Me & @crimewriter: What if Pietro's son and Ángel's daughter had a off and on relationship for years, but then she slept with him on the night before her wedding and got pregnant with his baby? 😳
There were numerous cities Rosaria would have loved to visit, so many that if she was absolutely certain she had to means to get up and roam wherever her heart desired, she would have a long list of destinations.
On this metaphorical list, some of these regions would have included Los Angeles, Gatlinburg, Tennessee…she actually knew very little of Gatlinburg beyond it having a Germanic influence, but still. The occasional commercials that popped up on television made Rosaria inclined to think the area looked cute! Even São Paulo was on her imaginary list out of intrigue for her father’s vague roots.
So many places would have been higher on her list than Las Vegas, where she was with Mr. Impellizzeri. This trip was not for pleasure though, it was, in all honesty, for work.
Raphael had finally given consideration to Pietro’s words about having a broader influence, so he sought to have a hand in a casino one of his long-time associates was building. But Raphael was not leaving his home, no, it was Pietro who had to pack his bags. Even a consigliere ‘in training’ like Rosaria was required to come. Both the men said that this event would teach her about the language of business.
Business, business, business…
For days, this large trip loomed over her mind dreadfully. Rosaria did not once think of glitz and glamor nor of frivolous spending. Her thoughts revolved around suits, ties, and men with dark, slicked-back hair who engaged in tense, tricky, dialogue-heavy scenes straight from The Godfather.
But when she was on the strip? It was as though something magical happened. Anxiety zapped away, and the young woman’s thoughts shifted drastically as she found herself living a moment straight out of a film. With each way she turned her head, enormous casinos towered over her - MGM Grand, Caesars Palace, the Mandalay - all of them shiny, noisy, and enticing.
She likened the insides of the casinos to be like a Chuck E. Cheese for adults as her ears were filled with the sounds of zings, pings and loud rhythmic sounds that identified someone had gotten lucky.
There was a curiosity, an interest to look around and observe the machines, but she would not be like her father who would she recalled spending down to the last penny on scratch-off tickets. Pietro, however, had little plans to be financially chaste here.
“Play hard before you work hard,” he eventually told her, forcing his chips into her manicured hands. Admittedly, Rosaria was not thrilled with her boss essentially pushing her away but she obeyed rather than put up a Scozzari-level fuss.
When sulking off, she supposed she was too much like a fly, buzzing around him on the floor. And maybe even at the blackjack table, she looked a little too bitter and impatient for the game to end when he strived to focus.
Filled with petty, low-level angst Rosaria roamed the slot machines full of disdain. She sat at one, another, a few more that would lead her to that fifth, fated slot machine. She didn’t think of winning, she wasn’t full of anxious anticipation for three matching strawberries to appear on screen.
Instead, she was thinking of how judging by the machine’s art, it was manufactured in either the 80s or early 90s. The cartoony fruit spun and spun, while Rosaria was mentally making the decision of where to venture to next when sounds of success flooded her senses.
In the most cinematic moment of all, Rosaria won money. $1,600, all hers.
Caught up in a sudden rush of exhilaration, she wasn’t sure how Pietro knew how to find her in the vast casino but he did. Rosaria didn’t bother questioning where her boss came from, or even how much money he made at the tables, she was far too focused on processing the thrill of her win. Looking over her shoulder, she only said one thing:
“Look what I did!”
“I see what you did!”
Needless to say, unlike Pietro was interested in staying at the casino for a few more hours, Rosaria insisted they leave before they ruin their luck. But like Pietro, she wasn’t financially chaste. She had the idea that perhaps clothing stores on the west coast were more refined, more on the cutting edge than the average shops in the Midwest.
It was all so fun, so perfect. Then, the sun set.
Sometime between stepping into the shower and drying off her legs, Rosaria’s thoughts took a shift. Alone in the hotel room’s pristine, marble bathroom Rosaria looked at herself. In her reflection, she did not see ugliness, but rather, too much youth.
Suddenly grappling with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, Rosaria questioned the city’s seedy underbelly just as she questioned herself. She didn’t belong here. She may have been twenty-eight, but she felt too young to witness a business meeting where the men would likely be in their upper thirties, late forties...she wondered, would there be men in the meeting room observing her the way a crouching lion observed an oblivious zebra who grazed in the grass? Would they wonder why she was here?
