Florentine Nights I

Part 1: The Mind of an Urban Warlord

"Don't smile, you sick fuck." Nino Moretti hissed to his counterpart.
"Come on... you've gotta have some sense of fun in this line of work, my friend! I mean, look at him!" Lucio Rizzo said, smiling neurotically as he stared at the bloody, limply body of their latest victim, propped-up to make it seem as if he was picking his nose.
"You need some serious fucking help, Rizzo. Really. Who does this kind've shit?"
"Apparently I do." Lucio sarcastically shot back.

Sighing, Nino holstered his gun in his pants waste, an angry disgust flashing across his face as he averted eye contact with the chuckling Lucio Rizzo.
This was simply another act of brutality in a string of violent crimes striking the ancient Italian city of Florence; yet another take down in a seemingly futile struggle for control of the European drug trade. In a sense, it was a war lacking a victor, and any victory won was always short-lived, as the following day it seemed normal to discover that another of your acquaintances was killed in a quick, meaningless exchange of bullets after running into a member of a rival faction while shopping at a metropolitan mall.

The original gang, the Kimora, used to have a tight strangle-hold on the entire city and a large majority of the peninsula until infighting caused it to shatter into multiple seperate gangs; originally, it had been fractured into only 4 seperate factions: the Guerilla Kimora, the Salvezza, the so-called Originale Kimora, and the Nuevo Kimora, each out to re-establish the once flourishing Kimoran criminal empire under a new banner and new leadership.
Eventually, more infighting followed, causing each group to fracture once again; the Originale Kimora became so fractured it virtually disbanded itself, its former members either winded up dead, or ended up dissolving into the criminal melting pot of the Florence underworld.

"Ahhh, Nino Moretti, my friend, we will be rich someday, I promise you, and all this will seem like ancient history; a sort of surreal nightmare. Nothing more." Lucio stated reassuringly.
"You say something similar everytime we kill someone, yet we've been doing this for several years and still nothing has changed." Nino retorted.
"These things take time and patience... as well as loyalty and conviction. I can feel our time for freedom and salvation though. It's close at hand, just trust me."
"You're one crazy motherfucker, Lucio." Nino said, allowing abit of a smile to peak out from beneath his veil of insecurity.
Laughing loudly, Lucio said "And you're one hell of a man, Nino."

* * *

"Smile for the camera, don." Photographer Victor Riello said, grinning broadly from cheek to cheek.
"The war with with the Salvezza is finally over! Their don and consigliere have finally been dealt with." Riello continued, attempting to satisfy his dogmatic loyalty towards the Nuevo Kimora by flattering its don, Eric Esposito.
Eric, being part American on his mothers side, had grown up under heavy mafia influence in New York City under the motivating spirit of his Italian mafioso father.
The 'mean streets of the Bronx,' as they were known, had taught him almost everything he would ever need to know about the workings of a criminal underworld; from extortion, to intimidation, to establishing powerful ties, to how to keep yourself uncompromised when it came time to exterminate a life for a bouquet of reasons, the New York underworld had given him a place to establish, and later fine-tune his hereditary skills.
When he turned 18, he made the decision to go to the University of Philadelphia, where he took a hands-on business-ed course; yet his real hands-on experience came when he established a campus-wide empire of drug dealing under the anonymous alias of 'Doctor Ex-Fed.'
The 'Doctor Ex-Fed' business later expanded to include large chunks of the area surrounding the campus, and came to be known for its high quality, as well as incredibly high quantity, which was provided by his fathers 'family business' back in New York.

He later withdrew from his university studies, but through a series of bribes and intimidation, he was permitted to remain as a resident at the university dorms for another 4 years.
From his dorm room, he organized the building of a much larger imperialistic criminal enterprise that would remain more than semi-autonomous from his fathers entrepreneurial ambitions.
It took him only 2 years to build more then half of the empire he had envisioned, and he quickly became nationally known; with this gain of national fame, he also gained a sense that ruthlessness and brutality were the only things that were going to expand and maintain his already flourishing empire, and on the eve of the Iraq War, he demonstrated just how far he was willing to go when he murdered not only one defiant businessman who had not capitulated to his expansionist demands, but massacred both him and his entire family.
It was clear who was ultimately responsible for the murders, yet evidence was severely lacking and the coalition investigation which included the NYPD, PPD, and FBI could tie up none of the loose ends.

Two years of heavy investigation and scrutinization passed, until finally some damning evidence appeared from what seemed like thin air, directly implicating Eric and his entire criminal enterprise in the multiple homicides.
Eric, fearful of federal prison and the shattering of his entire criminal facade, was quickly bailed out by his father, and with the help of the money he had made during his quick and complacent reign, fled to the United Kingdom.
In London, he quickly discovered there was no longer any room for new criminal empires, so he decided to dig even further into European criminal affairs, and attempt to join the Florentine Kimora, who seemed to be on the brink of self-destruction, and who, if the right circumstance permitted, may present him with a unique opportunity; one which he was more than ready and willing to take.

"Don Esposito!" Riello called, "Your chaperon has arrived!"
Lifting himself from his armchair, Eric walked towards the door, a smug grin quickly spreading from cheek to cheek as he realized just what he had gained.
What he had gained, was absolute power.
But absolute power came with a price; and a large one at that.

As was obvious to not only himself, but also his close circle of personal advisers, all of which were quite religious, was that he had also earned eternal damnation.

He didn't seem to mind.