N/A : "Two Families" is the first part of a Mafia!Winchester story ark. It explains how John Winchester went from average ex-Marine to mafia boss. Right from the moment that changed his and his sons' life forever.

Actually, if you haven't, you should read "Izabel", the OS/Prologue, to understand a bit more of what happens. It's on my profile page.

Warning : If you hadn't realize, it's an Alternate Universe. This chapter is M because of gore and slightly graphic death. No demons though.

Chapter 1 : That Night

In retrospect, John had always known that his Nonno wasn't exactly a choirboy. All his life he'd understood that some things were better left unsaid, like why the old man was always flanked by zio Jimmy and Twiggy, whenever he came to Lawrence? Or why the two men always looked overdressed for any occasion and what was exactly the bulk he could see at the back of their slacks under their vests and at their ankle (although that he learnt far later)? It had always been a part of how things were around Paul Vitti and the boy had learnt to live with it.

The reality of how dangerous the man he'd spent his life calling "Nonno" for "grandpa" really was really settled the first time when he joined the Corp.

The very first day there, a group of mean-looking fed guys from one of the alphabet soups kept him in an interrogation room for nearly two days, right after his psych-eval. But they wanted him to talk about his grandpa and that made him clam up faster than an oyster. They tried to show him the proofs. Wanted him to realize what a twisted bastard Paul Vitti was. But he stayed silent. The man he knew had bounced him on his knees and taken him to the fair, bought him a baseball with the scratches of his favorite player. It couldn't be that dark, sadistic shadow that could inspire fear by his name alone. Surely, they were mistaken!... But he knew deep down that they weren't, and wasn't that the kicker. He was still family. John wouldn't ever do anything that could endanger him. Even for the sake of justice. If there was something he knew about Paul Vitti, it was that the man never did anything without a very good and most of the time reasonable reason. So he shut up and went on with his life. The feds came by several times while he was climbing the military ladders but he never said anything. Not even when he realized his never achieving more than Corporal, came from them blocking him. Not even when they nearly ran him to the grown with false accusations that always ended up refuted anyway.

So in retrospect, John knew what his grandfather was. But even after he was discharged from the Marine Corp. to start his life with Mary and his two boys, he never once thought about telling them about that side of his life. He wasn't even part of that Family anyway. His mom had made sure of that, so why should he care, right?

Of course everything went south when the sh*t hit the fan that night.

It had all started like a typical night. He'd come back from the garage around 11pm, exhausted and gruff, to be welcomed by Dean's laughter and Mary's passive-aggressive disapproval. So he'd been late again? Tough luck it's not like he had the choice with that bitchy new customer that wanted his car repaired "yesterday and make it snappy"… Californian dickhead…

So he'd taken a shower, changed into comfy shorts and Marine Corp. tee, under his gown and went to put a far too excitable Dean to bed.

"Daddy! Daddy! Can I sleep with Sammy tonight?" The little blond boy asked him with that cute pout that would turn heads when he'd grow up.

"I don't know, Ettore, maybe tomorrow night, hm? Your mama is already angry at Daddy because you stayed awake to greet me, let's not make her cranky because you woke up your brother…" John replied with a slight chuckle.

"Then can I go with you to say g'night?" The boy tried again.

"Ah, sure thing, sonny, c'mon… let's go see your little brother! Y'know he's gonna be a year-old come tomorrow morning…" John told him, as he lead his son to the nursery, holding his hand.

"I know that Daddy, you and mama have talked 'bout that since last week!" Dean replied with a playful roll of his eyes.

"It's because we're excited to see that both our baby boys are growing up to be handsome young men, Dean-o…" Mary replied to him from where she was sitting on the rocking chair, rocking her and the slightly wiggling form in her arms.

"Uh-uh…" Dean replied as he came to sit next to his mom in the big rocking chair, staring at his brother with awe and curiosity. "But if Sammy grows up, he'll be bigger than me!"

