Prologue
1975
As I stood over my father's open grave, I felt the last subtle braces of my childhood fall behind me.
I had been training for this day, the day when I would take over for my hero figure, but I did not count on it coming so soon. I assumed that I had more time – more time to focus on what I wanted, as opposed to what they wanted. More time to act like an idiot. More time to be negligent. More time to be myself, without limits or obligations or the head of the Mafioso looking over my shoulder at every little thing I did.
But here I stood, staring down into an open pit that contained nothing more than a steel vault, which cradled a highly polished mahogany and brass casket that in turn swaddled the remains of a man who no longer existed. Although, according to the great governments of the United States, Britain and Italy, he never did. Flying under the radar was what he did, what he excelled at.
It was what made him such an excellent assassin.
My father was the leader of the Assassini Virtuosi, the 'elimination' portion of an immensely large Italian organization known as the Volturi. He was, to anyone's knowledge, the best assassin in the world. So, as I stood at the edge of his precipice, I puzzled over how baffling it was to me that he was beaten at his own game. I had been thinking this over repeatedly since his death a week and a half ago. What could have possibly happened, that would have made him lose his concentration in a situation where he absolutely ruled? He was a master in the art of killing, and there was no reason in my mind why he should be lying six feet below me now, at 56 years of age in black silk Armani, clutching his mother's rosary to his chest. Someone had pulled one over on him in the most monumental manner. It had to have been backhanded and very, very clever to have fooled my father. I had learned everything I knew from him – as young as I still was, I knew what it would take to kill me, and it wouldn't be easy. That man had been on an entirely different, much higher level, and I couldn't imagine what on earth had happened that night in Washington State that lead to his death. In my mind, someone had cheated. Hard. And as I watched various members of the Virtuosi and the Volutri proper come forward to pay their last respects, I resolved that it would be the last accomplishment that whomever had done this would know. They would pay, and they would pay dearly.
A small, rough hum sounded beside me. I instantly recognized it as Marcus, my father's right hand man. He had a way about him that was quiet and oddly comforting to me, which might have been because of the fact that he was almost an uncle, more than a staff member and my father's closest confidant. His manner was always reserved and very hushed, which I knew had been preferred. I glanced up from the hole in the ground in front of me to meet bloodshot eyes of obsidian ringed by gold. The five words he spoke next catapulted me into my life's obsession –
"I know who did it."
I could practically feel my pupils dilate as the adrenaline pumped through my system. Everything around me disappeared – the people, garbed in black and grey; the lush, rolling hills of the Italian winery that provided cover for our operation; the sun, the wind, everything faded as my vision hazed into red and my muscles contracted. I began to turn towards Marcus' face, to demand the answer, when the priest stepped forward, prayer book in hand.
"Let us pray, as we remember the life of Charles Swan, the elder." He bowed his head, and without conscious thought I automatically did the same. "O God, by Your mercy rest is given to the souls of the faithful…"
