CHAPTER 1: THE BOSS

“I don’t care what you're doing now, Alex. I want you to get me all of the files, NOW!” Michael shouted as he looked at his semi-buff assistant looking at him with nervous eyes. The guy was five feet and probably nine inches tall, and he had a nice build, but he was a wimp when it came to his boss.

The assistant ran out of the office while nervously mumbling and hitting the door on the way out. Michael was left with an irritated feeling as he tried to calm himself down and adjust the necktie around his neck. He felt like choking his assistant, Alex, for making the mistake of letting his secretary, Victoria, answer an important call. Alex knew that Victoria became an idiot when the woman was around attractive guys. The woman didn’t answer a stakeholder’s call because she was distracted by Michael’s other guests. Now, there was a threat of losing the investors because of a stupid missed call.

“Why am I surrounded by idiots?” he whispered to himself as he walked back to his table and sat on his chair with an infuriated look on his face.

Michael Mezzaluna looked at the files on top of his desk and sighed at the frustration that he was feeling. He looked at each of the files and decided to let his mind wander a bit just to relax. He found it difficult to find reliable employees, and him being famous made it even more frustrating, because there have been multiple times that there were employees that were spies from other companies. There was even a time when there were multiple attempted sabotages in his businesses in both real estate and his architectural firm. He continued to look at the photos of himself and his two best friends on his desk to just allow himself to calm down.

Michael Mezzaluna didn’t have a family, and he grew up on the streets before he entered a life he never knew he would enter. He stopped himself from recalling the past as he knew it would just ruin his mood for the entire day. Instead, he focused on looking at the crescent tattoo on his wrist where his pulse was. Mezzaluna is the Italian word for Crescent, and he was always both proud and emotionally in pain whenever he remembered that he was the last of his family line.

Michael was currently one of the most well-known bachelors in all of Italy, and he was considered as one of the most prominent self-made businessmen. He was the founder of Mezzaluna Inc., and the boss of the most powerful mafia family in the country. He was using the company as both a cover up for his business, and as a means to get through other businesses without being noticed.  A sigh left his lips along with an irritated groan as he leaned forward and rubbed his temples after a knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Wow,” the door opened, and a woman’s voice echoed in his office, “You look like shit, boss.”

Michael looked up and saw that it was his partner and one of the two best friends he was thinking about. Alba Lombardi, the adopted daughter of the Lombardi mafia’s boss. She was a powerful woman, but with her small and delicate frame, no one would ever believe that the woman was one of the most feared business women and ex-assassin in Italy. 

She waltzed inside the room with her clipboard on her hand and her phone on the other. The company is co-owned by the three of them, Alba, Daniele, and Michael, and yet, she preferred to be labeled as the head of the security of the company instead of Michael’s business partner. He just eyed her up and down as he saw that she was now wearing leather from her coat, to her boots and pants. Michael couldn't believe her fashion choices at times but knew that he had no voice when it came to Alba’s personal life or fashion choices. She sighed as he remained silent and waited for her to speak.

“Why did I see Alex speed walking outside your office? He managed to slam his face into two glass doors,” there was accusation in her voice, and I just lifted my right eyebrow to send an obvious message to her, and she sighed in response, “Seriously, Boss, could you be a little more approachable with Alex? The guy has been working with you for nearly a decade now, but you and him have never even hung out with each other. Not once, okay?”

Michael rubbed his temple and just sighed as the woman began to summarize the good qualities of Alex. His personal assistant, Alexander Jackson, is a half American and half Italian man who applied for his company a few months after he and his friends opened for hiring. Alex was a great personal assistant, and he’s been with the company for more than ten years. However, what Michael has always hated about Alex was his ability to become both a nuisance and an asset to the company.

“Alex is a nice guy, Michael,” her tone changed as she sat down in front of Michael and gave him a piece of paper that she took from her clipboard, “Listen to me, I checked him, and I have been checking him for years, Michael, he is not a spy, nor does he have any ulterior motives. He may be clumsy and a wimp when it comes to you, but the guy is good at his job, and he’s a great cover-up for you.“

“Alba, the guy is starting to increase his mistakes. You know how I hate mistakes in this company more that I hate people making mistakes with the stupif flavor of my coffee,” I said in an annoyed tone, “I won’t fire him, but I want you to think of something to make him less of a wimp, and more of a proper assistant for me and this company. I don’t need more idiots around me.” She just rolled her eyes as Michael took the piece of paper and finally read it.

“Well, if you ask me, you should be thinking of firing that sex doll you call secretary and get a better one who actually uses their brains more that their private organs.” she exclaimed with irritation.

“I’ll fire her the moment that she makes one more mistake,” Michale said just to see how much he can piss her off, “The woman is good at her job, but she does get distracted easily when there are men in front of her, I have to admit that.”

“When there are men in front of her?!” Alba raised her tone, but there was sarcasm in every word, “The woman has a vagina for a brain, and as good as she is at her job, she’s better at being a slut than she is at being your secretary, you idiot.”

He raised his eyebrow at the word she used to describe him in the end. She didn’t call him boss, didn't call him Don, and she didn’t even call him by his name. She called him an idiot, which means he needed to be careful, because as far as he could remember, the woman had all sorts of weapons hidden in her clothes. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll fire her as soon as you can find me a new secretary to take on her job. I didn't want to be rushed to the hospital because I pissed off my small head of security, best friend, and partner.” he said in a playful tone. It was his turn to chill, and Alba’s turn to get annoyed.

Anyway,” Alba began, “that is the list of people who have been identified by our team. The names on the left are the names that are associated with ofthe mafia families, and the others are from other companies. The numbers are increasing, so I guess there’s something wrong with the team who hires these people.” 

“Find the teams responsible for hiring these spies, talk to them, interrogate them, I don’t know. I leave everything to you, and I expect that by the time a new secretary is found, these names would either be marked as fired, or they’d resign on their own. Either way, Alba,” I put the paper down and looked at her with annoyed eyes, “I want you to make sure that these people, especially those from the mafia families, would know who they’re trying to mess with.” She nodded as she took the list and with a heavy sigh, she left the office.

Michael looked at the flashdrive that Alba left on the top of his table. He knew that when she did these things, it meant that the file was for the mafia family and not for the company. He opened the file, and his anger rose when he saw that it was the photos and total number of his people killed by the Mondragon family during one of the clashes that happened in the small hideout near Venice. The Mondragon family, he hated them with everything he had. Michael knew that the deaths meant that the head of the family, Ardente Sparo Mondragon, has now fully recovered, and has begun executing his revenge against him and his family for taking the title as most powerful mafia boss in Italy.