"Not necessarily, you're going to be a strapping young man, like your Daddy, and you'll always be Sammy's big brother, anyway." The woman replied with a knowing smile as she cuddled both her sons. "Now give a kiss to your brother and your mama, before I put Sammy back to his crib…"

John looked on from the doorframe as his first born planted a careful kiss on his brother's forehead and another on his mother's cheek before letting her stand up to put the sleeping baby back into his crib. He waited until Mary picked up a yawning Dean to put him back to bed, before going further in and looking at his second son. Sammy was such a healthy little baby and everyone, from his parents to his great-grandfather Vitti were in love with him. Dean had trouble adapting at first but after a year, he didn't begrudge his little brother as much. He caressed the baby's cheek tenderly with a whispered "Buona notte" before leaving the nursery, taking care to let the door cracked open, just in case.

He tried to go into his and Mary's bedroom but she'd locked the door and left his pillow and covers at his feet for him to take. Sighing despondently, he picked them up and went to the living room, intent on drowning his annoyance with the idiot box. And it seemed to work because he was asleep before he could realize he was watching a Viagra commercial.

~O~

The dreams he had while sleeping in front of the TV would be forever lost to him, all he knew was that he woke up startled as if something at the edge of his awareness had demanded he was jolted up. His first move was to take a look around. The blue hues of the TV bathed the living room in enough lights to let him see distinct forms and silhouettes and all seemed to be in their rightful place until he heard a shuffle of feet and the creaking of that last step of the stairs upstairs. Mary had always found that creaking more than annoying and went to great length to avoid it, all the time contrary to Dean who would hear it creak and jump on it for several seconds, amused by the noise. So he could be sure that this was made by neither of them.

Feeling a sense of watchful calm creep over a thin impression of dread, he raised from his chair, silent and deadly as he took his K-bar knife from where it was stuck under the chair (far enough and in a cramped enough space that Dean would never try to get it). Had he been in a detached enough mood, he would have made a recon of the perimeter downstairs before heading up, but right there and then, the most important thing was to get his wife and children to safety, if needed be.

So he climbed to stairs, avoiding the ones he knew would creak under his weight and assessed the situation. From his vantage point in the hallway, he could see all three-bedroom doors and the bathroom door. His and Mary's bedroom door was half-open, letting some light leak into the hallway, she might have gone to Sammy's nursery which was open but dark. The bathroom was lit but the door closed, that was how it was always left in case, Dean needed to use it during the night. Dean's bedroom door was closed and no light was on, so he was probably sleeping still.

John frowned slightly when the slight moving orange/yellow hues of light seem to come off in a part of the nursery, projecting Chinese shadows on the wall that was viewable from where he was standing. Chinese shadows that looked a lot like a man with a gun in hand…

Feeling his blood run cold, John used his years of training in the Corp to their best right there and then, creeping closer until he was practically in the room, getting in and taking in the situation with a calculating gaze. The man was standing in front of what looked like the beginning of a fire as the smell of petrol and smoke attacked him and he heard the slight whimper his youngest son gave from his place in the crib. Acting before the other man could even turn around, he came up behind him and slit his throat, deaf to his last gurgles as he turned around to take his son from the crib. That was when he saw the pool of blood he was actually walking in. He followed the trail and it took his brain what felt like an eternity before he reconciled the image of the body sitting like a ragged doll, blond hair falling in front of her face and hiding a bloodless visage, the silver edges of duct tape shining on the lower part of her face, her sleeping dress tainted with red and lifeless hands on her stomach where you could peak at what looked like intestines, trying to fall out of the lacerations that must have bled out in a matter of seconds.

Tearing his eyes away from the morbid pantomime as he resisted the urge to hurl, the man turned back to his sweet baby boy who was now all the more awake and sniffling, with a frown and a distressed curve to his mouth.

The augmenting amount of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh reached him and his decision was made in a flash. Picking up Sammy, he went back in the hallway just in time to see Dean open his door, sleepy and confused.

"Dean, come here. Take your brother, protect him, he's your responsibility now. We have to get outside, but you'll have to do exactly what I tell you to do, all the time. Got it?" John nearly ordered his first-born.

