(A/N: Now, before you go all hell-in-a-handbasket on me, yes, I did borow some things from the Godfather game. No, I am not cheap. Well...actually, I don't know. The point is, I'm not claiming it as my actual work. I basically own nothing that was first created by EA or Sucker Punch. If I did, I'd be making the next few games.)

Sly Cooper: Armed and Dangerous

Naples, Italy

2:16 PM

Seven years before the Cooper Vault affair

Naples was just settling into the afternoon. Everyone was moving slowly with the muggy heat of July and the fact that there was really no hurry for any of the people. Women talked in doorways, children played in shadowed alleys, and men started finishing up their work so they could clock out in about an hour's time. However, this happy atmosphere was simply a mask. Underneath the mask, everyone lived in fear. Every now and then, you'd see a woman lean into an alley to make sure her child was safe and did not stray too far. Sometimes, men would look over their shoulders to see if they were being followed, and some people just stayed indoors altogether and simply read books, watched television, or played video games with a shotgun across their laps, or a pistol on a table near them.

These were the people who were caught up in the never ending mob-war. Not that there were that many mobs. There were only three, the Cordasco Family, the Taloreso family, and the McCoy Family.

It was, indeed, odd for a Scottish man to be ruling as Don of an Italian mafia. The Taloresos didn't like the idea of a foreigner muscling in on their turf, but the Cordascos were quick and eager to set up an alliance with the Scotsman. Don Jonathon McCoy, known as Johnny to his wife and best friends, ran a place called 'Hell's Kitchen,' a neighborhood nicknamed after a fallen one in New York. Don McCoy didn't have much; a few gambling joints, some illegal distilleries, and definantly some of Naples' top firearms manufacturers, but they were willing to give anything to hold onto what they had.

However, in recent years, the Taloresos had been giving them hard times. Having made a nice little pile of cash, and having himself a family, Johnny was thinking of retirement, and handing his small empire over to Don Cordasco.

That's where our story takes us now, into the Heart of Naples, the neighborhood controlled by the Cordascos. The final neighborhood, Bullet's Bay, consisted of the dockyards stretching all along the Bay of Naples, and was ruled by the Taloresos with an iron fist.

However, on this particular day, three different cars, one from each family, pulled up in different places in the Heart of Naples, two very close together. As Don McCoy got out of his car, he looked around, at the stores and at the people walking around. There seemed to be many Cordasco thugs standing near a German owned hotel about two stores down, all looking around and checking something beneath their jackets. Probably guns. Never trust a gangster with your life, that's one thing McCoy had learned.

If anyone else looked around, all they would've noticed a large, unusually colored horse getting out of a car, nothing fancy, since he wasn't really about all that. Don McCoy was actually a Prezwalski's Wild horse. His grandfather had come from Mongolia, and therefore, he'd managed to get a little bit of that accent and behaviorinto his Scottish ones. His stiff, upright mane that went from his forehead down his neck looked like a Mohawk, and many people had said so; but, just once.

Pulling his fedora back down onto his head, McCoy looked into the car and said "Connie? Marty? C'mon out, no ones gonna shoot you."

Slowly, the other door opened, and a horse poked her head cautiously out and looked around. Seeing no Taloreso goons, she relaxed a little, then came fully out and stepped aside to let her eight year old son out. Marty came bounding out, shirt all askew, shoes untied and laces flopping all over the place. Connie rolled her eyes and sighed. The boy always did seem to have fun no matter where he went.

The Italian mare knelt down and said "Marty? Che cosa vi ho detto circa il vagabondaggio fuori?" 1

The colt, Marty, turned back around and whined "Ma Mom! Il dad dice la relativa cassaforte!" 2

Connie sighed and switched back to English.

"I don't care what Dad said, it's not safe for you to be running around in this kind of neighborhood!"

The colt frowned, pouting, and Connie sighed, saying "Alright, just make sure you stay in that alley next to the bakery over there. At least it's a little safe, since your father owns part of it."

She knew full well what happened behind the closed doors inside businesses. Gambling rackets, brothels, arms dealers and who knew what else made their livings in secrecy, away from the prying eyes of the police. But, sometimes the police couldn't be easily fooled, so they had to sometimes be bribed. Plus, the men working for them got to wave their guns around a bit in Bullet's Bay without getting arrested.

The colt smiled, pulled a little ball out of his pocket, and ran into the alley way, bouncing the little rubber toy against the walls. Sighing again, Connie walked over to Johnny, who was talking to a few of the Cordasco thugs in Italian. Just as she reached her husband's side, the thugs parted to allow a rather large alligator to pass through.