By just being in the same room as them she reflected the intelligence sense of Mr. Impellizzeri and especially Mr. Polombo. Did she have professional attire to make the best impression or were her clothes just sexy?
Would she die? Die from a meeting gone array where bullets would make holes in plastered walls and riddle the bodies of her and her superior?
A day of bliss became a night of terror and even after she was clad in her silk pajamas, Rosaria swore if she stayed in her room with her thoughts she would combust.
“Mr. Impellizzeri?” Her fists rattled at the bedroom door on his side of the hotel. “Are you awake?”
–
“So, how old were you when this happened?”
“...”
“Mr. Impellizzeri?”
For a second time, Pietro had come back to reality. “I’m sorry Rosa, what did you say?”
“I was asking how old were you when you began overseeing meetings? And also, how old were you when you began doing business and -” a brief pause as Rosaria fought to properly define a specific role - ultimately, she couldn’t think of any. “-other things like that!”
There was no way Pietro could speak to Rosaria and simultaneously watch Bugsy. Something Pietro found about Rosaria Scozzari, after working nine months with her, is that when she talked she wanted to be seen just as much as she wanted to be heard.
So, for Pietro to do something like shift his gaze to the wide-screen after giving a few, generally (and generically) supportive remarks, Rosaria was sure to do something like pace around or make direct eye contact with him or perhaps even ask a brazen question that was sure to get attention.
Then there were her eyes - she would always set those big orbs on him when she spoke like this, slightly stretching them out more than usual. Pietro thinks this was a deliberate tactic on Rosaria’s behalf: trying to fight and brush off an intense gaze like that was difficult.
He pulls his arms behind his head, genuinely weighing the question. “I could have been nineteen or eighteen. But I’ve always done a bit of everything when it comes to ‘work.’ I was never a stranger to nearly all sides of the business.”
She was still looking at him with those eyes…shoulders hitched high, and no smile to be seen, she needed more reassurance.
“You shouldn’t worry your pretty head about tomorrow. You’ll never get your hands dirty, you’ll always be working with words.”
“That’s one of the things I’m scared about too!” She’s quick to say, explanatory hands lifted; “Because sometimes, when I’m nervous, I feel like I forget what words are and I have this fear that maybe one day, in the middle of the conversation, I’ll forget what I’m talking about-”
“Then you don’t rush through the conversation.” Rosaria did not have the time to talk about her anxieties or her ideas of letting Pietro down as he intervened with this. “Talk slow. Live in the present. When you can be grounded in the present, your words?” crossing his ankles as reclines on the bed, he lifts his right hand: creating a symbol of perfection.
“You’re going to be a damn good consigliere. Probably better than Aldo…” Briefly, Pietro’s eyes roll to the ceiling: “may he rest in peace.”
Bite by bite, Siegel shoved his dinner into his mouth. In this moment, if gluttony was Siegel’s sin, then lust was Virginia’s. Her desire for him was powerful, unrestrained. As the gangster ate, the woman showered him with passionate, kisses - the sight on screen would usually cause Pietro to raise the corner of his lips and slightly chuckle at one of the more unusual cinematic preludes to sex, but in this instance, the moment did nothing for him. He found his mind focused on Rosaria.
The mattress he laid on was big enough for three adult bodies, but there she sat in her satin pajamas in the room’s sole chair. Close enough to him while still being far off from him - Pietro supposes she liked to have the convenience of quickly sprinting off.
In a moment of undeniable vanity, Pietro thought of how other women would find a reason to sit on the mattress with him or, if they were feeling particularly flirty, they’d lay against him feigning innocence. He didn’t understand why Rosaria wouldn’t do the same thing.
It’s not as though she had innocent feelings for him. No, she made her attraction clear when they first kissed in his office earlier this year. That’s when she pulled him in by his tie to press her lips against his own, and yes, although Pietro deepened the kiss, he swore he didn’t lay a finger on her until he heard her moan in his mouth. Otherwise, that moment was all her.
Beyond that, in this present time, Pietro thought they had a good day together. Without anyone they knew observing them on the strip, there were plenty of instances where he wrapped an arm around her, displaying mild physical affection. And, didn’t Rosaria remember how he proudly wrapped his arms around her when she hit her jackpot at the slot machines? She should have known that he was fond of her.
Maybe she felt shame...
“Mr. Impellizzeri?”
“Yes?”
“Did you ever have second thoughts about what you do for a living? Did you ever think of a more normal life? Even if it was just once?”
