Don's father went by the name of Vincent Cuillo. Born in 1917 in Alia, a hilltop village on the island of Sicily. His family had roots there going back practically to the Neolithic era. The Cuillo tribe was related in one way or another to nearly everyone in and around the village, and Donny's Grandfather, Genaro Cuillo, was at the top of the food chain in Alia. A true "Man of Honor", pretty much nothing happened in or around Alia without his say so. During the 1920's he built a relatively opulent estate in the Sardono Mountains east of the village that had a working farm and a few other small enterprises. He appropriately named it "Villa Cuillo." The idea was that it would be near enough too Alia to conduct his business, but isolated enough for him to carry on the family's darker enterprises away from the public eye...
So that was where Donny's dad spent his childhood. Donny, on the other hand, was born years later in America, and if you looked at him compared to his father or grandfather, or for that matter, anyone on that side of the family, you would never have known there was a blood relation... This was due to the genetic influence of his mother, Cynthia, who hailed from the Diotrephes clan on the eastern end of the island. They were descendants of an ancient strain of Greeks who settled in the city of Syracuse long before the Roman era. His mother's people had a much lighter Anglo gene, and though her people were very photogenic, Donny grew up feeling he had been cursed with Anglo features. While he had brown hair, light skin, and blue eyes, his father and most his beautiful cousins, aunts, and uncles had classic Sicilian features: olive skin, raven black hair, and those dark soulful eyes that only one of ancient Latin linage bears. Like most Sicilians, Donny's father Vincent had a stone cold poker face and if he chose not to reveal his mood - you wouldn't know if he was planning to kiss your cheek or slit your throat. That said, the hallmark of Vincent Cuillo's appearance was a deceptive twinkle in the eye accompanied by a mirthful smirk that served to conceal all goings on within.
Most of the Cuillo clan was forced to flee Sicily in late 1937 in the wake of Mussolini's rampaging army. The dictator had sent a large force to crush the Mafia and Donny's people were caught up in the maelstrom. A popular myth still abounds that on a tour of the island, Mussolini (affectionately known as "il Duce") had been offended by some local mafia chieftain, but as always, the truth was far more complex. Mussolini was infuriated alright, but it was over intelligence reports that a secret Sicilian society known as the "Knights of Sicily" was operating directly under the nose of Italian officials on the island but admittedly, the provincial government installed at the time by Rome, hadn't a clue how things actually worked on the island.
The Sicilian people inherently distrusted outsiders, and their society was basically a closed loop. If you weren't family or didn't know anyone, nothing got done. Most of the administrators on the island had no blood connection to the people; so they were very ineffective. Additionally, as Rome had always leveled heavy taxes on Sicilians, nearly every segment of the island's economy had long since gone underground. Sicilians paid taxes alright, but they paid most of them under the table to the Men of Honor in their particular regions. And this left little for the coffers of Rome further angering Mussolini. Needless to say, Sicilian society was a very complex and layered system. There was the administrative class at the top who answered to Rome and were mostly off-islanders. Then there were the Men of Honor, who ran the different regions that divided the island. The Men of Honor were also members of a number of secret societies... Some of these secret groups were actually sanctioned by the Catholic Church, such as the "Knights of Sicily" and the "Knights of Columbus..." However, there were other groups of a slightly darker nature, such as the White Mafia, which was really a lighter version of the far more evil La Cosa Nostra... The White Mafia was made up mostly of Lawyers, Doctors and other professionals who merely operated in the underground economy, but at the dark bottom were the actual Mafia clans who were ruthless killers and would destroy anyone who garnered their ire...
Few understood the Sicilian Paradox, which held that the cleaner and more outward facing groups, such as the Catholic Knights, ultimately were made up of mafia members who served the darker La Cosa Nostra. Therefore, it was in typical Sicilian fashion that all power ultimately flowed down to the darkest elements on the island, and conversely, those darkest elements were actually the top echelons in the island's hierarchy. Another fun fact few people outside of Sicilian society were aware of, was the Mafia was not an invention of the 19th century. They had actually existed in one form or another for thousands of years - going back to the days before imperial Rome. Perhaps, their genesis was in the ancient witchcraft practicing tribes of Stone Age Sicily. So, in effect, the mafia's origins were truly ancient.