Don Leo Cordasco's face lit up with a smile as he spied his old friends and he bellowed "Johnny! Long time no see! Oh, and Miss Connie, too! Ah, and I can see your little boy playing over there. Very wise choice, Miss Connie, you couldn't have picked a more secure spot for your son to play!"

Connie smiled as Don Cordasco kissed the back of her hand, then shook Johnny's saying "Now, my friend, about that proposition you had for me? Shall we get down to brass tacks as well as signing the papers?"

McCoy nodded and said "Yes, but I still want to reside where I am currently. I should have enough money to send my boy to school, and make sure he gets a good start in his career, as well as all the unimportant things like clothes, food."

He smiled as Don Cordasco chuckled and said "Alright then, let's just get to the papers and we can-"

Don Cordasco never finished his sentence, for the bakery exploded in a rush of heat, light and sound. The explosion was so powerful that it knocked everyone in front of the hotel off their feet. There were the sounds of a struggle as the smoke began to roll, then, as it cleared, Connie looked up to see Johnny fighting off two rats. Two others lay nearby, both dead, since Johnny had broken both their necks. Throwing one rat into another, Johnny grabbed the third guy and started whacking him over the head with a burning piece of wood. As one of the rats disentangled himself from his partner, who was dead because of the knife Johnny almost always carried, Johnny casually shoved said burning piece of wood into said living rat's chest, then dragged the one he had been whacking over the head over to the blazing inferno and threw the rodent in.

Walking back over, he said "Is everyone alright? No one else is injured?"

All the other men were about to nod when Connie screamed "OH MY GOD! MARTY!"

In a flash, Johnny had set off in the direction that Connie was pointing. The alley his son had been playing in had not received much damage, but his son was no where to be seen. Walking down the alley, Johnny examine everything. That's when he heard a whimper from a stack of tires. Rushing over, he found the colt quivering inside, and was about to help him out, when he heard gunshots, then footsteps. One of them was heavy, two others were light.

He recognized them immediately and whispered to his son "No matter what happens, I want you to stay here, OK?"

The colt looked up at him with concern and curiosity in his eyes, but Johnny quickly said "Remember, no matter what happens. I know I can trust you. I love you son."

Quickly, Johnny pulled a piece of sheet metal over the top of the tires, then set another one in front of the stack. Satisfied his son was protected, he turned back to the alley's entrance to find a rhino, flanked by two rats, step into the entrance, trapping the horse there. The rhino was wearing a suit and smoking a cigar, while the rats were wearing trench coats and holding smoking machine guns.

The rhino, Don Taloreso, simply smiled, shrugged and said "Sorry Johnny. It's just business. Oh, by the way, Don Cordasco tried to protect Connie with some of his 'men.'"

Still smirking, he motioned towards the rats on either side and said "Some protection."

He then stepped back, winked, and muttered "Give it to him."

The second he finished, the two rats opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off the walls, off the sheet metal protecting the stack of tires, but not off of Johnny McCoy. He was strong, of course, but no man is completely bulletproof. As the lead pummeled his body, he tried to move to the side, desperate not to let his son see him die like this. He never got the chance. The rats, instantly bored, and started aiming for his head. Johnny was dead before he even hit the ground. Don Taloreso, always cautious, pulled a pistol out and shot the body a few more times. Satisfied that McCoy was dead, he jerked his head towards the entrance to the alleyway, and the rats took the hint, fleeing the scene of the crime. The rhino, smirking, stamped out his cigar, pocketed his pistol under his jacket, and left after them. There was silence for a moment, then, cautiously, the sheet metal on top of the stack of tires was lifted, and a frightened Marty McCoy emerged.

Shaking noticeably, he climbed out, then started towards his father, whispering "Dad…..?"

Suddenly, strong hands clamped themselves on the colt's shoulders, turning him away from the grisly sight. However, things were not much better outside the alley, for his mother lay in the street, in a pool of blood. He whirled around, and found himself looking up at the remorseful face of Don Leo Cordasco, looking down at him.

"I'm sorry, Marty. I'm as much to blame as that bastard. I should've seen this coming. Figures that he'd do something like this when he knows that Johnny doesn't bring security to peace conferences."

Looking over his shoulder one last time, Cordasco began leading Marty towards his own car, saying "When the time is right kid, then you can take your revenge."

Marty's fists were shaking in anger as his tears poured down his face. He'd kill them all, and make sure that Don Taloreso died a slow and painful death. He swore it there at his parents' murder sites, and he'd swear it again on their graves. He kill them all. And he'd do it without mercy.

Translation:

Italian to English

1: Marty? What have I told you about wandering off?

2: But Mom! Dad says its safe!