DANTE "THE RIPPER" VICARIO | 35 | DON OF THE ITALIAN MAFIA Dilated pupils, crazed grins and white lies. Don’t you see the chaos writhing beneath my skin? Ragged breathing shivering spines the delusion that I am alive. Screaming nerves hysterical laugh can’t you see it will out last all that I am. An uphill battle where I’m destined to die. A whirlwind that rages within as I yank out my hair and peel back my skin. Masochistic they say. Delirious on pain. | DIAMONDRINGRPG |
The Italian Don was a New York man, born and raised -- but it wasn’t often that a king had the time to explore his own kingdom. When a step in the wrong direction could lead to a string of blood and bodies spawned by his own gun or someone else’s, it was far easier to stay immersed in the underground network his family had been building for generations. Territories were laid -- lines were drawn. Dante would just as quickly kill a person who stepped foot across those lines as anybody else would. It was times like this when he was surprisingly grateful that neutral zones were clearly stated through out the city -- when he could push a dark pair of shades over his even darker eyes and suddenly look as if he was any other well dressed man walking the historic streets.
That is, unless you knew what to look for.
But if you didn’t, Dante Vicario could become a man rather than a monster. The monster was always there -- whispering sweet nothings into his ears -- but he could at least put on an easy smile and hide the urges to slip his gun from his jacket pocket and put a bullet between the eyes of someone who gave him even an inkling of a sideways look. The Garden had been his first choice, of course, but after his stupid, fucking idiots of an arms dealer and underboss had caused such a fucking scene, he’d settled on the cafe across from it. It was quiet enough for a Tuesday afternoon -- practically empty of patrons -- so when he found himself blocking the way of the woman, he bowed his head in apology.
“Forgive me, bella -- we seem to both have the same idea.” They’d arrived at the counter at perciley the same time, so with a flash of a smile (one canine noticeably sharper than the other) he stepped aside and gestured to let her past. “Please, ladies first.”
Holy shit. That was Dante Vicario. Matteo’s eyes were on the Don, unable to look away. Holy shit, holy fuck. There’s no way he knows who you are. But you still have to thank him. But you shouldn’t make a fool out of yourself. But. But. But. Downing the rest of his glass of whiskey, he set it down on the counter before forcing his way through the crowd and to the man.
Don’t fuck this up, Mazzanti. “Hi.” Great start. You already look like a fool. Don’t stutter. Keep talking. “You probably don’t know who I am. That’s - that’s fine. No big deal.” Idiot. “I’m - fuck,” he swears under his breath, trying to recompose himself. “Matteo Mazzanti. I’m Luca - D’Amore, Luca D’Amore’s assistance. Assistant.” Fuck!
“I… don’t want to take up too much of your time, I know you’ve probably got better things to do than entertain me, so – I just… wanted to thank you… for giving me the opportunity to be at this party, and… and for not killin’ me when Luca prolly should’ve, and… for makin’ me… not… as broke as I was before. I dunno if you have anything to do with my paycheck, but, uh - if you do - thanks.” How was he supposed to recover from this? “I’m not normally… like this.”
Dante’s eyes scanned over the party, dark gaze drinking in the scene. They were here-- somewhere. Diamonds of all shapes and colors, like fruit ripe for the taking. Yet not a word had been heard of their whereabouts yet, despite the fact that they lingered within the corridors of the Garden somewhere. None of his mafia has heard word, as far as he knew. His copas were crawling the ballrooms, but nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
The Italian Don took a heavy sip from a drink that was far sweeter than his liking, his face twisting into something almost snarl like as he set the glass down on the bar. The lack of progress -- in addition to the fact that these parties always reminded him of a certain ghost -- was putting him in... what? What mood was this? At the sound of being addressed, Dante’s obsidian eyes slide westward, looking anything but amused.
“Why would I care what you are normally like, Mr. Mazzanti?” His head tilted, predator like. “Luca’s employee’s hardly have anything to do with myself, safe for what happens within the walls of The Inferno while my clients are in attendance.”
