New York City. It was the place my father made his bones in this thing of ours, and made a name for himself. It was the place where my brothers were introduced to this life of crime, the place that made my sister a star. As many good things as this city has given us, it's also taken away just as much. It's the place my mother became a widow, the place she had to bury two of her four kids. The place that turned my father's business into a place for squatters and drug addicts. I hold no love for this shit can, but you don't get to exactly pick where you're born at do ya? Like or not, this place is home. 

My name is Antonio Maldonado Jr. I am the youngest child of the Maldonado clan, if you could call it that anymore. My father, Antonio Maldonado, was a respected member in the mob here in New York. Like his father before him in Italy, he'd risen up the ranks to become a leading Caporegime in his respective family. He would build a successful suit and dress shop in the Garment District here in the city, and give work to his fellow Italian immigrants. Also add to that, he'd take very good care of his people in Little Italy as well. Giving them jobs and work to do for money, and helping them to take care of themselves and their families. His charity or philanthropy, whatever you wanna call it, would earn him the title of The Robin Hood of Little Italy. It wouldn't matter none because he would be gunned down just like any other schmoe despite all that he did. They left up a little memorial of him in Little Italy, but I really don't imagine that it was still there after all this time.

His older brother Vito was the next to fall. Vito Maldonado was the third child of the four Maldonado children, and if I'm honest he was the one I was closest to. Nobody thought he should be apart of our thing because he was too nice. He'd spent some time in the army, but that only served to make him more disciplined, more athletic. It did nothing to solve his problems of being too kind, which is only a problem in this line of work. His generosity earned him the nickname of The Gentleman of Little Italy. He went to take a position in some criminal organization in Detroit, and ended up getting gunned down in Los Angeles. Maybe one of the people he helped along the way remembers him, but I doubt it. That kindness shit seems to get you killed here quicker than anything else.

His oldest brother Carmine was the most successful of us all so far. Well if you call sitting in a protected compound for most of his days while telling other people to do things successful, then he was the man. Our father groomed him the most, working on his temper, and getting him to think more as he progressed in his criminal career. He had a relapse in his anger management when he received the news that our father was killed, but he straightened out again. He became the boss of his own family even ran apart of the city of Los Angeles. Again it wouldn't protect him too much. He'd end up going to prison for murder, and he died in there while trying to fight the case here in New York.

So seeing how all my brothers and my father took the traditional route, and jumped through all the regular hoops of someone entering the life of Omerta, and where it got them, I decided to do something different. My father in all of his skills of recruiting and getting people to work for him, was able to secure the services of a long time and well known and feared enforcer by the name Frank Galletti. Frank was infamously known for his ruthlessness, and his lack of fear for anybody or anything. In fact, he inspired fear in all criminals who knew his name, and even law enforcement. When they had arrested him for attempted murder, there wasn't a single cop in the group that raided his place of business who had the balls to put the cuffs on him. Frank would go along with them quietly, a smile on his face, pleased that he could bring such fear to people. He reveled in it. My father would secure his release from prison thus earning his loyalty, respect, and services. Everybody else who Frank did work for or with, opted to let him rot.

I wasn't apart of the family business growing up. I decided to do my own thing, and not work for my father, or with my brothers. I learned directly from Frank. It didn't take much convincing, matter fact Frank was the one to come find me. Apparently, as a youth I had roughed up someone I shouldn't have, and they brought the problem to my father, who then gave it to Frank to handle. Frank seeing that I refused to walk in the footsteps of my father and brothers, and try to do things the right way, ended up taking a liking to me. Saying that he could see the potential in me and the ruthlessness. He offered to show me the ropes, and who was I to turn down the offer from such a well feared man.

