Centuries of blood congealed into earth and stone makes the island of Sicily tremble with the wails of her widows and mothers.  Here, the unjustly slain call out to their descendants down through the ages unending and even across the vast oceans to reach the shores of the New World.  And when one of the great bloodlines falls silent even on those far away shores, Sicily - she screams for her fallen children demanding retribution.  No good son of the island, not one, can ignore her cries.  

Not one.

ANTILLO, MESSINA PROVIDENCE, SICILY - 11:52pm

Red-gold tongues licked the black night sky.  Screams of women and children shattered what had been the solemn silence of the night, church bells screamed out but no God - new or old - gave response tonight.  

Alessandro Conti felt as though his legs were burning up.  It was cool tonight, and running as much as he had, the skin on his thighs felt itchy and hot, as if he'd been scorched by the fires the Luciano men were setting all around the village.  Those monsters were relentless.  They had no mercy, no dignity, no honor... if they found him, he'd be put into the ground with the rest of the men the rising sun finally came.  There would be hell to pay for this attack.  He would join his cousins in vendetta for what had happened here tonight.  Their crops were a total loss and his dearest cousin Fredo was certainly slain.  For their livelihoods alone there would need to be an answer, but for his cousin's blood?  Well, there could only be one answer. 

Blood.

Alessandro found himself running among the mandarins and blood oranges.  The scent of the blossoms was so thick in the air that it reminded him of his first trip to a brothel last spring.  Fredo and his older brothers had taken him.  He'd been almost as scared then as he was now.  His heart thundering in his ears.  He tried to think about that happier time, tried not to think about the sound of the men closing in on him - screaming out for him, calling him a coward.  He had no weapon.  He picked up a big rock and kept running.  It was miles to the Don's compound... but maybe, if he could keep to the shadows well enough?

He kept his head down and pressed on, trying to remember the women's names. 

All the pretty women... Flora, Gianna... the red-haired girl, what was her name?  Her name...

"COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!"  The words were followed by laughter that seemed to be not just behind him but to his left and right.  It was then that Alessandro realized that he was being harried.  

Alessandro skidded to a stop as he reached the road and found a truck full of men there, with guns, waiting.  Behind and all around him the others were closing in.  He looked to the rock in his hand and remembered the story he'd heard about his cousin, the beautiful woman whose murder had started all these years of war.  It was then he recalled the name of the girl with the red hair and lips that tasted of honey.

He held up his rock, fully intending to take one of these bastards right to hell with him, "FOR MARIE LUCANIA!"  He ran towards the truck.  The stone hit the ground.  A moment later the sound of a gun could be heard, and the breast of Sicily pulled home one more martyred son engaged in the grand tradition of vendetta.

PRESA, CATANIA PROVIDENCE, SICILY - 9:17am

"Cousin!  Cousin!"

"Don DiCaprio!"

"YOU CAN'T GO IN THERE!"

The door came open, luckily Santino had heard the commotion coming towards his door and had the good sense to throw a blanket over his companion before they got inside.  His exposed rear end was the cost of admission however, for their rudeness.

"I hope you had the good sense to bring coffee?"  Santino said walking naked to his dresser, relishing in the scandalized noises of his cousins, and the guards who should have kept them from his door.  

"CLEAR OUT!  THE LOT OF YOU!  THE DON HAS A GUEST!"  Rita bellowed from the end of the hall. 

Santino wondered how long it would take before she'd gotten pulled up and out of her kitchen.  The young Don pulled up his breeches and had them done up as his cousins stammered their useless explanations to Rita.

"Surely we'll join them now..."

"He needs to know..."

"What he needs is to have his cousins not bombard him before his lady friend is even dressed.  Now scram before I find a place for my spoon that isn't going to dislodge easily!"

Santino chuckled, pulling on his shirt as his cousins began disappearing from the room.  

"Luciano struck back?"  He asked not looking back to see if Rita was in the doorway.

"As you predicted,"  Rita admitted.  "It can wait, Santino.  We'll talk at breakfast."