Promptly, De Niro came to mind. “What’s a normal life?” Pietro responds, “Barbeques and ballgames?”
Immediately, Rosaria wore a look of puzzlement on her face and, knowing her as well as he did, Pietro knew she was trying to decide how to form her response in defining what a ‘normal’ life was. But more than that, it occurred to Pietro that one of the coolest quotes he heard as a teen truly proved there was a generational gap between him and Rosaria. “That’s a line from Heat, babe.” He calmly (and swiftly) explains before she went on a spiel.
“Oh,” Rosaria’s cheeks grew warm and for a moment, she was too ashamed of her cinematic ignorance to make eye contact with Pietro. “I’ve never seen that,” but more than anything she was grateful she didn’t speak unrestrained. Surely, he would find her so ridiculous.
“I’m not sure if Ralphy ever gave you a thorough talk about me, but I come from a poor family, Rosa. Dirt poor. When I came to America, I couldn’t even speak English.”
Rosaria had to blink, his American accent was so good. She would have assumed he at least came to America as an infant.
“I have cousins in Chicago, but they weren’t successful. They were laborers…the sort of people who live above their shop to save money, if I didn’t run around as a courier for wise guys I wouldn’t have broken the cycle of poverty. I would be struggling to support a wife and a few kids at some low-end job.”
“That’s not true, sir, if you had gotten your educa-”
“I didn’t have the money for college. And I doubt my old man would have been interested in sending me there.”
It didn’t matter that Pietro said this matter-of-factly, the words stung so much Rosaria felt she may as well have endured a scolding. “I can understand that,” she forces herself to agree, “I’m the first college graduate in my family but…” should she drop the topic? Should she say never mind? She isn’t afraid of speaking, but what she is afraid of Pietro possibly becoming agitated by her.
“But?” He rose an eyebrow, interested in where the conversation was leading. Rosaria forcibly swallowed her insecurity.
“...don’t you ever feel…” she struggles with the right word, gesturing as she strives for something soft, something that’s not villainous; “morally compromised?”
“No.” Said without a second of thought and packaged with the hint of a confident smile.
“Why?”
“Because for me, this life is not about drivebys and drugs. It’s about knowing when it’s time to build, when it’s time to watch, and when it’s time to act. I care more about dying with a legacy attached to my actions than I care about dying surrounded by drugs or beautiful women. You know the city behind you was built by gangsters, don’t you?”
“I knew Bugsy Siegel had the idea, but I thought there were other forces involved in the making.” Rosaria forces herself to speak briefly, this isn’t a topic she’s well-versed in and she seeks to avoid feeling embarrassed.
“The mob laid the entire foundation for it. Casinos, theatres. You’re not wrong that other people came along: they made it family-friendly but without Benny Siegel’s brilliance? This would be just another Los Angeles in a different reality, or maybe it’d be as renowned as Montana. All and all, it’d be nothing unique.”
“Oh…” Rosaria’s legs tighten. That’s all she could bring herself to say, oh. The history lesson did intrigue her, but she found herself more intrigued with the way Pietro lay before her on the hotel bed. The man was just so relaxed, even in the way he relayed this information to her in his smoky voice.
There was also a shimmer of something in his eye that she could not identify, and frankly, she was far too intimidated to stare him back in the eyes and attempt to analyze what it was. Not when she felt excitement growing at her core.
“I’m not saying every gangster is an entrepreneur in the making, but there are some men in this life who have dreams of luxury and others who have real dreams. This life is just a means to an end to get what they need.”
“I don’t think you ever told me about your dreams…”
“Rosa, there’s so many ideas I have running through my head, I wouldn’t know where to start telling you.” A light chuckle, “we’d be here all night long.”
“But I like listening to you talk!” She also loved it when he called her Rosa. Granted, this was a name her father called her, but the two men approached it differently. When Pietro called her Rosa, it was alluring. The natural roll of his tongue, the consistent trace of fondness. And in a funny way, the name Rosa made her feel like a different woman than, “Rosie,” - as Ben called her and especially a baby name like, “Roro,” as Sonia would call her.
A raised eyebrow leads to Rosaria tucking a stray hair behind her hair, “you like listening to me talk?”
“I could listen to you talk forever.” Rosaria would have admitted if she knew there would be absolutely no consequences. “I do, there’s so much I can learn from you!”
