- "The best way to trick a fool is to let the fool think that he is tricking you" -
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Cars were pulling over.
The Italians watched out the window how taxis and people moved over to the curbs as if they were emergency services. It was incredible; incredible and unnerving. These people worshipped the King like he was a God.
It was disgusting.
Did no one have a backbone? Just because armored, blacked-out, SUVs were coming through, they pulled over like it was some royalty driving through New York City. A look of pure appallment and disgust took over Luca's face. No one should be treated like this --no man should be treated like a God.
The second he got the chance, he was going to take the King off his pedestal and show him what it meant to suffer like everyone else. Just the thought had all disgust vanish, being replaced with satisfaction.
A moment later, the car came to a stop and the Italians took in the sight in front of them, not seeing anything like this before.
It was a dome-style arena. Like a football field but bigger. It was all black and had a reflective glass. Red and gold lights illuminated it all around. All the buildings around it were dark and had no light, the arena was the only one that was lit up. Its red and gold lights made a shape in the sky, in front of the clouds.
A capital K.
It was their most notorious fighting and execution arena. These arenas were stationed all around the world, but this was the most popular. Only one opponent was faced with all the people who wronged the Mafia.
The right hand that everyone hears so much about.
This was the last round of the prisoner's fights. Each individual had killed and fought to get a chance to get close to this. After this fight, after they won, they would have freedom. All they had to do was kill the Right Hand to get it. Simple, right?
He is the only survivor. It is a fair fight but he manages to win every time.
It shows what he is capable of even though they don't know who he is. It shows that the King's rule is the supreme rule of the land. Luca always thought it was barbaric and appalling; the way they made hundreds of people fight to their deaths just to fight some more, with the hopes of seeing the sky again, just to die in the end.
It was inhumane. It was vile and the King needed to be killed for it.
The four men with the other thirty men approached the entrance but the men stopped right at the entrance when the Italians and Blade walked right in.
It was clean and had an essence of wealth. Luxury couches and chairs were at the entrance with an open bar. Not one person lingered except for them. The place smelled of relaxed smoke, leather, and velvet. This didn't smell or look like an execution place.
But the scene of the metallic blood would come later.
Blade didn't need to show his tattoo to receive entrance. The scar on his face was enough to make them open the door and look down in respect.
He led him to the private seating area at the very top of the arena where the glass was the only thing between them and the thousands of empty chairs. The three Italian men stared in awe at the enormous humanless arena. You could see the curve of the dome-style architecture. In the center of the gigantic room with high ceilings and the clearing with a net surrounding it.
It was a concrete floor that looked cold to the touch. You could barely see the bloodstains as they had been carefully cleaned with bleach.
Luca looked over to Blade who handed his knives and gun to a man in a suit who held a wooden crate.
The Italian men gave Blade a pointed look, knowing what they were going to have to do. Blade just shrugged and pushed his yellow-blonde hair back.
"Protocol. No weapons. The King's order," he retorted. They knew that they weren't going to win, simply because they were on their grounds and had to follow their rules. They had a lingering feeling in the back of their heads that this was a trap, but they couldn't acknowledge it. They were on their territory and had to play by their rules.
But there were no rules against cheating.
So they reluctantly took off their guns from their waistbands along with their silencers and placed them in the wooden box.
The man who was holding it walked away and disappeared behind the double doors.
Another man came in. Russet hair, and sharp green eyes. Wavy hair fell in his face but still made room for the light stubble that grew on his square jaw. There was no uncertainty that he was a lady's man with his jaw-dropping looks. He stood tall like the other men and gave off the same dangerous aura as everyone else.
He was as tall as Blade, Matteo, and Antonio.
6'4.
But Luca stood taller than them all at 6'6.
His name is Oscar Noe Adair. A French weapons dealer, and one of the most skilled of them all. If Blade wasn't the left hand he would take the position.
Luca has tried to get him to work for him but his loyalty is strictly pledged to the King. It was another benefit when the King was dead: all of his staff would need employment and Luca would be there to give them what they needed.
Oscar walked up to Blade and whispered something in his ear. He nodded curtly as Oscar left the room.
As Oscar left, someone new came into the room.
It was a woman.
The Italians didn't pay attention to her as she walked to the table to the side of them. Her back was turned to them as she set down a crystal decanter filled with whiskey. She took longer than normal to lay out four glasses and set them down on the tray.
The second Blade caught eyes on the woman, his eyes went wide but were quickly masked in a monotone emotion as if he'd never seen her. The Italians continued to pay no mind to her as she set down the tray and the decanter at the middle table in front of the Italians and Blade.
Luca looked up as the tray was placed down, seeing the woman for the first time since she walked into the room.