"Call in my captains.  I'll meet them for lunch." 

He looked back to the bed where a pair of brown eyes were peaking out from under the blanket mischievously. Santino smiled at them, then looked to Rita.  "How many dead?"

Rita's expression was grim.  She didn't answer immediately.

"Rita?"  He asked again.

"Too many, Piccolo.  Too many to excuse."  Rita pulled the door shut behind her.

Santino sat down on the bed.  Peace had been nearly impossible before... and yet he'd helped hold it together with twine and sheer force of will all these many years.  Outbursts here and there... nothing he could not smooth over though.  This, if it was as bad as Rita and his cousins made it seem, this might finally be the moment he had to admit failure. 

Perhaps there was nothing for it now, but to allow the war to come to pass.  The problem was his people, his land, all that he swore to protect lay on the borders of the two warring families and the cost to the DiCaprio and Fazzone families would be high.  And that was assuming no other families became involved. 

The Conti family had been trying for years to urge Don Messina to step in... the ancient man loomed over all this mess like God or the Devil himself.  A mighty hand, that if swayed to come in for one side or the other, could tip the balance definitively.  With Messina involved, whatever family opposed him would surely be wiped from the face of Sicily forever and the casualties to all sides would be beyond measure.

Santino rubbed the bridge of his nose, he felt the naked body of his lover rising up behind him, felt her kisses on his neck but even her urges to come back to the bed were not enticing enough to pull his mind away from the thoughts of war.  

"I'm sorry."  He told her.  "Please... stay for breakfast if you like, but I have to go."

THE DICAPRIO COMPOUND, CATANIA PROVIDENCE, SICILY - 12:22pm

Rita was getting older.  Santino watched her moving around the table, putting down dishes and making sure men had what they needed to sate their hunger and thirst.  He watched her and made a note to himself that he'd talk to her again about letting the younger girls do more of the work.  It was her mind that was of most use to him.  He didn't need her working herself to death. 

It had been her good sense that had helped to keep the peace this long - though most people attributed her wisdom to him.  Most people were stupid though, so Santino had discovered long ago.  If the world was fair, if all things were equal, it would be Rita who was Don and him nothing but a Soldato at her command.  If only things were here as they were in the New World... of course, the New World was the cause of this whole damn mess, wasn't it?  The new world and it's female Dons and Godfathers.

He listened to his Captains going back and forth about the righteousness of the Conti's cause, of the Luciano's might and how the affairs of the New World's phony Cosa Nostra was of no concern to the families of Sicily.  That it was the Conti family who had gone too far in striking the Luciano's here first.  The speculations on who would side with who and how that might impact the families in the area, Fazzone, DiCaprio, Viacelli ... not for the first time in this discussion Santino mentally added a name to that list, Byrne.

Of course, he dare not speak that out loud.  It was on the edge of minds already that the family had an alliance with the Byrnes... whose female Don was by birth a Luciano.  In many people's minds, this made the matter clear and put the DiCaprio family in alliance with the Luciano clan.  And yet, that wasn't the whole of it. 

He had all but expected to be wed to Don Byrne's oldest child by now and she was arguably a Luciano but the Conti family didn't see it that way at all.  They claimed her as theirs and reminded the DiCaprio family of it often.  If he wed Aurora, then DiCaprio stood with them, that's what they would say.  Of course, the Luciano thought the same.  In so many ways, he was glad the girl hadn't come home, hadn't come to unify their families as he hoped would happen one day.  She was safer, far, far away from this madness where she was a piece to be played on a board - a way to win a blood feud that no one could easily see a quick end to.

"Enough."  Santino's voice boomed and everyone went silent.  Quiet scrapping of forks on plates and lifting of glasses was all that could be heard as each man kept enjoying their lunch but kept their eyes on the Don, waiting for his words on the matter.  "I've heard all of this before..."

Santino rolled a match across and between his fingers absently.  From his seat at the head of the table, the Don considered his options and getting a reassuring nod from his elderly Aunt he found his voice again.  