Pietro smiled. Naturally, he chose the best hotel for him and Rosaria to stay at. Nothing modest, he went for a two-bedroom luxury suite. Color scheme and accommodations aside, Pietro’s favorite aspect of this suite was the wide window that overlooked the strip. What could he say? He was a sucker for a nice skyline that lit up at night. And Bugsy be damned, Rosaria ultimately enhanced this view. As she sat still, planted in her seat, this was a moment Pietro realized something: Rosaria was incredibly attractive.
Now, this was something he had previously recognized nine months prior when she popped up outside his office. She was what he would deem cute, easy on the eyes, and definitely eccentric, but he didn’t really study her.
Her eyes were stunning. They were round, wide, and warm. When he was shot by Mendel - left on the icy parking lot in pain (because a bullet to the shoulder certainly wasn’t an effective way to kill him), Pietro recalls Rosaria hastily speeding to him with so much fear and concern. Then, in the hospital, she still held that concerned look. She didn’t respect him because he was her superior in this specific point in time, she cared for him as a human being. Even now in these eyes, Pietro was prone to see many emotions from her. He would pin point them as wonder, affection, and desire.
Another thing Pietro was taken by was how glorious Rosaria’s hair was. She looked stunning when she wore it in waves or curls, but he appreciated it in moments such as now when it was sleek, dark, and shiny. Almost illuminated by the neon lights behind her. Then there were her eyebrows, her nose…Rosaria had a face that reminded him of home. Old neighbors, kids he played soccer with when he was just a boy. Admittedly, it made him feel warm inside.
Then there was the matter that over the course of nine months she had, without him realizing, grown a lot in how she conveyed herself. In the early days, Rosaria would have a little eyeliner, very soft lipstick. Today on the strip he recalls glancing at her midconversation and seeing eyeshadow, a more prominent shade of red on her lips. When he took her to the best retail shop Vegas had to offer, she chose figure-fitting clothes without the influence or insistence of Raphael.
When they first met, Pietro remembers loosely assuming his assistant to be twenty-two, twenty-four - Rosaria being twenty-seven surprised him. If he met her today and learned she was twenty-eight, he wouldn’t have been as surprised because it was all in the way she was now carrying herself.
But not all of Pietro’s thoughts were pure. The perverse side of him couldn’t help but think of how pretty her bare shoulders would look in the night’s glow. He couldn’t help but think of how her pretty brown eyes would look up at him with eagerness and reverence if he pressed her back into the hotel room’s tall glass window. He wanted to kiss her so badly.
“Why don’t you come lay next to me?” He pleasantly asks her, warm and inviting.
Her eyes visibly widened, “Mr. Impellizzeri-”
Casualties be damned, Pietro wanted intimacy tonight. Smoothly, he corrects her; “Pietro. I can be Pietro here.”
“I-” Much to his dismay, she didn’t repeat his name. Instead, Rosaria merely furrowed her brow, her legs pressed close together, her ankles crossed. Pietro wondered if it was an attempt to fight off arousal. “I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” in her nervousness she choked out a modest laugh.
“Why not?”
“The first time we slept together, you - when you were getting dressed you said we could never be found out for what we did, and then I started to feel bad and I swore we would never do something like that again, as a precaution!”
Pietro thinks this is the first time a woman told him exactly how she felt about a one-night stand. Ever so slightly, his brow creases: “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
“I’m sure you didn’t intentionally mean it, but it was a moment of weakness on my part and I would never want to jeopardize your career! Or my position alongside y-”
He lifts himself off the mattress, “nobody can see what we do in here,” similarly, his hand raises; pointer finger gesturing for her to come his way. “It’s okay.”
For a split second, Rosaria swore she could perfectly visualize herself below him on his bed. Flushed, she thought it would be nice to feel him kiss her again, to inhale his scent again…
But…no. She would wake up in bed alone, overthinking and guilt-ridden, just like how she rose from his floor feeling dirty. She doesn’t think she could bare his back turned to her in the morning, especially not when she had a meeting to attend with him. Maybe he would give her attentive affection for the remainder of the time they were here, though. But she would be off her high once they got into the airport as the reality of their positions set in.
She didn’t want that feeling, she didn’t want that regret, she didn’t want to yearn for nights with him.
“M-Mr. Impellizzeri,” she breathes, frustrated and hasty, “I-I can’t do that. But thank you for listening to me! I’m going to try to go to bed!”