Regardless of their origins, it mattered little to Mussolini who the mafia was: benevolent knights or criminals; it didn't matter. Anyone with the temerity to cross his fascist regime had to be destroyed... Mussolini would crush any challenge to his authority, and as soon as he perceived the feudal lords on the island as a threat, he sent one of his most ruthless generals at the head of a large army to hunt down all the Sicilian mafia and destroy them, and the Cuillo's would make that list....
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Vincent's father, grandfather, and great grandfather were underworld mafia dons, but they were also part of something else that was rooted much deeper. This dark, domineering spirit was the essence of what they truly were, yet closer to the surface they appeared as feudal land holders who were actually adored by most their tenants. They belonged to fraternal orders, such as the Knights of Sicily, and these secret societies were actually sanctioned by the Catholic Church - having a reputation for defending peasants against the ruling classes. A true dichotomy, those men served and practiced evil, but were also deeply loved by the local populace, and their good works for the Catholic Church raised them to the level of legend. Clearly, the evil La Cosa Nostra practiced was directed mostly outward, and not inward on its own people. And Vincent's American raised children were none the wiser, but one day soon, Donny Cuillo would be in for the revelation of his life.
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Throughout the 1930's, Vincent's father made good money from the orchards and farm at Villa Cuillio, and his other legal concerns did okay as well. However, he made much more on the sly from his mafia operations... His clan was involved in smuggling cigarettes and liquor, and of course, they collected a little tribute - paid gratefully by most the peasants under their care. In fact, there wasn't much of anything in Alia they weren't dipping their beak into, but never enough to hurt his own people. However, it was their underground railway that was most profitable; and it eventually garnered Mussolini's attention getting them into real trouble. It took two generations to build up, and it stretched from Africa to Russia. They moved all sorts of contraband on it, but their chief cargo was desperate people, and they made a bundle moving them to safer places. Around the turn of the century they helped a lot of Armenians to escape from Turkey, and there were always Jews trying to make their way to America. And though their mafia underpinnings were always rooted in maximum profit, the Cuillo clan had a good streak; regularly breaking with Mafia tradition... they assisted a lot of poor families pro bono.
And the truth was that for the Cuillo's, this tradition of protecting the poor and weak spanned back over a hundred generations from Mussolini to voracious Normans, to the Spanish, Moors, Franks - all the way back to the blood thirsty legions of Rome. If there was money to be made they made it, but when desperate people who had nothing needed help, the Cuillo clan hid them and moved them to safer regions. They helped those who couldn't pay, and took it sort of like a tax deduction. Truthfully, Grandpa Don Genaro Cuillo said that it was better to take a write off now and then and have favors to call in later. It was a way to expand their influence that paid off in spades. There was even a legend complimenting the Cuillo benevolence that got started by a visiting mafia don from America. He had asked Genaro why the Cuillo's helped so many Armenian Christians to flee the blood thirsty sultans of Turkey who couldn't pay, and Don Cuillo answer was simple, yet profound... "It is a wise thing to have some bargaining chips on the day that you meet God."