I watched my father and brothers try to go about it being respectful, and in the end I can say learning from Frank was the right choice, seeing how they were all currently in the ground at this moment. Lessons were rough, and it didn't bring me great pleasure to beat and lean on people so mercilessly, but I just imagined myself as some type of villain from a movie or a book. Plus, I couldn't argue against the results. Money was rolling in, and so were gifts and a whole bunch of other perks. Most importantly I wasn't reliant on my family name to get me what I wanted. I went out, and made my own name for myself, and was nothing like them at all.

Life continued to be good working under Frank doing my own thing until it all came crashing down. When they came to kill my father was the time everything turned to shit. They killed Frank first of course. He died by firing squad, a group of hitmen caught him at a bar he frequented. They set it up so most of the patrons would be men of theirs who just looked like regular stiffs. Frank was loose, and he figured his name scared most people into not fucking with him. Most of the time it did, but not this time though. When the 4 men carrying guns came in the bar, Frank laughed them off not believing only four men were sent to take him down. That was when the other eight patrons in the bar all focused on him, and now 12 guns were focused on him. The story goes he only smiled, and said "That's more like it," then went to finish his drink before giving a nod to one of them when they all then proceeded to fill him full of holes.

Me and my father were at odds most the time, but still I stayed around just long enough to see them put his and Frank's body in the ground before I split from the States, and went to the motherland of Italy. Frank didn't have a funeral. My father and his crew were the only family Frank had, and friends weren't exactly a thing Frank had either. I mourned him more than my own father.  His father had enough people to be sad about him, but no one would be giving too much of a fuck about Frank, so I decided to be the exception. 

In Italy things were much different than in the States. The mob didn't give a fuck about the law, and often times if they got involved they were either paid off immediately, or they were chased off, or killed with no regard. The mob had absolute power here at the time in Italy. It didn't take too long for me to find work. I never used my last name when I was around, so I didn't have to worry about too much drama. There were people who respected my grandfather, who used to be a well known Caporegime in this country, but he also left behind enemies who killed him. This was the one place where there would be an unknown reaction to my family name of Maldonado.

I worked my way up from the bottom, doing grunt work and handling odd jobs. Seeing I had a talent for violence and intimidation to get things done, one of the soldiers from the Lorano family had taken me in, and given me some collection work. I would chase down debts that gamblers had, and make sure the people who paid protection money paid up on time. I also made sure that nobody fucked with the family's territory. I did my job well, seeing as I only had to get rough with the people who owed once, and sometimes I didn't even have to physically beat them up, just talk about it, but once I got rough I never had to do it again.

After proving I was useful enough, the soldato I was working for decided to give me my own piece of the pie. I started to give out my own loans, and run my own shakedowns. I had to kick up to the made man I was working for of course, who then continued to kick up the ladder. It didn't take me long to be introduced to the Caporegime over him. It didn't take much to impress him, hell it didn't take much to impress half of these people. The only thing they wanted was to know how much money you could continue to make for them while they continued on their plans of trying to reach the top. Family meetings must've been interesting, Capo's far and wide all coming together to meet with smiles on their faces while planning on stabbing each other in the back, and climbing over one another for a top spot. I wanted nothing to do with any of that.

I was just content to live my life in relative safety and comfort. I made enough money to take care of myself, and live well, and I was far away from dealing with the problems of my own family getting gunned down back in the States. Things continued going well, it was even seeming like I was going to be brought into the family sometime soon. The head of the family, Don Lorano, had called me in to do a special job for him. I had to make my bones before I got made, which means I had to do a contract killing for the family. I wasn't surprised by this as Frank had taught me this back when he was showing me the ropes. Although it was a bit surprising to be receiving this job from the Don himself, I just chalked it up to the arrogance of the Italian mob.

The contract was easy. The target was some bum who was continuously skimming off the top of this operation he'd been given to run by the Don himself. It was believed that the Capo that I was working for would inherit this business, so he had put my name forth to do the work. Kinda like a favor for a favor, although I was the one taking all the risks. I watched Frank twist, torture, mutilate and decapitate people for fun. Frank made killing and violence an art form. It was one of the reasons he was feared, and I grew up watching him, so I felt nothing toward the killing of someone. I know just thinking that would severely disappoint my father.

