The Devil Within 5 - (JoJo, Diavolo!SI)
As expected, the first year of activity for Passione was one of rapid growth both in terms of influence and manpower.
Upon arriving in Sicily and getting acclimitized in the island (once more for me), I got the 'right' paperwork to set up the business as something legitimate at the time being. Passione was enlisted as a construction company. The money I made from selling the arrows was partly used to get a few average builders hired and do basic shit to prevent the Financial Guards to look onto our matters if some transactions occurred. A major teller for mafioso activities was the exchange of money done without a clarified work situation.
Laundering money was thus a needed step to have a solid foundation for Passione. And the real first work came when we made our name known and our presence made clear by assassinating the old guard of Cosa Nostra in the region. At a time where the government had yet to ramp up the military effort to destroy the Mafia, Cosa Nostra had a rather disgusting hold over many institutions, ranging from politics through some Christian Democratic politicians, tax handling moghuls, and even some judicial towers within Sicily.
The name of the principal target was Giuseppe 'Beppe' Corleone, a short sleazy bastard that had climbed to the position of Don through sheer shrewdness and brutality. He was the cardinal point which turned the Mafia in a vicious group that had increased the input in violence over 'those that should listen'. With other names on the list, elements of Corleone's clique, I started to think of the best option to handle them and... Epitaph helped me cutting out some direct confrontation. As expected, Epitaph did not offer a single possibility to look into, but multiple. I couldn't over use it too much without getting a migraine, but I had a few options quickly crossed out through a rapid check.
1) A direct confrontation would end up poorly. As much as I believed Stands gave us all an edge, Corleone was not known as 'The Beast' for nothing. His men were armed with military-grade weapons, and they were skilled with those to some extent as they had already conducted some massacres. It doesn't matter if my own Stand could deflect bullets or its ability allowed me to dodge the rest, but a stray bullet or bomb getting to me always ended up occurring with each 'Simulation';
2) The next option was to infiltrate. I thought which element could work well between Hol, Mariah, and Midler. And while the latter would get quite far, they would all be handled from afar through cyanide or similar indirect eliminations. Corleone was paranoid, and foreigners made him 'skittish'. Once again, another option made by multiple ones was crossed out.
3) The third option felt the most viable, but also the one that was also the most protracted if not handled with uttermost precision - 'aiding the judges against Corleone'. This was nonetheless the riskiest option as it made us all fly closer to the legal foes the mafia had with the state.
I was a bit dismayed I couldn't find the counterparts to two specific judges I remembered from my previous life, but that didn't stop me from finding a group of five seemingly very intent in sabotaging Cosa Nostra out of moral principle. With that in mind, I established a three-parts plan that hinged on a very unique ability of Boingo that... explained a puzzling detail I was quite sure hadn't been shown in canon: His Stand created Oingo.
I had been so confused when I had found Boingo alone in the party the 'first time at the party', but as I took him out at that McDonalds and then asked him if he had a brother, he had offered me a puzzled look and said he was an only child. And as I thought about it, originally theorizing it was a play to not let me know of Oingo, I then learned that his Standactually created Oingo.
From my understanding, which wasn't much considering the extent I could check this one out,ï½¢Tohthï½£had a degree of reality manipulation that was tied to Boingo's whims. Considering what we knew through the series, it is also true that a crippling issue behind the Stand was Boingo's own introversion. He is too shy, reclusive, and used the ability to create a 'pawn' throught his Stand to create a brother with another 'Stand'. Oingo was never real and... his Stand, which was quite peculiar, made sense less as a proper Stand and more as an ability inherent to the fabricated person.
Nonetheless, this discovery helped me setting up an agent of masterful disguise ot pursue our goal: we would make 'Corleone' slip up.
It was Late March 1988 when Corleone was caught harassing some children at one of Palermo's parks. Then he was found causing a drunken ruckus by a popular ice cream parlor. And then he was caught with a bunch of hookers near a kindergarten. All of the weirdest and very illegal shit one could think of without going 'too far' was used on him. Feasible crimes committed by a man going on a spree due to booze meddling with his judgment and memory.