And it was this undercurrent of benevolence that ran Donny's father and grandfather afoul of the fascists in the late 1930's. In 1935, Mussolini ordered his armies to invade Ethiopia and they began wholesale slaughtering Ethiopian Christians and Jews. Upon a plea from a Catholic cardinal who was also in the Knights of Sicily, Genaro Cuillo answered the call. Over the next two years the Cuillo's smuggled out thousands Ethiopians to other parts of Africa, and they actually took a few hundred directly to Sicily so they could move them out on ships bound for England and America. As Mussolini's forces tore through the island looking for the mafia, Don Cuillo actually began smuggling mafia families out with the Ethiopians. By late 37' the situation was horrible in Ethiopia. The Italian armies were bombing entire villages into oblivion killing tens of thousands, so Genaro Cuillo responded by pulling off a true miracle. His captains moved out nearly a thousand Ethiopians in one run; sneaking them right through the Italian forces over a complex network of trails leading into the Sudan. Eventually they got them to Egypt, and finally into small ports in southern Sicily and Malta. Once they had the families in Sicily, they hid them in their villas and farms until they could be moved onto steamers bound for England and America. When news of the great escape reached Mussolini, he was so furious that he ordered the army to scour southern Sicily until they rooted out all the mafia there. He gave them standing orders that the Knights of Sicily and La Cosa Nostra were to be eradicated, and doubled his forces in the south of the island. His henchmen systematically rampaged through village after village torturing men, women and children, and they executed anyone even remotely associated with the various orders of Knights or La Cosa Nostra. Most of the families left were rounded up into concentration camps.
This touched off a final exodus from the island, and the fascists eventually discovered Don's grandfather was a key mafia member, as well as a Knight of Sicily – earning him a spot on the most wanted list. As Italian forces began closing on the Sardono Mountains where Villa Cuillo was, Genaro Cuillo collected up Don's father and the remainder of the family, along with the last group of Ethiopians, and got them out. The Cuillo's had forged a close bond with the Desta family, and together, they made their way on foot, traveling by night through the Sicilian wilderness to the southern port of Licata. After loading everyone aboard that they could, Genaro entrusted one of his brothers with a few crates containing the remainder of the family fortune and he spirited them off to New York where a faction of the family was already established.
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Adversity aside, the Cuillos were no different from any of their hard working expatriates, and in time, the American dream began to pay off. Don's Grandpa, Genaro, had the entrepreneurial spirit in his blood, and it wasn't long before he had several businesses off the ground and his family out of the tiny flat an uncle had set them up with on Lott Street. They moved into a modest home in Brooklyn, and a few years later purchased a couple of apartment buildings; one a massive tenement in Carnarsi, and the other, a modest 20 unit Brownstone with a bird's eye view of the elevated subway in the Bronx. Vincent was kept busy helping with the care and upkeep of their properties, but his father had higher ambitions for him than mere property management. Donny's grandfather had a sizable grubstake from Sicily, and socked a lot of dough away in America expressly for Vincent's college.
Despite a tough childhood on the mean streets of Brooklyn, Vincent had managed to keep well grounded in school, and was eventually awarded a scholarship and acceptance into Boduin College up in Maine, and his aptitude for academics wasn't by accident either. As the story goes, the spark was lit one day when his dad, Genaro, took him to a big advertising firm on Madison Avenue. Genaro was looking for ways to promote the jewelry store, and from the moment they walked in, Vincent had fallen instantly in love with the world of advertising. The shark skin suits and shear glamour of the mad men were intoxicating. Vince loved how they were such silky schmoozer's, and was in awe of how they craftily approached the problem of bringing more attention to the store. That day changed Don's father's life forever.
The young man walked away from that meeting realizing that if he did well in school, he could be one of those sharpshooters someday. And from what Don had gleaned from the family history, this was apparently all kosher, and part of his Grandfather's master plan...
So, in the ensuing years, Vincent applied himself with fervor at school, and his entire life became geared towards academics. He broke just about every grade point average and having proved himself beyond all question a brilliant and deserving student, he was awarded a generous scholarship and eventually accepted into Boduin College. Boduin was a feeder to Harvard, and this was a huge coup for Vincent as well as the entire family. So he left home and worked harder than ever, graduating in less than 4 years, and went on to complete his Masters in Marketing at Harvard Business. From there on out the world was Vincent's oyster... He was recruited directly by J&D Advertising, one of New York's largest ad firms, and upon his triumphant return to New York he embarked on the career of his dreams. In no time, he was enjoying a meteoric rise through the Account Executive ranks, and the new golden boy of Madison Avenue was already being groomed for a VP slot in the firm... Vincent was on his way to becoming a famous ad man; coining several famous slogans, and more than a few startups owed their success to his ingenious ad campaigns. Eventually, he was sought after by many ad firms and he could have basically written his own ticket. Despite Cary Grant playing the role in the movie, Vincent Cuillo was known on Madison Avenue as the true man in the gray flannel suit.
