Page 50 of A Beautiful Crime

Pietro’s eyes cut to mine with amusement as he turns on the chaotic streets of New York. “It would kill you to say I’m right, wouldn’t it?”

“Just drive, Pietro.”

His eyes return back to the road but the amusement in them has intensified, along with the smile he can’t hide. “Si, Constantine.”

As we ebb and weave through the lanes of traffic in New York City what would normally take a twenty-five minute drive turns to almost an hour.

I adore New York City.

It’s the city my Famiglia went to war for.

This city was always meant to be mine.

The stench of desperation from the people who live here along with the heavy aspiration of those who choose to reside here have led to my grand success.

And there’s a darkness to this city even though at night it’s lit to rival the sun. And that darkness people can’t help but want to draw nearer to. Anything to satiate their hunger, to prove they’re worth something, to achieve their goals.

Cloaked in the light of day they're the worst kind of people hiding in plain sight, and at night they come out of the shadows and show themselves.

In a city that has a population of a little more than eight million it would be naive to believe that all who reside here are good.

This city was made for sinners.

But this city, I felt it flowing through my veins when I was just a young boy. And I knew with absolute certainty that it would one day be mine.

And here I am, all those years later, with not only New York City under my rule, but the entire east coast.

I became more than a man.

More than flesh and bone.

I became more than a monster.

I am the perfect ideal.

A King with his own legacy.

And New York City, the city that holds so many dark souls and even darker corners, gave that to me.

For as chaotic as it may be, for the stench that can’t leave your nostrils, or the trash that litters the streets, it will always be a part of me.

Because this city, this beautiful dark and ambiguous city has given me everything to be the man that I am today.

One man's trash is another one's treasure.

New York City proved to be more valuable than any treasure.

But with all its beauty and darkness, with all its sin and temptation laid before my feet like precious jewels, there is one thing this city never gave me.

And that’s the fallen angel who walks amongst it.

As we enter the cemetery the car cruises slowly around the bend until it stops about twenty feet away from where the one thing this city has denied me stands.

Her hair, dark and voluminous, serves as a veil as it cascades down her back and around her face.

She stands tall, her lithe body surprisingly being held in a dominant stance. As if she’s become the rock that has endured the powerful tides of the ocean storms.

Gino, who stands on guard, is a few feet behind her, allowing her the privacy to be with her late mamma.

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