Luckily for him and my target, I didn't take after Frank's way of coming up with different brutal ways to kill someone. Getting the job done was enough for me. I caught him off guard when he snuck out to cheat on his wife. He had a thing for the working girls at one of the brothels in the city. It was simple enough, I followed them to a hotel he would take his girl of choice to, seen which room they checked into, and followed them to it. Figuring it would take him a little while to take care of his business, I smoked a cigarette in the hallway while waiting. I wanted to give him some time to get settled in, didn't need him being too jumpy. After about 15 minutes, I kicked down the door to find them both in bed handling their business. It was nothing at all to me to pull out my gun, and raise it to shoot him square in the forehead. Once I saw the life leave his eyes, my attention was drawn to the woman next to him, continuously squealing in fear. I didn't have to shoot her. Here in Italy the cops wouldn't touch me once they found out I was connected; witnesses didn't matter at all especially since I had just killed a scumbag. If it was an innocent or a civilian, that'd be a different story.

Unfortunately for the woman, I was trained differently, and this place wasn't where I was brought up. I brought the gun up once more as I shot her in her forehead as well. One clean shot in each of their foreheads. Some sick part of me looked at this for a moment, and considered this a masterpiece. They were both dead, motionless, all life from them had gone. It was crazy, my mind was trying to break it down, but I was intrigued. My first kills, everyone always said I'd get sick, I'd be disgusted, but I felt nothing but intrigue. Human life was so fragile. All of a sudden, my hand felt like it was on fire. Realization began catching up to me. I had stole two lives. One of which was innocent. I dropped the gun like it was something burning my hand. I sped out of the room, and headed back to the outside. I took no notice of who or what was around me along the way. Something that Frank if he were alive, would definitely scold me about.

I rushed to my place of residence, and spent that night sleeping on the bathroom floor. Me and the toilet became quite good friends that night. The next day I headed to Don Lorano's place to personally inform him that the job was done. He told me he already knew. Said the job was done very clean. Told me I could possibly have a future as a button or a hitman, and then told me he'd call me when he had more work for me. I barely was able to keep myself together, so I was glad that he didn't invite me to stay much longer.

It was on my way out when I was surprised by a sight, or better yet a person. I wasn't one of those gooey sappy people to fall in love with the looks of someone like my brother Vito, but I had my fair share of women over the years and seen plenty more. None of them caught my attention like this one in front of me. She wasn't smiling, and she wasn't clueless. There was a fire in her eye, like she knew what she wanted. It wasn't me, well it wasn't me in THAT kind of way, but apparently she was here waiting for me. I'd wonder why if I wasn't caught up in her gaze with half of me wanting to haul ass outta there, and get some rest, and the other half wanting to know this woman better, and what she wanted.

She quickly informed me she knew who I was and what I did. She had even heard about the job I pulled the previous night, and that she had a proposal for me. I held no pride about people hearing about my work. She then told me who she was. Rachel Lorano, the only daughter to Don Lorano. Unlike the mobs back in the States, women weren't allowed to participate in criminal activities here. That didn't stop them all, but they would never be acknowledged, nor become official members. Rachel was on the outside looking in unlike all of her brothers, but in my eyes she had the look of everything they DIDN'T have according to the one or two I saw walking around the house like they were hot shit.

She damn near demanded that we were gonna meet, gave me a time and a location to be at later in the week. She didn't seem to give me an option as she told me what she had to say without giving me a chance to say anything back, and then took off. Half of me thought the woman was nuts, and the other admired her courage and forwardness. Nothing better than a person who knew what they wanted, especially a woman. I was intrigued enough to see what the woman wanted, but the first thing on my mind right now was some rest, and maybe see about some food later, but there was one fact that I couldn't deny. For better or for worse, things were certainly about to get interesting.