"Long have we kept the peace between the Conti and the Luciano families.  A decade now.  With money, goods, and marriages - we've tried every trick that I have ever heard of working and still the wound caused by Salvatore Luciano killing his wife Marie Lucania cannot be healed here in the earth of their home country, Sicily.  Their spirits seem to know no peace and the sins of their families against each other only deepens the wounds.  There comes a time when a wound becomes too infected, too poisoned, and you have to consider that bleeding it out is the only answer.  Gentlemen, I think we've finally reached that point."

Several of his captains tapped the table approvingly.  A few others looked grimly to one another seeming to grasp what this would mean for all of them.  The last time the DiCaprio family had become engaged in a war, it had not gone so well for them.  It had been why he'd been forced to flee to the United States and how he'd come to meet Isabella, inheritor of his mother Lucky Lucy's Ivory Tower.  It had been Isabella who hid him away and never revealed him, when it might have been better for her that she did so.  A fact that the Luciano never wanted him to forget... 

"We are in a difficult position.  On the map and in the politics of the families.  Our honor demands we do what we can to try to honor our debts & Alliances ... but soon, difficult decisions will need to be made.  I'll leave to visit with Don Messina today and urge him once again to remain neutral in the coming war.  It is our best hope to minimize losses for all involved."

"Don Santino... but who will we stand with?  Conti?  Luciano?"

Santino wiped his mouth and stood.  The Captains quickly scrambled to stand with him.  "Gentlemen, we stand where we have always stood..."  He glanced at his Aunt.  Rita smirked at her nephew knowing damn well the only thing the young Don could say.  "We stand between Hell and the Dawn.  You'll have your orders soon.  Gather your weapons and your men.  I want them ready to move on a word from me.  It could be tonight, it could be six months from now - but you will be ready when I call."

Around the table, the Captains vocalized their agreement.  Rita lifted her chin, proudly and watched as Santino stalked off towards the cars, a plan in his mind already beginning to take shape.  Now, if he could just get the old man to see reason...

THE HOME OF DON ENZO, MESSINA PROVIDENCE, SICILY - 4:01pm

Santino sat motionless across the table from the old man, waiting.  His fingernails, Santino observed, were thick and yellow - far longer than they should have been.  Unnervingly so, as if he were already the corpse children had rumored he was for some time now.  The smell didn't help matters either.

The man lifted his hand and a hand over the thin wisps of hair atop his head.  The noise was akin to sandpaper passing over flesh, but at least it was something.  The younger man was beginning to wonder if it possible the old Don could sleep with his eyes open.  

"Don Conti tells me, there was... a child?"  The old man's words were hissed and slightly slurred, a woman stood nearby to clean up any spittle the man managed to lose and behind that woman stood three very large men with guns.  One particularly giant fellow, the Don's great-grandson Tommas Messina.  That one watched Santino with the eyes of a hawk, suspicious of him, ever wary of the possible threat to the patriarch of his line. 

Santino could approve of the younger man's sense of devotion to his bloodline and to the old man who would leave him everything... but that was as far as he'd go with his admiration.  There was something off about Tommas.  Everyone knew it too.  There had been rumors of how he'd been brought up by Don Enzo, locked away from the world because of Enzo's fear and ever mounting paranoia.  He'd lost so many of his children and grandchildren, you almost couldn't blame the old man... but his response to that fear, it had deprived Tommas of something and it had changed him.

Santino reached into his pocket and pulled forth his wallet and produced a small black and white photo and pushed it across the table to Don Enzo.  A dark-haired beauty in a tea dress smiled warmly at the camera as the photo was taken.  Enzo wet his lips with his tongue as his gnarled hand lifted the photo from the table to hold it near to his face.

"Aurora."  Santino said her name softly.  "She's been raised by her half-sister and her husband in a place called Philadelphia in the United States."

"You've met her?"

"I have."  Santino admitted.  "It's unlikely she'll ever return to Sicily for more than a visit.  She has an established life there and it's my understanding that b-"

"She will come."  Enzo half-laughed, half-coughed.  "Blood calls to blood."