It was clear to Cassie that every mob was here, she could see Dante having to keep himself from starting a full on war in the middle of the ball room. She took his hand in her own and gave it a squeeze. Hopefully it reminded him that they had bigger things to do tonight, than killing everyone.
“Oh look, they have a chocolate fountain! We can gorge ourselves on chocolate tonight.” She knew he probably had no interest in the chocolate fountain. She was just trying to keep him calm. “Do you want to get something to drink?”
Dante felt Cassandra before he saw or heard her. The touch was familiar, and in almost an instant, the mafia don felt his shoulders slacken ever so slightly. Not all together -- but enough that his sometimes-there, easy smile slide across his face. “Yes -- that cafe, I believe, brought it in for the evening. I do believe your pastry display is far superior, though. I noble effort.” He squeezed her hand back, then quickly placed a friendly kiss on her check, almost scooping her arm into his in one fluid motion. “I think I should... stay away from too many glasses of wine, Cassandra. Even if the Russians are too preoccupied with the Irish.” He paused a moment, his expression almost... far away as he gazed out onto the meandering guests. “Quite a party.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Nova muttered underneath her breath the moment her eyes landed on him. Dante Vicario. She would have recognized the bastard anywhere. The blonde’s blood boiled at the sight of him and without so much as a second thought, Nova crossed the floor towards him with fire in her eyes.
“Don’t bella me, Vicario,” Nova hissed, blue eyes narrowing at the smug Italian Don in front of her. Dante’s presence at the party didn’t leave the detective with any promising feelings about the rest of the evening. If anything, it sent alarm bells blaring in the back of her mind. She refused to amuse him with a response – not that it would have taken a genius to figure out her answer. The wine could have been water from the fountain of youth and Nova would have refused. “What the hell are you doing here?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
{ @dantexxvicario }
“I was invited, clearly.” His shadowed amusement turned into a keen, devious smile. “Have I done something to upset you, bella?” He taunted, knowing full well the detective likely had a long, long list of his offensives. Which ones were personal -- she regarded him with a ferocity that would have given Cassandra a run for her money -- there was no telling. With the Vicario name, any number of things could be his fault. Most were. He’d gladly claim them, if only with a fleeting wink or a flash of his wolfish grin.
He gestured to the bar, his head tilting to the side in question. “Would that be no to a drink? The Golightys have fine taste, if you do not mind my pride in my own work. You are at a party -- you should not be so tense, detective.”
Dante hardly glanced up from his phone when the young woman -- who so clearly screamed cop as she walked -- approached him, lazily flickering through a series of photographs. The photos were without a doubt incriminating if one knew what they were looking at, but there was no doubt in his mind that Nova Wells would be looking for anything on his phone. Rather, it was likely something about an old associate of Dante’s. A mole, one could say, who bore a striking resemblance to the blonde.
Not that she knew.
“Ciao, bella.” His dark eyes slide upwards -- glinting with a shadowed amusement at the sight of her -- and he slide his phone into his jacket pocket. “What do you say to a glass of wine, hm?”
Luca D’Amore was standing just outside the counter top of his club’s bar, running down a list of ingredients, supplies, and other various materials to the tender on duty when he heard the familiar bark of his name. He turned slowly, eyeing the don weave his way around the fixtures and people settled in The Inferno as he made his way towards him. Seemed to be in one of his more decent moods, but one never could tell when the monster caged inside of Dante would snap.
“Well, there’s your first problem; still listening to things Blackman has to say,” Luca said, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes flitting across his features. Marcus Blackman was a prick; a walking slip of foreskin, and the sooner Luca could have the Underboss out of his hair and away from his girls, the better for all involved. “They seem alright so far, but they haven’t all broken the pole in yet.” He managed with a nod and a gesture towards one of the glittering gold poles stationed at the end of one of the performance stages. “Just takes practice riding something stiff to get the hang of it, really.”