“Goodnight, Rosa.”
He couldn’t get an attitude with her. She would be back, he was sure of it.
—
“Nobody can see what we do in here,” he had said to her, voice as thick as honey. “It’s okay.”
Thoughts of what they could have done infiltrated her mind, just as memories of what they had done before had made her thoughts vivid.
She tried to sleep. Rolled to the left, to the right, but the thought of Pietro kept her thighs pressed together as if that would relieve her need.
She wanted Pietro making rough sounds in her neck again as he felt pleasure, she wanted her knees planted in his king mattress, her soft body pressed against his firm one as he brought his hand inside her panties, fingers curling inside her.
She’s a hundred percent sure he made her come on his wooden floor just by a light growl in addition to his thrusts, so imagine how easily he could make her come with his hands - how many times could he make her cum if they had all the time in the world to themselves? Such thoughts kept her needy and reckless.
Rosaria felt compelled to try to replicate the fantasy, but she knew her slender digits wouldn’t be thick enough to give her the friction she craved. Really, Rosaria could almost weep from frustration: she hates fingering herself. She didn’t even bring a vibrator on this trip!
Rosaria was sure that Pietro’s thick fingers would feel almost as good as his cock, though. She remembered how during foreplay, Ben use to tease her clit with his fingers as a prelude for inserting his tongue and tasting all the wetness he got out of her.
Maybe Pietro would do the same - the idea of him going down on her was nice, but she didn’t want that. She wanted him to tease her, yes, but she wanted him to say - no, command her, to taste herself off of his fingers before he slipped his hand back inside her.
How pathetic was this? Rosaria asked herself. Not because she was arching her back as she gently caressed her body, but because any other woman would have seized to opportunity to get on Pietro’s bed and let whatever happen, happen.
She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t touch herself.
Bold and needy, Rosaria considered going back to Pietro’s room. It had only been nine, ten? Minutes by now. But she couldn’t go back into his room after leaving in such a rush, could she? Would he laugh at her? Cruelly deny her need since she turned him down?
But, Rosaria thought, other women wouldn’t care. Other women would go to him - get their needs fulfilled - and then go about their business. Rosaria thought it was time to be like other women.
With hands trembling, she wondered if she could knock at the door. But, at the end of the day, Rosaria was a Scozzari. They were inclined to be bold, pursuers.
“Pietro…” knuckles gently brush against the white painted door, “are you awake…?”
“...I’m awake.”
When Rosaria enters, he still looks comfortable and content. Not resentful, not bitter. He flashes her that reassuring half-smile and she swore she could melt: “what took you so long?”
Happy birthday crime writer Val McDermid who was born in Kirkcaldy on June 4th 1955.
Val grew up on the East Coast of Scotland, a small town famous for producing linoleum and for being the birthplace of the economist Adam Smith. It was at the heart of the Fife coalfield, she says she spent a lot of her childhood with her grandparents in the mining village of East Wemyss.
McDermid was accepted to read English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford – at 17, one of the youngest undergraduates they’d ever taken on, and the first from a Scottish state school. Val said she survived the culture shock of arriving in a place where no-one understood a word she said, and seized every experience she could get her hands on.
She trained as a journalist and worked on various national newspapers for 14 years before becoming a writer. Her first published book was Report for Murder and since then, she has written a large number of crime novels.
My favourite of hers is Wire in the Blood which went on to made into a TV series starring Robson Green. The series has finished but Tony lives on in print, the latest instalment, How the Dead Speak went on salein 2019..
McDermid’s first DS Karen Pirie novel to be adapted for ITV. Scottish actress Lauren Lyle will play young and fearless Scottish investigator with a quick mouth and tenacious desire for the truth. The first series will feature a cold case murder at St Andrews University and is being made by the makers of Line Of Duty and Bodyguard.
In October 2016 McDermid, married her partner, Jo Sharp, a professor of geography at the University of Glasgow.
Brownie points for anyone who can tell where the first two photos were taken.
So I was inspired by @havenroyals post about needing a character tree to show what character comes from which story. So here's a list of prominent characters that have crossed over on Sink or Swim & Public Enemies with their precise connections and roles😌
AU where Pietro convinces Ángel to do a podcast with him and they discuss gangster media over dry whiskey and act like their opinions are the most important in the world.
Rosaria is the technician.
Which mutuals ocs would get along with your ocs? Which wouldn't?