"Yes, well, that may be..."  Santino continued.

Enzo waved Tommas forward to look at Aurora's photo.  "Easy on the eyes, yes?"

"A pretty little bird."  Tommas said, staring at the photo for just a little longer than was polite.  The large man put her photo down on the table.

"She reminds me of my Francesca... may God bless and keep her soul."  Enzo said, the pain in tone was palpable.

Santino began to open his mouth, to speak to the old man, but he was cut off as suddenly the centenarian suddenly found a burst of energy.  "The girl is your answer.  Both sides claim her.  Both would lower guns to protect her.  Bring the girl to Sicily.  My Tommas will marry her and I will give Luciano and Conti reasons to put their guns down.  Land, money, guns... she will bring happiness and life to my house again and in turn I will preserve the peace as you ask of me Don DiCaprio and we shall bind our own families together once more as we tried to do when I blessed Tony marrying my dear Francesca.  You... I... we shall reassure the families that we remain the foremost power in this region."

The old man began coughing again, giving Santino a chance to glance at his cousin Marco.  Marco nodded to him, urging him to try and make the deal.  But the longer he held Marco's gaze, the more Marco realized, there was no way in hell he was going to barter off the woman he'd long considered his own betrothed into Messina's house.

"American women are notoriously willful..."  He tried to reason.

"Tommas is a patient man with a firm hand.  My own Francesca was willful, but in the end - before she died, she wrote all she wanted was to be a wife and mother.  This is what all women want in the end.  They just need to be made to see it.  Tommas is handsome.  He is big and strong and he will inherit all that is mine soon."

"Grandpa..." Tommas scolded the old Don.

The old man waved it off.

"She will learn her place here and be grateful one day that we did not allow her to come to her own mother's fate.  Here she will have all her family around her, and here she will bring peace.  What woman could hope to do so much in her lifetime as to not just be wife and mother but the architect of a lasting peace between several great houses?"

The old man's cough returned.  Santino shifted in his seat uncomfortably.  This was decidedly not going well.

"No."  Santino said firmly.  He could feel Marco and his cousins shifting behind him.

"No?" Enzo said.

"I did not ask you for peace... just neutrality."

"Do you not want peace?"  Enzo asked.

"Of course, but sometimes the bad blood must be let out ... you know this.  We all know this.  Don Enzo, you can not think that an American girl who doesn't know our ways will come here willingly and marry a man she has never seen.  Our ways are not American ways.  American women they do not marry men sight unseen and even so her mother and father would never agree to it.  You can not think to take the girl without the blessing of her parents."

"Her parents are in graves!  That is what this is about, yes?  A man without honor kills his wife who did not know her place and now scores of the kin lay dead and if we leave their beautiful girl in that terrible godforsaken country those monsters who DARE call themselves Cosa Nostra will kill her just as they killed my darling Frankie!  NO!  We can save this girl.  We can save this one, you and I!"

Santino pushed himself back away from the table.

"Don Enzo, I will have no part in such a plan."

"You insolent little fool... I see the American Mafia has poisoned you too.  Too long on those shores will poison even the purest of hearts.  If your father..."

Santino slammed his hand on the table and hands went for guns as he stared hard into the old man's eyes.

"Stay neutral and DiCaprio will stay neutral."

"You bluster, but your family hasn't been the same since your uncles were slain.  You are a shadow of what you once were!  With me, your family could return to its glory!  It is a little thing I ask..."  Enzo's eyes fell upon the photo of Aurora then.  Santino snatched it up from the place where Tommas had put it down.

"I see." the man hissed.  "So, you do have your mother's blood in you after all..."

Santino lifted his chin.  "This is your home, Don Enzo.  I choose to hold my tongue out of respect for you... but if you speak of my sainted mother Lucia, I will deprive you of much more than my respect on the way out your door."

Enzo only gave the barest hint of a nod, the smirk on his face said it all though and Santino struggled to keep his rage in check.

"I pray you listen to my advice and remain out of this conflict."  Santino returned to his point.