“Ah, I forget the two of you do not always see eye to eye.” Bemused, his dark eyes slide to where Luca gestured. In truth, he was plenty aware that his underboss and one of his cocaporegime did not get along -- while it could be a pain at times when they did not agree, especially when it came down to how closely they needed to work together from time to time for the Mafia’s benefit, Dante was always entertained by the fact that they were constantly at war with one another. It kept them on their toes, if Dante didn’t already. A healthy dose of competition.
Tilting his head, Dante took a step toward the stage, slipping his hands into his pockets beneath his suit jacket, and turned his body back to face Luca ever so slightly. The Inferno blazed in sinfully red fabrics, and the golden fixtures jutting from the stage always caught a certain angel of the low light and added to the intrigue of the place. A taste of hell, a chance to slip into the darker side of an already dangerous place like Il Labirinto. “And you have seen to it? That they -- as you say -- have practiced on something stiff? I hope you are saving some of them for the clientele, Mr. D’amore.”
Cassie just sighed as she continued to make the espresso. She was used to Dante’s moods and knew exactly what was coming next. She thought that he had probably spent all day stewing over this and probably didn’t stop to take care of himself.
“Drink this.” She sat the cup in front of him and went to see what leftovers she had in the fridge to feed him. “Have you eaten at all today? You know you’re not going to get anything done when you’re in this mood. I have nothing here but I can cook something up at home.”
She spotted the last of the tiramisu sitting on the counter and brought it over to the table with two forks. “Have you been storming around the city demanding the impossible from people?”
Dante sighed, but begrudgingly took the small espresso cup and drained it’s contents. But the coffee did little to calm him -- he set it back down on the counter with a too-loud clatter, hardly even pausing to see if the thing had broken. “I am not in a mood, ” He snarked in response, despite the fact that it was ever clear that he was. He was aggravated -- like a beast with a thorn in it’s paw, constantly stepping on the nuisance with no indication of relenting. The don has nearly put a bullet in a solider’s head that evening for simply pointing out that the diamonds might not have been worth it.
Part of him wish he had.
“Nor do I demand the impossible. It is a simple thing -- to do what you are told, and get it done correctly, is it not? Sono degli idioti, mia sorella. Completely fucking stupid.”
“È davvero una buona notte, si.“ He agreed as he removed the leather jacket he had been wearing. “But maybe we think it for different reasons.” He said with a small smile. “Sounds good.” He agreed and began to made his way to the stairs, Maddox knew that some stayed in the mafia out of pure fear for Dante but to Maddox the don was someone he fully respected and was loyal to him. After entering the office he sat on one of the chairs. “So what happened.”
“I have secured you a new place to ship my family’s wine, my friend.” Dante’s voice was almost smug, like he’d stolen candy from an unsuspecting child. He likley could have, considering the Triads ever growing presence in his city. While the Vicario vintage was well known and extremely expensive -- a large portion of the income for his legal empire came from a series of vineyards in Sicily -- drugs and other goods were often stowed away in the crates and barrels that went in and out of Maddox’s warehouse; his illegal empire.
He clapped a hand on Maddox’s shoulder, flashing another toothy grin. “Several establishments in Osaka are going to taste pure perfection.”
Marcus never knew what he was in for with his regular meetings with Dante. The underboss before him had made the mistake of getting far too comfortable with the Don, but that man had certainly never been him. Every meeting was a new puzzle, but the reward that came from solving it was well worth the risk. Today seemed like one of Dante’s better days, as he so comfortably lounged about in his office. It was a favourable sign.
The mention of the girls brought a wide smile to Marcus’ face. “Oh yes, this week’s shipment came with quite a few beauties. One of them was a former ballerina. Can you imagine that?“ A few weeks’ worth of rest and food and their new investments would be paying for themselves in spades. “Luca seemed pretty happy with it. Means less training on his end, although a few of them still haven’t gotten with the program yet. Nothing I can’t handle, of course.” Many of the new dancers were reluctant to work, but when they realized what their choices were, they were far less likely to resist.
“But beyond the girls, I caught wind of some shit going down with the Russians. You know anything about that?”