"Uh yes Daddy…" Dean replied, all the more disoriented as his little baby brother was thrust into his arm as carefully as possible when done real fast.

"Good, now you follow me …" John continued, marching back to the stairs, checking his bedroom first before leading them down stairs.

Dean followed him diligently, wondering why the house smelt like Grandpa Sam had been cooking again. Absently noticing that his mama wasn't there yet, he readjusted his grip on his brother, humming quietly "Highway to Hell" to him to try and calm him. Daddy made him wait at the bottom of the stairs for a few minutes before hurrying him outside. Dean thought it was funny that there was a car outside that wasn't theirs but continued on his way to Missus Jenkins. Daddy had said to ask Missus Jenkins to call the firemen 'cuz the house was on fire. So that was why it smelled like something was cooking! The whole house was cooking! From the moment he told obediently what his Daddy had asked him to tell, missus Jenkins had been rightly scary, running around screaming "oh my god where is my phone?" before she gave him a hot chocolate and tried to take Sammy from him, making him grip Sammy harder and then Sammy started crying again and he was trying to make him quiet down and Missus Jenkins just let them be after that.

The house next door was soon to become a roaring inferno, the first floor was already lost and the flames were licking the ground level's ceiling but all that was lost to John who was holding down the third man he'd found lurking behind the house (the second had been in the kitchen, getting a beer, of all things…). He could feel the flames nearly burning his hair but didn't care as his hands pressed around the sensitive neck under them.

"Who… Hired… You?" He asked with deliberate slowness, each word punctuated with a bash of the man's head against the floor.

"No… No one!" The man choked up, his Italian accent making him grind his teeth, knowing his Nonno was concerned on some level.

"What were the orders…"

"Ah… Two teams… go to… Lawrence… kill James and Izabel Win – chester … John, Mary, Dean a – and Sam Winchester…"

"WHAT?" John practically roared. "YOU SONUVABITCH! YOU KILLED MY PARENTS TOO? WHO HIRED YOU?"

"No… No one…" The hitman continued saying as black spots danced around his visions.

"Tell me who hired you and I MIGHT consider not letting you roast like a fucking turkey! At least the others are already dead, they won't feel a thing…" The former Marine threatened with grim determination.

"Vi… Vittore Pecci… his name was… Vittore Pecci…"

"And the other team…"

"Left as soon as finished… meet in two weeks in the harbors in NY…"

"What address?..."

"In my… pocket… please let me go! I told you everything I knew!" The man looked just on the brink of tears.

"I've had enough, hearing you cry, say hello to your friends in hell." John smirked as the other man's eyes went wide right before turning blank as he dug deeply in and slit his throat in a definite motion.

John got up after digging the man's pocket and retrieving that piece of paper with the information he needed on it. He was feeling bone tired as he saw the blood on his hands and the grim deposited by the smoke on his face. He had to shed the gown which was burnt and covered in blood, as he made his way back outside just in time to see the fire trucks arriving, sirens blazing.

A couple of firemen came to help him out as he stumbled out, coughing loudly, asking for his sons. A few minutes passed as he was treated by the EMTs waiting for the police officers when he saw Dean walking briskly toward him, still cradling his brother against him, looking both determined and lost. Ignoring the other men around him, John felt his heart constrict in his chest and scooped both boys in his arms, feeling bitter tears fall down his face.

What was he supposed to do now?

N/A : Hm First chapter of a fanfic that promises to be at least 10 or 20 chapters long. :I The stuff in italics are vocabulary in Italian. Nonno : grandpa ; zio : uncle ; buona notte : good night. I'm sorry if it's bastardized Italian, I only have a very limited knowledge that mostly comes from movies and my extended knowledge of Spanish :'D

Do I really need to ask for reviews? I live under the impression that asking for something as trivial makes the gestures cheaper x3 So whichever you choose, review or not reviews, I still love you all the same :'3 *hands cookies to everyone*