Chapter 1— Porto Rosso
The rain came down in sheets, relentless and cold, drumming on the narrow streets of Porto Rosso like a heavy hand trying to erase everything beneath it. Neon signs buzzed above cracked cobblestones, throwing fractured light into alleys that reeked of salt, diesel, and old blood. The harbor air clung to everything. It soaked into your clothes, your lungs, your soul.
Enzo De Luca stood beneath a sputtering streetlamp, watching steam rise from the bodies of two men who would never speak again. The glow overhead flickered like a failing memory. His leather jacket was soaked through, clinging to a frame built from iron discipline—lean, sculpted, and deadly. Long blond hair dripped over his eyes. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, smoke curling around his sharp features. He exhaled slowly.
The Desert Eagle in his right hand was still warm.
One of the men groaned faintly. The other was already staring past the rain, past the city, past this world. Enzo didn’t look away. Blood washed across the stones, spiraling into the gutter with the rainwater. The city would drink it all by morning.
“You’re quick,” said a voice from the shadows.
Enzo didn’t flinch. He knew who it was before the man emerged—Marco Bellini, a mid-tier lieutenant in the Bellini syndicate, but one with reach. His dark coat was plastered to his shoulders, hair slicked back with rain. A gold ring glinted on his finger, almost mocking in its polish.
Marco eyed the bodies, then Enzo, then the heavy pistol hanging loose in his grip.
“You don’t waste time.”
“I don’t like wasting anything,” Enzo replied, the cigarette dancing slightly at the edge of his lips.
Marco smiled faintly, the kind of smile a snake gives before it bites. “You’re not like the others.”
“I’m not here to do jobs,” Enzo said, flicking the cigarette onto the chest of the twitching man without looking. “I’m here to climb.”
There was a beat of silence, broken only by the distant wail of a siren and the drum of water off metal rooftops.
Marco chuckled. “You’ve got balls. That’s good. Balls’ll get you noticed.”
He tossed a wad of wet bills at Enzo’s feet. Fifty thousand lire, damp and wrinkled.
“Your cut. Dirty money, but it buys loyalty.”
Enzo didn’t kneel. He bent slightly, scooped up the notes, and tucked them into his jacket. The move was calm, slow, unafraid.
“I killed my first mark when I was fourteen,” he said. “This isn’t new to me.”
Marco raised an eyebrow. “That so?”
It had been a Santoro informant. The man had thought he was safe, ducking into a side alley near the old train station. Enzo had followed him for three nights, learned his patterns, his fears. When the moment came, he didn’t hesitate. The recoil from the Desert Eagle nearly broke his wrist back then. But the shot had been true.
There was no moment of glory. No trumpet blast. Just the sound of flesh hitting stone and the city going on like it hadn’t seen anything at all.
He walked home that night in silence, staring at the stars until dawn. Somewhere deep inside, he believed the Norns had woven that kill into his fate.
“I’ve been watching you,” Marco said now, circling the boy with the careful interest of a man studying a weapon. “You train like a soldier. Don’t drink. Always focused. And the hair…” He smirked. “You really trying to look like a Viking?”
Enzo’s smirk was quick, dry. “Not trying. I am one.”
That earned a laugh. “Oh yeah? You believe in gods and all that?”
Every morning before dawn, Enzo dropped to his knees on the cold tile floor of his one-room flat. His breath fogged the glass before his small altar. There were no crosses, no saints. Only runes etched on worn wood, and a carving of the Allfather.
“Odin, grant me wisdom. Thor, lend me strength. Freya, guard my path.”
It wasn’t a ritual—it was war. The gods were real. They walked with him.
Marco gave him a look, half amused, half intrigued.
“You’re serious.”
“I don’t need luck,” Enzo said. “I have fate.”
The rain slowed to a mist, fine and soft. Somewhere in the distance, church bells rang midnight.
Marco pulled a small black notebook from his coat and handed it over.
“You want to climb? Start here. Every name in this book owes something to the Bellinis. Money, loyalty, blood. Study it. Learn who can be leaned on and who needs to disappear.”
Enzo took it, flipping it open briefly. The pages were filled with scribbled names, notes, and red lines. Every line was a step in the ladder he planned to climb.
“You keep your friends close,” Marco said, lighting his own cigarette. “But in Porto Rosso, you keep your enemies even closer. Because anyone with ambition is already being watched.”
“I hope they’re watching,” Enzo muttered. “I want them to see what’s coming.”
Marco laughed again, but this time there was weight behind it.
“You’re gonna burn bright, kid. Or burn out. Just make sure you know which it is before the fire hits.”
Enzo looked back once more at the bleeding bodies behind him, then ahead into the alleys where the city’s heart beat loud and dark. The storm inside him had calmed. His path was clear.
He wasn’t made for comfort. He was made for war. Every push-up, every sprint through the Porto Rosso docks, every silent shot at the warehouse range had brought him to this.
And the gods? They were watching too.
He stepped into the night, blood on his hands and a prayer on his lips.
