Page 2 of Rotten Men

The final bullet to my heart had been shot by the very girl I would have given my life for.

With my parents’ death and my young introduction to the syndicate way of life, my heart had frozen over. Pietro’s betrayal and death took the ice-sculptured organ and sliced it into thin pieces. But it took the love of my life’s planned-out disappearance to burn the malignant thing to ash, leaving me hollow and lifeless.

Death changes us all. Especially our own.

So I never gave much weight or credence to fate or destiny. Experience has shown me, time and time again, that it’s men’s choices that hold the true power in life. Other people’s decisions have given shape to my own, after all. Turned it to the cruel, cold, unfeeling thing that it resembles today.

Yet, all these calamities and upheavals have made me that much stronger. These misfortunes have made me the one to be feared—a leverage that I intend to keep and use unceremoniously. When it comes to me, everyone knows how to keep a safe distance or, better yet, run away in haste if they value their life.

Because a man without a soul has no fear of damnation.

And I’d rather be damned than let love play me for a fool.

Love is fickle. Love destroys. Love makes you weak and corrupts wholeheartedly.

My destiny is my own, and my choices will be the only ones that will dictate my future.

I will never be love’s pawn again.

The soulless are incapable of love anyway.

One rotten girl’s parting choice made sure of it.

One

Vincent

Another day, another funeral.

Call me a heartless bastard, but I quite prefer funerals to otherfamigliaobligations.

Engagements, weddings, baptisms; those are the ones I would rather avoid like the plague. Those are the type of events that would fucking gnaw at my good humor—if I had any, that is. But as the boss of the Outfit, I’m required to at least show my face at such distasteful celebrations. Elaborate affairs to ensure the joyous couple broadcasts their happiness to every person in attendance, while I stew in my seat, wishing my hosts the same misery I live each day and cursing them under my breath for making me bear witness to their bliss.

Funerals though, I don’t mind one bit. Watching people cry for their loss, while on their knees, begging to an absentee god to give them a cause for such a departure. Hearing their grieving prayers, while trying to reason with themselves why a beloved life has been cut short and taken away from them so soon. Those tears and wails are my symphonies. I understand it. Welcome it even, as they are the only ones that ring true to my own losses.

Still, this particular funeral isn’t as comforting as I usually feel in such a melancholic ambiance. For the first time in years, I find myself wanting to be anywhere else but here.

Standing in the cold, looking down at the coffin that will soon meet its final resting place, and knowing the woman inside merited a better end than this, is unsettling. But then again, Anna Maria deserved far better than the life she got, so the manner in which she leaves it should probably be the least of my laments.

A true saint to the very end. But, for all her altruism and generosity, what happiness had ever been bestowed upon her deplorable life? All she was given was a sadistic, vindictive husband that made her every day a nightmare to trudge on through. An ungrateful daughter that fled at the first opportunity, leaving Anna Maria alone and in the hands of a man who would take his vengeance out on her. And then, as a cruel joke, cancer unexpectedly knocked at her door and stole her light as swiftly as it came.

I have always known life to be unjust. I have lived through its harsh and tangled webs to know nothing in this world is ever fair. Still, if anyone had been worthy of such mercy, it was the woman who lies still inside the oak wood coffin in front of me.

Father Kirkpatrick goes on and on about the life that brought so much hope to the world. A woman who gave herself and her time to endeavors that will always be remembered by the people she touched. But as much as his pretty words are offered in comfort, none of them are successful in doing so.

Instead, the only consolation I find is cursing a god who thinks that a soul as pure as Anna Maria’s would best serve his interests by leaving this wretched plain, and yet leave a man as vile as Silvio Bianchi still breathing in my midst.

What kind of merciful God is that?

Not mine, that’s for sure.

I have lost faith in most aspects of my life, especially believing in a god that could offer me any kind of justice.

As the priest says the last words, I look over at the husband that should be suffering and find only boredom. Behind him, a grieving community sheds true tears, knowing perfectly well that today’s loss is a blow to our city. Sincere kindness like Anna Maria’s will not be felt again, and Chicago’s poor and forgotten will suffer immensely from such a fatality. Bianchi stands alone in front of such despair, while he, himself, is untouched from any feeling whatsoever.

“Look at that asshole. Can’t even fake a tear for her,” Dominic snarls beside me, never one to refrain from showing his distaste forThe Butcher.

The years in the Outfit have shown my enforcer enough of what Bianchi is capable of, and blame has been laid on the devil’s shoulders for absences most felt today.

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