ch 1 The Mountain Trap

The wind howled like a furious demon on the rocky ridge of the Sicilian mountains, lashing Vito Rizzuto's skin with invisible blades laden with the acrid smell of burnt pine, damp earth, and ancient ash. That oppressive silence, broken only by the hiss of the mistral, was not peace: it was a betrayal of nature itself, a veil of death enveloping the abandoned refuge. Vito, the Don, the man who had built an empire on the blood and silence of traitors, had never trusted anything that didn't reek of danger. And there, among the rubble of an old farmhouse—a roof caved in like a split skull, gray stone walls riddled with cracks that looked like open wounds—he had thought he'd found shelter. Three weeks of self-imposed exile, exchanging the luxury of the coastal villas in Palermo, with its Persian rugs and Cuban cigars, for this sewer of dust, humidity, and rats that gnawed at his dreams.

Anger boiled inside him like underground lava, a stoic fire that didn't explode in screams but gathered, stone upon stone, in his chest. Bastards, he thought every night, staring at the collapsed ceiling, you hunted me like a dog, but I am the wolf who will tear you apart from within. The crackling of the small fire in the blackened fireplace was his only companion, a sound that reminded him of the bonfires of past executions, when enemies burned at his command.

His lair had been furnished with furniture spruced up around him: an old armchair in front of the fireplace, cupboards along the walls, a writing desk beside the entrance. The room was located inside an abandoned and impassable building. But the police had gotten a tip-off; Vito knew his hours were numbered.

The trap was sprung at first light, a livid gray seeping like poison through the cracks. No sirens, no screams: just the dry, rhythmic thump of dozens of boots on gravel, a war beat that echoed his doom. Vito leaped up from his bed of rotten straw, adrenaline flooding his veins like acid, grabbing the Beretta 92FS—cold, faithful, the only lover who had never betrayed him—from under his pillow. His heart pounded in his chest, but his mind was a sharp blade: How many are there? Ten? Twenty? It doesn't matter. I can take at least five of them with me to hell.

"Don Rizzuto!" boomed an amplified voice from outside, with that arrogant Roman cadence, cold as the marble of a courtroom. "We're the Carabinieri of the ROS. You're done playing hide-and-seek. Come out with your hands up, or we'll come in and drag you out like a bag of garbage!"

Vito gripped his gun until his knuckles whitened, his teeth clenched in a silent snarl. Rage consumed him: Sons of bitches, you sold me out. One of my people, one of those I raised as my own, sang. Primal instinct screamed at him to shoot, to explode in a hail of lead and die like a man, like a Boss, with enemy blood on his hands. He could already imagine the screams, the falling bodies, his own riddled but proud corpse, a hunted wolf tearing out the hunter's throat. But then, like a punch in the stomach, the image of his young daughter—the only pure one in that world of vipers, with her innocent eyes and the voice calling him "daddy"—flooded through his mind. No. Not for her. Don't waste your last bullet for the pride of an old lion. Stoicism enveloped him like armor: he took a deep breath, swallowed the bile of defeat, and placed the weapon on the dusty floor. It was the first time in thirty years that he felt truly alone, naked before fate, but revenge—oh, that—was a seed sprouting in the darkness.

He emerged with his hands raised, his face ragged with stubble, his eyes tired but blazing with eternal hatred, turned toward the gray sky that seemed to mourn his humiliation. Dozens of armed men instantly surrounded him: machine guns aimed, faces covered by helmets, a circle of death that reeked of sweat and triumph. As the icy handcuffs tightened on his wrists—click, click, a sound that pierced his soul—Vito took one last look at the landscape: every snow-capped peak like a broken crown, every crevasse a hiding place for future ambushes. Imprint this on your minds, bastards. The mountain betrayed me, but I will return. And you will pay.

The arrest wasn't the end. It was the humiliation that fueled the monster inside him. His revenge would come from where they least expected it: from the heart of the system that had swallowed him, slow, inexorable, like poison in a vein. He covered his face with a cap as they led him to prison, his hands shackled.