15 Years

Disclaimer: All characters and locationa belong to Rockstar, I do not claim to own them, nor do I make a profit.

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Word always spread fast in Liberty City, a truth would take about 2 days to be on everyone's lips, a lie would take 9 hours. A rumour would take about 5 minutes before it reached the families. In certain buisness, it paid to keep tabs on everything going on, the papers rarely got to anything first.

Except for one fateful day in April 1986.

The rain poured down outside Saint Mark's Bistro on Portland Island, a closed sign indicating that unless you knew the right people, it was a good idea to stay far away. So it was lucky that Harry knew the owner very well.

"Sonny!" He bust in shouting, newspaper in hand. His entrance got the attention of 3 people in particular, sitting around a table counting money from thier latest collection round.

"What? Can't you see we're a little busy here?" A man in a smooth purple suit asked, putting the last of the 20 dollar bills in the briefcase.

"Sorry boss but this is important, take a look at the paper."

"Convicted killer imprisoned for 15 years..." Sonny read.

"Holy shit, they're talking about him: aren't they." Another man at the table whispered in shock.

"The Harwood Butcher, Tommy Vercetti." Harry summarised

"Vercetti? Shit!" Sonny half laughed, half shouted "Never thought they'd ever let him out."

"He kept his head down, it helped people forget."

"People will remember soon enough when he starts walking down the streets and around the neighbourhoods it'll be bad for buisness."

"So what are we gonna do Sonny?" Harry asked.

"We treat him like an old friend and keep him busy out of town," Sonny said... starting to think, they needed a place where the families hadn't expanded to yet, far enough away so no-one would know about how a simple hit turned into a bloodbath, "Vice City is 24 karat gold these days: the columbians, the mexicans, even those cuban refugees are getting themselves a nice piece of action. How about we send him down there."

"But its all drugs Sonny, none of the families wil touch that shit." Lee noted as Sonny grimaced, for the entire length of the Cold war the Families in Liberty had been staunchly anti-drug selling and had cracked down on anyone who didn't agree with thier philosophy about a clean mind being best for buisness.

"Times change, the mob can't keep its back turned while our enemies reap the rewards, besides its the perfect oppourtunity to put those Leone punks in thier place. Who's our contact down there?"

"Ken Rosenburg, shmuck of a lawyer, how the hell is he gonna hold Vercetti's leash?"

"We don't need him to. Just set him loose in Vice with a bit of cash to start up and he'll do all the work for us. Then we go down, pay him a little visit and cut a quiet slice." Sonny said, smiling all the time. It had been 15 years since he'd last seen Vercetti, and he didn't want to meet him in person just yet. He needed to re-establish his control, if Tommy wanted to take out his agression he'd have to do it to Vice City's established set of thugs.

Those poor saps wouldn't know what hit them.

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"Hey! It's uh... Ken, Ken Rosenburg! I just got the word from Sonny and its great to see you all here." First moments in the sunshine of Vice City and already Tommy Vercetti was getting annoyed. He had hoped to have been settling back down in Liberty, keeping out of trouble for a while, maybe say 'hi' to the Forelli family but no, soon as he was released he got a phone call from one mister Harry Forelli, wanted to expand and offered to let Tommy be the figurehead for the Liberty families in Vice.

not 24 hours out of prison and he was on a plane to the glitzy-est hell-hole in Florida, a town brimming with delights and degradation and whatever else Harry and Lee had said to make it sound like some fucked up holiday. For Tommy there was only one good thing about this whole deal, and that was his new shirt. It made him look like some stupid tourist but it was nice cool blue colour, the patterns weren't bad enough to drive him crazy, unlike this lawyer infront of him. "So I'm gonna drive you to the meet, okay? Now I have talked to our supliers and they are very interested in setting up a relationship so if all goes according to plan we should be doing very nicely for ourselves, which is you know... good!" Ken Rosenburg rattled on, his voice seemed to scrape a few nerves and Tommy could tell he was desperate to impress. "So they're brothers, one operates the buisness and the other does the flying, did I mention they have a chopper? Should have mentioned that."

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"Okay so that's them in the chopper now, they want a straight exchange on open ground, nothing funny, alright? Good." the lawyer signaled as a black Helicopter landed opposite Ken's white admiral. Tommy, Lee and Harry got out of the car, briefcases in hand while a black man, possibly the same age as Tommy... late 30s to early 40s stepped out holding two cases, they looked fairly heavy by the way he was carrying them, and the man wasn't exactly weak looking, fairly well built, no signs of substance abuse, didn't sample his own wares.

"You have it?" Tommy asked, having to shout to be heard over the helicopter rotor. These people obviously didn't want to spend time messing around.

"100% pure, grade A Colubian." The man opposite said, a fake hispanic accent in his speech.

"Let me see it."

"The green?" He asked

"Tens and twentys, used." Tommy said, nodding to Harry and Lee to open the cases and show the money... nearly 2 million worth.

"I think we have a deal my friend." The black man said smiling as he opened his cases to show that he wasn't screwing with them, before closing them and exchanging the silver cases.

"Pleasure doing buisness." Harry said, and then everything to put it one way, went completley and utterly to shit.

"OH SHIT!" Lee shouted as a bullet flew right into Herry's neck. They had been set up, the dealer had a look of complete shock as he turned, drawing his gun on whoever had tried to shoot them before getting shot in the gut. Lee was next to go down, after seeing 3 people dressed completley in black, all armed to the teeth with assault rifles.

"GO! GET OUT OF HERE! DRIVE!" Tommy shouted, diving in the back seat of the car. A screech of tires and the docks dissapeared into the background, as the helicopter took flight.

15 years and nothing had changed. Fate, God, luck whatever greater force there was still found new ways to fuck Tommy Vercetti in the ass.

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Note to self... stop starting so many damn fics that you know you can't finish.