“A ballerina? In a burlesque club? Affascinante,” Dante’s eyebrow twitched upward, one ankle crossing over the other as he eased farther back in his chair and propped one arm lazily behind his head. He was like a reclining panther -- relaxed, at ease, but lethal at a moments notice. But with Marcus? Well, Dante had chosen him for a reason -- between him and Cassandra, he was one of few he called a friend, even if it was rarely. Dante hadn’t ever been much for words in that regard. “D’amore has always had... interesting tastes, but that sounds like it was completely your doing. So long as he is keeping my clients happy, he could have a clog dancer on his stage. I will have to stop in and see a show...” The Don pursed his lips, head tilting to the side in that predatorial manner that always seemed to surround him.
The mention of the Bratva peaked his interest, but his face remained cool. He’d dealt with them like he had his father -- a bullet through the skull of their leader, leaving them with a... well, what was Viktor Valentina? Certainly not a threat, considering it was no hidden thing that Irish has taken his younger sister. “Who gives a shit about the Russians?” He scoffed, but pushed out of his reclined position and out of the sleek leather chair, crossing to the wine cabinet to their right. Dante didn’t look at his companion as he poured two glasses of red wine, the Vicario brand clear on the side of the bottle. He didn’t want to care about the Russians -- or any mafia other than his own, for that matter -- and practically spoke though clenched teeth when he asked, “What did you hear?”
For something that scares or disturbs them, but they refuse to tell anyone
“I happen to find puppets… uncomfortable. Not wooden puppets – the strange felt things they show to children to teach them colors. Like the frog. That, and the fear that my father might come lurking out of his grave.”
The Inferno. Or, better known whenever the don was in the casino -- Dante’s Inferno. It made him smirk. He didn’t even technically run the sneakily placed burlesque club, yet the name had become something of a joke. He wasn’t sure if he found it funny or not, but it certainly had a ring to it. “Luca!” His words were like a bark, despite Dante being in one of his... better moods. “Marcus has told me you received your new girls. Are they fitting in? Or do we need to send any of them back where they came from?”
“I do not need coffee, Cassandra.” The little Italian cafe was closed for the evening, but it hadn’t stopped Dante from shouldering his way in through the back door and sinking down into a chair. He was irritated -- it wasn’t often that the Don didn’t get his way, and this... diamond fiasco was rubbing him entirely the wrong way. His reason for wanting the diamonds was completely selfish -- if not petty. He wanted them because everybody else did, and getting them would piss all the right people off. “I need results.”
&&. word has it ( dante “the ripper” vicario ) was just spotted around the city. ( he ) is a ( 35 ) year old affiliated with ( the italian mafia ). it’s been said that ( he ) resembles ( michael trevino ). ( he ) has been said to be ( charismatic & strategic ) but also quite ( psychotic & easily angered ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( don of the italian mafia ). // ace
( dante vicario ) would describe ( himself ) as a ( winter ) person and would identify as a ( chaotic evil ). ( his ) birthday is ( october 25th ), making ( his/her/their ) star sign ( scorpio ) and ( his ) animal sign the ( ...the butterfly? ). ( his ) biggest pet peeve is ( leaving thinhs unclean ), and ( his ) theme song is ( sucker for pain by lil wayne ). finally, ( his ) primary goal is to ( control new york city ).
In the late 19th century, roughly 13,000 Italians immigrated to Mexico. As the years went by, nearly half of these immigrants returned back to Italy, or continued onto the United States. Once such family was the Vicario family, who formally hailed from Sicily. While many of those families have since assimilated into Mexican culture, the Vicario family stayed rooted in their ways, despite that their bloodlines had changed with several marriages and births. They continued to have strong contact with their distant relatives who still remained in Italy. As times changed, they eventually immigrated to New York City in the 1920s, where the Italian Mafia was just beginning. It would be another thirty years before the Vicario family took power of the Italian Mafia from it’s founders, and another thirty before a very specific chain of power was broken.