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Part of the Vincent Cuillo legend was that he was the first executive on Madison Avenue to break down the barriers that locked out many women and minorities in the 1940's. Back in the day, big business in New York was the province of the great white Anglo male, and most of the women and "ethnically challenged" wanted to be part of it, but had to change their names and discard their cultural trappings to even have a prayer of succeeding. It was a matter of doing everything they could to fit in, but in the day, Italian's had a particularly rough time because of their dark features and perceived mafia associations. Therefore, Latin surnames were unheard of, but Vince was the first of a generation of bright new kids who refused to buckle under. He kept his surname and made it clear to all that he was proud of his heritage and culture. Instead of trying to blend into the Anglo hegemony he took the business world by storm based on the virtue of his merits, and turned a cultural liability into an asset. In fact, he was solely responsible for changing the market's perception of Italian and other European products – crafting them into glamorous products and exotic lines - instead of dusty old world appendages. His ad campaigns stressed the difference, spinning the moniker "imported" to be synonymous with "in vogue." Vincent also worked several PR campaigns for local performers and was responsible for the rise of many Italian celebrities. His ability as a gifted slogan man was uncanny, and he was considered by many to be years ahead of his time. And after he made Vice President, he purposely gave a couple of woman a break, and mentored the first black account executive in the industry. From his coveted corner office he changed the industry, and he got away with it due to the growing list of small companies he turned into fortune 500 enterprises.
Back then it was expected that up and coming executives would have all the trappings of stability including a beautiful wife, lots of kids, and the quintessential home in the Pennsylvania suburbs. So Vincent got himself out on the circuit, volunteering for blind dates; double dates; and nights out at the theater. He quickly gained a reputation on the society page as the life of the party, and his group of mavens were the darlings of the 5th Avenue "A" list , not to mention targets of every eligible debutant on the marriage circuit.
When Donny was about 9, Vincent shared with him the story of his search for his mother. He told the boy how he had dated dozens of women, but knew in his heart that the bells and whistles would blow when the right girl had came along. And indeed, one hot summer afternoon at a beach party while he and his group were roasting lobster tails and clams, he literally fell into the lap of beautiful young woman. She was a freelance writer named Cynthia Diotrephes and he was instantly smitten. With beautiful animation, he shared with Donny how he loved his mother from the moment he first saw her, and how he couldn't believe his luck.
Cynthia's family hailed from Sicily just as he, but they were of Greek linage. Their roots were in the Sicilian city of Syracuse where they had been for generations, but to Vincent that just made her all the more exotic. When Donny appeared confused, his father explained that the Greeks had colonized Sicily long before the Romans and many of them had managed to maintain their culture down through the centuries as the island changed hands over millennia, and his mother's people were part of that heritage. And that warm moment stuck with Donny – despite all the pain that would come to his family later on.
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Don actually remembered the dark day that the trouble began with his mom and dad. In fact, he suspected that it had started much earlier, but he had been shielded from it. One day, his dad and he were sitting in the parlor, and Vincent began relating his memories of Sicily. He told his son about how gorgeous the villa in Alia had been, and how there were ancient olive groves on the estate reputed to produce the best olive oil in Sicily. He also related how tragic it was that all was lost in the diaspora. As his dad continued the tale, his mother walked in and Donny sensed the tension emanating from her... His father ignored it and carried on about how they had gone from near royalty in Sicily to penniless Ellis Island immigrants – and it was his wish to raise the family back to its former heights. That was when she stormed over shouting that it was time for Don to finish his homework, and over Vincent's meek protests she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him off to the den to study...
So it was that at the pinnacle of his father's success Donny's mother would do her best to separate them and destroy Vincent's career... And when it crumbled, all of the good in the man's life would bleed out, and he would surrender to the inescapable fate the Dominari had laid out for his line – preparing for the resurrection of the Sixth Legion...
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