(Please Pass along the question)
First I have to honor the bestie 💖🌟@crimewriter💖🌟 who I'm always discussing messy scenarios with.
Patricia Carosella ( @crimewriter's main oc ) and Salvatore have a messy, consistently non-sexual, non-romantic relationship.
The funny thing is they're both fire signs. Pat's an Aries, Sal's a Leo, and I feel their compatibility is reflected in their dynamic. When these two get along, things are great. But when these two clash, things are awful. And believe me, in every AU I've created with crimewriter they're bound to clash and call each other names.
In contrast to that, Patricia and Eve have a much calmer, significantly better dynamic. But admittedly more of the intrigue in their dynamic comes when I depict Eve outside of her 20s, because she's a calm figure - if not a maternal figure - Pat looks to.
Then there's the Brazilians...Franco and Pilar are longtime friends due to their families knowing each other. In the present, Pilar is the wife of an (incarcerated) cartel head and I'm not gonna lie, Franco aspires to have his childhood companion's heart and money. He really does care about her though. It's not just about money, though money helps.
With @shanisims
Both of us have already said that Linda is an honorary Belle of Pearl and definitely Pamela's bestie. 🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️ While this itself implies a lot of things about their adventures I believe that this would mean Eve would have been in the midst of Deonne and Junior when she was young.
Eve always shied away from boys growing up so she would have kept her distance from Junior. Instead, she would've admired Deonne so much. Deonne is older than her, prettier than her, Eve would have wanted to dress like her, wear her hair like her!
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Eve - as the only girl in the midst of many male cousins - would subconsciously create this imagined ideal form of Deonne who would be her big sister.
As an adult, Eve's love for Deonne would have significantly calmed down. Yet, she would continue thinking Deonne is so pretty and respectable. Of course, this love would plummet if news about the Winterfest party came out.
With all of this said, I definitely feel like Renee and Eve would become great friends. They're both loving girls who are navigating young adult life! 💖And, if she learned of Junior's previous relationship with Renee - well, let's just say Eve has to distance herself from Junior too. A side note - Tierra would love Nezuko too!! They would all be great friends!
I could talk about so many more dynamics in a HFL and Dear Diary crossover but I'm gonna end it here. 😅
With @digital-deluxe
We've discussed Sal and Frank knowing each other as kids in the broke (Tartosan) part of Newcrest. The frequent pregnancies of Frank's mama were a hot topic spoken by Sal's mom Stefani at the hair salon. We also discussed how Sal and Frank's moms argued about WHO was a bad influence on WHO, refusing to recognize both of those boys were too mischievous for their own good.
It was easy for Sal to make friends as a kid, but it didn't deter him from being sad when Frank moved to San Myshuno. But let's go a little deeper into this -
When a teenage Sal goes to San Myshuno to visit some cousins and reconnects with Frank, he doesn't feel like he belongs with John's crew. Initially, Sal tried to roll with them, laugh with them, but he felt like an outsider since he isn't from San My. As a Leo, he also hated how John was the leader. He hated how John's family was rich. He hated how John saw Frank every day. 😢
This would lead to Sal thinking, 'oh he's not really tough he's just a snobby ass kid' and eventually challenging his authority. Real stupid teen boy stuff right here.
In adulthood, Sal definitely meets up with Frank whenever he's in San My. If he planned to move there, Frank is the first guy he would message when looking for an apartment. As a grown man, he's over his petty dislike of John, but the fact John has went to college and had a nice job as an architect does have Sal (silently) like '😒 course he did.'
I don't know if John will ever go on a pilgrimage to Tartosa but I do feel like there would be good vibes between the Russo and Nicosia family. While the Nicosia aren't crime affiliated - moreso taking a neutral stance towards 'politics' of that nature, I wouldn't be surprised if John's grandmother and Gigi's paternal grandmother had an excellent dynamic of some sort. Either that, or somewhere in history, they had ancestors who were married, making them distant cousins?
I do think Damiano and John would get along well - John has good fashion sense, Damiano would dress sharp if he wasn't in Terra Amorosa, John would protect his brother at any cost, Damiano would protect Gigi at any cost. In the faaaaaar future, having a contact in Tartosa could be very useful for business.
There's so many more things I could say, so many more people I could tag, but this is long as it is. Feel free to give me dynamic suggestions in the comments whether I tagged you or not, I would love to hear them!!