Since its founding, the title of Don of the Italian Mafia has been passed down seamlessly from first born son to first born son. This was how it had always been, used as a show of power and a means of keeping the Family within the family. But, in the 1980s, the heir of the mafia — Orlando Vicario — had an affair just six months after his wedding to Nadia Hernandez, resulting in the birth of his bastard son, Nicollo. Known as an abusive, easily tempered man, Nadia did nothing to stop her new husband from taking in his illigentamant son in. It came as no surprise that the young woman kept her mouth shut on the matter, despite the ache it caused her.
Two years later, Nadia would give birth to Orlando’s only technical legitimate son. This son would eventually become more fearsome than his father, but the monster was once a child.
In his early years, it quickly became evident that Orlando favored his older half brother, and it was he who he would pass on command, despite the fact that Nicollo was born out of wedlock. Dante was treated horribly by his father, and in turn, Nicollo — both abused him physically and mentally at every opportunity they could, while his mother Nadia remained passive and did nothing but make excuses for Orlando.
Having inherited his father’s temper, it was as if it had been destined that Orlando was murdered by the son who he so poorly treated. But that? It would come later. As the boy became a man, Dante was treated as a grunt more than the son of a Don, forced to do his father’s dirty work in ways most men didn’t. Dante killed his first man by the time he was seventeen. Soon, the number grew. The more he was exposed to the violence of the mafia and the abuse of his father and brother, the more a dark cloud began to take hold of him. Slowly but surely, this darkness would consume him completely, and a voice began whispering in his head that he could end it all — become heir to the Mafia, because it was he who was Orlando’s son, not Nicollo. He had killed before — he sometimes forgot how many -- and he could surely do it again. All it takes is a bullet, it would whisper, wounding its way tighter and tighter around him. But, while the darkness had fully taken root by the time he was twenty, one of the few people he trusted introducted him to the woman who would eventually become the love of his life. Cassandra introduced her as Carina Delgarrd, a business major at the Melbourne Institute who had gotten in on a scholarship rather than money or fame.
While Cassandra was known to be able to keep Dante’s demon at bay, it was Carina who could almost make it vanish completely. She pushed Dante to be a better man, to show his father he deserved the Mafia more than his worm of a half brother. But even as Dante outshown Nicollo, Orlando continued is abuse and beatings, ignoring any and all progress and benefits Dante brought to the table.
Eventually, Dante snapped. In a meeting that involved most of the Family — his father’s closest friends, his uncles, his brother — and included Dante, his mother, and Carina, everything went red when Orlando named Nicollo the heir despite the work Dante had done. With a fresh blackeye still branding his face, the voice came back in full force, seeming to scream and whisper at the same time for him to do it. Dante’s gun loosed six bullets before he even processed what had happened. In September of 2009 — just six months after proposing to Carina — Dante Vicario murdered his father, mother, three of his uncles, and Carina. Carina, the only one who kept him calm, and who had unknowingly been carrying their child.
After Carina’s death, Dante became a new person entirely. Done with fighting off the demon, his rageful outbursts were even worse than his father’s before him, and Dante was never afraid to end a life. Nicollo somehow survived the shooting, for reasons unknown. Dante allowed him to live, so long as he give him the mafia and do as he was bid. A true coward in the end, Nicollo agreed — begging to be spared — and would eventually become a chip in securing the loyalty of the Ivanov family... though karma would eventually come back to haunt him in the form of a shoot out that resulted in his death without Dante having to lift a finger.
Now, his underlings stay loyal to him out of fear, and his inner circle are the only people alive who he trusts. Dante kills mercilessly, and has even gone to trial for three murders, but has managed to get off not guilty all three times despite having shot the gun himself. These murders include his father, his last living uncle who attempted a coup a year into his rule, and the don of the Russian Mafia several years later. The deaths — including those three — on his hands seem to many to count, and Dante only feels guilty for two. His wife, and his unborn child, but the voice in his dead tells him to ignore it, and to focus on his life's purpose. Control of New York City where his father couldn’t.