Her back was turned at an angle as she began to walk out of the room, but Luca still saw the side of her face but not much.
She had long, thick black hair that fell around her shoulders and pale skin. Her hands were bruised. That was all Luca could see before she left the room. He looked away, dismissing her from his mind.
"Alright, back to business. What do you want?" Blade remarked listlessly, completely straightforward yet bored at the same time.
Luca rolled his eyes underneath the sunglasses with a scowl.
"I want a deal. No more rivalry," he stated.
Blade smirked at his...bravery.
"What makes you think that the King will agree?" he responded with his tone fading of jokes. He was genuinely curious as to why he would be dumb enough to propose such a deal. There was no way in hell that they would ever trust them.
"It would benefit both of us. You would finally have control over Italy, our regions would expand, and both of us would only become more powerful," he retorted.
They each have tried to sabotage each other's shipments but the King's Mafia was the only one who succeeded. Multiple shootings occurred because the King's Mafia wanted someone dead but they were allies of the Italians. Millions of dollars were lost on both sides because the King needed to get them to submit or wipe them out of existence but the Italians had to retaliate.
"What's the catch?" Blade smirked, knowing this was too good to be true.
"What do you mean?" Luca smirked back, more devious. There was always something up his sleeve.
"You are the only mafia that has yet to submit to the King and yet you have become equally as powerful and dangerous. Why would you need us? Sounds a little too good to be true don't you think?" Blade doubted with a comical yet dangerous tone.
"I want to 'observe' the way you do things around here. I ask for 6 months of getting acquainted with both of our mafia's. You go on our missions and we go on yours. After the 6 months are over we can sign a treaty. No loopholes and we both get what we want. Is that what you meant by "catch"?" he explained.
His sly tone wasn't the only thing that Blade was slightly agitated with.
"And how can we trust that you won't be just "observing" Mr. Black?" Blade said through clenched teeth.
He sensed that there was an ulterior motive and letting them "observe" would only end in bloodshed on both sides.
"Here's my end of the "catch." What do you say about a blood oath?" Blade remarked with an all too mischievous and sinister smile.
Luca began to grind his molars together in anger but he reluctantly made a gesture in agreement.
Matteo and Antonio looked at him tensely, silently asking how he was going to get through this. Blade got up from the chair opened the door and asked the guard for his knife back and returned.
Luca got up two and straightened his blazer just as Blade stalked back into the room with a dagger against his hand.
Slowly he cut a gash across his palm, not deep enough to cause any real harm but deep enough to show the gravity of this situation.
He smirked lightly as the blood pooled in his hand just as he handed the dagger over to Luca.
He took it with no hesitation and began to cut a gash just as deep as Blade's. He didn't even flinch a centimeter or even blink.
Once he was done he set the knife back on the table and awaited Blade's oath.
"Do you swear to not harm the King's mafia and all of its establishments and anyone with the tattoo? If you break this oath you will be condemned to death in its truest severity by the hands of anyone tattooed with 'Momento Mori.'" Blade stated.
"I swear to do no harm to the King's mafia and all of its establishments and members and understand that I will be condemned to death if I choose to break this oath," Luca responded.
And with that, they clasped their bloody hands together in a solemn handshake that bound the rigor of the outgrowths forever.
But Blade never failed to notice that Luca never made him swear to the Italian Mafia in return.
While Blade thought Luca was plain stupid, Luca smirked knowing that Blade signed the death certificate of the King.
Luca swore to not harm the King's mafia... not the King himself.
Luca just got away with killing the King without any retributions.
~
Unknown POV
I left the room, placing the audio bug beneath the tray. The room was bugged anyway but this one was more precise and couldn't be detected even with a detector.
It took me days to make and I didn't want to make another hundred of them put into those kinds of rooms.
The Italians paid no attention to me, as I expected. I could've killed them right then and there and they still wouldn't have expected it. With only two minutes in that room, I already knew everything I needed to know.
I saw the tattoos on the sides of their tan necks.
The Consigliere tattoo on one man. The tattoo was the shape of a snake around the nape of the man's neck.
The Underboss tattoo on the other. A lion behind his ear.
And the Don tattoo on the man who sat in the center. The tallest and most well-built.
His tattoo was on the side of his neck. There was no symbol or animal like the other two.
It was just a simple phrase inked in small lettering.
"Lealtà. Omertà. Famiglia."
Walking down the hall, I passed one of the mafia members. Seeing the "Memento Mori" tattoo on his fist, I couldn't help but smirk.
This was going to be fun.
~
(A/N): let's pretend HIV, blood poisoning, and AIDS don't exist in this chapter lol.
Rewritten: 1/1/2022