"We will remain neutral until it no longer is of benefit for us to do so."  Enzo said with a smile.  

"That's all I can ask you to promise, I suppose."  Santino picked up his hat.  "Good day to you, Don Enzo."

The old man coughing bid him farewell, "Good day, Don DiCaprio."

Only once they were in the car did Marco dare ask, "Did you just risk war with Messina because of a girl you haven't spoke to in ten years?"

"No."  Santino said flatly.  "I just risked war for honor.  I'm am many things in this life, cousin, but I am not what he would have me be and all the money in the world could not make me so.  In any case, it's not something we need to worry about, she's not here... and so she's safe.  For now, let's just make our people ready for what comes next.  Take me home."

PRESA, CATANIA PROVIDENCE, SICILY - 7:48pm

Rita put a hand on Santino's shoulder.  "You did the right thing, Piccolo."  She came around and settled into the seat beside him at the kitchen table.  The flickering lantern light holding the end of day shadows at bay.  

Santino sipped from his glass but remained silent.

"Enzo was making a play to control too much.  He would have conquered everyone with a single wedding, forcing Luciano and Conti to kiss his ring... then asking you to do so as well, no doubt!  If you'd didn't, with the power of three families behind him, well... what else could we do but submit or die?  He has no interest in raising us up.  He still blames Tony for Frankie's death, as much as he blames the Americans and that notion only proves that he has gone as mad as the rumors all say."

"With such loss in life, can you blame the old man?  What does he have left?  One grandson, who has yet to find a bride?"  Santino shook his head.  "I've seen the look in that man's eyes.  No woman will have him if she's got any say in it at all and I sure as hell wasn't going to take a part in tricking Aurora into a marriage with a monster."

Rita shook her head, "That's his doing, raising that boy locked up in that house as he did.  No woman will have him now.  That old man had a twisted love for his granddaughter - we all know it!  Now he's twisted his poor grandson to be just as strange as he himself is.  Their seed is poisoned if you ask me.  The world will be better off if the Messina return to the dust from which they came."

As much as the old man blamed Tony for Frankie's death... Rita clearly blamed Frankie for Tony's.  Santino had once overheard her say, while drunk on red wine, that Tony had died of a broken heart and she laid that solely on the shoulders of the harlot Francesca Messina.  Santino lifted the drink to his lips and sipped, his mind still twisting and turning, trying to see what might come next and how to protect his family from the fallout.

Rita stared at her nephew a long while before offering, "I know I've said it before but... your Father would be proud of you."

Santino nodded slowly.  "I've made us money.  Increased our crops.  And now... I've brought us to the edge of war.  I'm sure he'd be really proud."

Rita chuckled.  "Your hothead father would have jumped that table the moment the old man said something terrible about this family.  Trust me, Santino, you ... you did us proud today."

Rita took his hand in her own and forced herself in the path of his vacant stare, "If there is to be war it is because of Conti and Luciano.  You've done everything anyone could to prevent this, and when it is done people will remember that you were the Don who steered a steady ship.  You made men's lives easier.  You protected the honor of women and children... while others asked them to give the blood of their sons and fathers.  I know this isn't what you wanted, Piccolo, but you have not failed here.  Please see that."

He sighed.  "My mother would have found a way out of this..."

Rita looked sad a moment, "Perhaps, Lucy was... singular in her brilliance, but her way out might not have been too different from Don Enzo's.  So, let's not dwell on what we can not know.  Instead, maybe you should go upstairs and get a good night's rest.  If your gypsy girl comes by again, I'll send her up."

Santino shook his head no.  "If she comes, tell her to return to her family.  I think it's time I start thinking about the future."  

Rita smiled and nodded, "If that's what you want."  She said standing up.  She kissed his forehead as she went out of the room leaving Santino to his thoughts about what was, what is, and what could yet be both here in Sicily and back in the United States.  For not the first time, he considered that maybe it was time to go back, to return and claim his birthright.  Well, such thoughts would have to wait.  Now, he would take his Aunt's advice and get some much-needed rest.