped, stuttered mumbled. Tried to come up with some explanation for his shadowing his brother with a loaded gun. At the end of the day though, it did no good, for Aoife knew what must be done.

Tears streaming down her face, she raised the gun, pulled the trigger, fired the bullet. Her hands had been shaking, this shot wasn't as clean as the first. It struck Edoardo high in his shoulder, rendering his right arm useless. In the time it took him to try to pick up his weapon with his left, she'd put another bullet into him, and now he lay on the floor as still as his brother. Aoife barely took the time to drag the corpses behind some bins belonging to a large restaurant before she ran home, tears still flowing. 

She knew what would surely come next, knew it as surely as she knew that night would follow day. And sure enough, within hours the phone was ringing. Fabrizio was calling to ask her out to dinner, like he would on any normal evening. Nothing, however, was normal about this evening. She showered the blood of his brothers from her body, buried the clothes marked with blood in a pile under her bed. She styled her hair, put on her makeup and a pretty dress, and slid the gun into her purse. She waited outside for him to pick her up, hoping that the two of them could at least get through dinner before more blood was spilled. As much as she loved Fabrizio, she knew what it was she would have to do. 

Dinner came and went, with little suspicion passing between the two. It was almost like old times - if old times had involved Aoife carrying a loaded gun in her purse. Fabrizio, as usual, was throwing out suggestions for places for the two to go alone, making Aoife almost begin to question whether or not he too was planning to kill her. Knowing that her own future depended at least on having him drive her out of the city before trying anything, she went along with his plans to go to a little known beach, just outside the city limits. 

As he pulled up the car and climbed out, coming around to open her door, she noticed through one of the wing mirrors that his hand reached down to his hip, touching on his gun. Knowing his prowess as a shooter and seeing clearly his cold dis-regard for her, she pulled the pistol that had once belonged to Patrizio from her purse, and as he opened the door, she pressed it straight against his heart. Looking him dead in the eye, she called him a bastard and pulled the trigger. 

Shaking, tears flowing once more, she climbed behind the wheel of the car and with barely a look back at the dead body of her lover, she drove off into the night. She never returned to New York - her family never heard from her again. The old man lost his three sons for his attempts to force them to betray their hearts, while Aoife, with time, became one of the most feared assassins in the mob world. It is said that when the time came for the old man to meet his end, while he was on a business trip to Chicago, that she put the bullet through his brain himself. He was found with a note on his chest. It simply read, "Was I worth it?". 

The End.

Maria nodded to herself with a smile as she came to the end of her reading. This was the first story she'd written to completion. It might not have been the best, but she had at least challenged herself to do something new, which was something to be proud of, in her eyes. Lighting up a cigarette, she soaked up a little more of the Californian sun before her flight back to Chicago was due. 

Jono was taking a walk through the park when he noticed an old friend of his sitting on the bench with a smile befitting someone who was feeling a sense of accomplishment. He takes a seat next to her, asks for a light and sparks up his own cigarette. 

"What're you so smiley about today?" He asks. 

"Oh nothing, i've just finished off a short story I started a while ago." Came the reply. 

"Oh, awesome! Can I read it?"

He then began to read what Maria had just wrote, a smile soon spread across his face also. It was a good twist on an otherwise well known story that fits in to our way of life at the same time. Everybody dies, of course. 

"Ha! Wonderful. I'll have to remember that and read it to the kids for a bedtime story when they've been testing my patience."

lronSight had been walking by and sat down when he heard the words 'fomidable bosses of New York at the time.' He sat there listening patiently and listening to the whole story. lronSight notices which notebook she's written it in and then begins to speak,

"Quite the wonderful tale, Miss Maria. I'm not certain as to how you could tell this story to a young child or even an older one, but still this is easily one of my favorite stories. You'll be a horrible mother if you actually tell that story to a young child and I can't be more serious when I say at least waiting until the child is somewhat older, but if you do you'll be doing so with a fantastic speaking presence about you."

I missed a couple of petty crimes and felonies but after hearing that story I must say hat it was worth it. Had I not heard you say The End I'd still be waiting for more stories from you. Now I have to make up for the time I have lost and earn some monies for my boss.

Paul had decided to take a stroll in the park; it was a lovely day, and where better to spend it? He stopped for a few moments at the edge of the lake, admiring the view as he lit a cigarette. He spotted his friend and The Loop acquaintance Maria sat on a bench nearby

Hi Maria, how's it going? What are you doing out here?

She gestures towards her notepad, and Paul reads the story she had written. As he finishes reading, he turns back to Maria.

Quite the wordsmith Maria. I always knew you were quite the accomplished speaker but that was a very enjoyable read. I certainly await your next short story; the kids might not appreciate it so much but there is most certainly an audience for further instalments here.

Maria grinned widely, lifted by the positive feedback to her story. 

Thank you all for taking the time to read my work and especially to stick around to comment on it - it gives a writer that little extra push to keep going sometimes and it's sincerely appreciated. 

lronsight, Paul, you guys may be right - this may not quite be the type of thing I could read to the kids before they go to sleep. Unless my sister asks me to babysit again, I haven't quite forgiven her for the ghost story she told me when I was five, I didn't sleep for a week. However, Jono, if you wish to read it to yours, I'll happily have you a copy sent over! 

I'm sure I'll be back out here again with my next adaptation for you all, and thank you again for the feedback.

Maria smiles at Alexanders compliment on her storytelling.

Thank you, old friend. It means a lot to have you come out and say that.

But, I keep telling you, when I paint your toenails for you for $20, it's mates rates! I'd charge anybody else at least $50!