A power trip, and yet one that was good to 'open up a formal investigation'. Despite lawyers rebuking the accusations and anonymous menaces, the judges got ahead and started to dig. And I saw fit to further expand on my meddling by playing a game of control over both sides.
I had Mariah check on the judges, to check what their moves were, while I had Midler to keep an eye on the criminals. Then, using Epitaph, I would precede their potential reports in the movings of each faction and take steps before hand. In less than two months, I had increased the heat of the War on Mafia in a way unlike the last few years did.
The mafioso were being easily tracked down, potential assassination attempts as retaliation against the police were caught before they could be committed, and Corleone found himself suddenly cornered between his own 'inability' to handle the pressure and his own anger making him less approachable to those old members that had tagged along because the old boss said so.
With this air growing tighter around some of the more traditional-minded capos, I started to approach them myself while I dispatched Hol to shift his focus of finding us workers and unaffiliated members to poach the grunts under Corleone, at least those that were growing annoyed with the higher-ups.
Among those that I found, I was surprised to find a swift ally in a far slimmer but still hideous Polpo.
He was round, obese, but not as morbidly as he was introduced in the series. He could easily move, but his size and his unusual appearance with the pinned hat, the dark sclera and green eyes made him demonic at first impression. He had a tight security system, one that mimicked to some extent how he was going with throughï½¢Black Sabbathï½£. After that one visit, I came to understand Polpo not as a malevolent being, but rather a monstrous one.
Imagine the Penguin from DC Comics, but bigger and far more competent in handling his affairs even behind bars. Polpo was not driven by any moral or amoral idea, he was just looking for profit and to obey a reliable leader. Corleone wasn't making any newer cash, and he was actually growing too dangerous to serve under. And thus Polpo joined me with the expectation of being made a Capo under me and having a 'better' allocation.
Capos in region-specific areas were limited to a bunch of districts, but he seemed pleased to know I intended to expand the hierarchy so that Capos could handle affairs around Regions. In this case, I wanted Polpo to be made the man in charge of Lombardy, a region known to be among the highest income-earner in Italy. I also went as far as give him a Stand. He struggled a bit to develop it, but he understood the power I wielded and the potential I harnessed to pull through the 'ideal Gangster Paradise'.ï½¢Black Sabbathï½£was thus born, cutting into the security's expense and cementing Polpo's loyalty as he started to help getting 'good enough' officers to add to my ranks.
Around November, the media was picking up on Corleone's last days. The bastard had gotten extremely panicky, trying to kill anyone that appeared to be traitorous and that he could kill as his influence grew less and less.
In the end, Corleone was given the 'Don Demise' by being stripped of his rank, and 'made to surrender' to the police. By tradition, he would have been kept there to rot in some well-paid cell but... I decided to not give him that luxury. He died a few days after bowing out of the position, the cyanide he was so gleeful in using to kill backstabbers used to put an end of him. A loose end was thus destroyed, and Passione's takeover of Cosa Nostra was thus completed.
Now, many would think that my prediction as to get Italy under control within two years was off by a wide margin if I took a single year to conquer Sicily but... the thing is that Cosa Nostra was more spread than one would imagine. Sicily was the 'heart' of the squid reaching for all the pies in the peninsula, and to claim it meant not just claiming several other strongholds all over Italy, but also gaining control over major politicians.
With Sicilians in Parliaments or the government having lived long enough in Sicily to have a presence in the Tax Office in Palermo, their data was known to me as soon as I claimed control over the men that led these offices. I had their good data, and their dirty laundry that I was quick to use to forge political ties.
Publicly so, Passione became a major construction company thanks to the assistance of my 'longstanding ties' with major builders, politicians and businessmen. New houses were built all over the region, new roads too, same for schools, hospitals, and programs to fight drugs. The second year was, in fact, a mix of finishing the takeover of Italy and killing off the scum that had entered Passione - the Business of Drugs was to die with the old Cosa Nostra, and with my predictions allowing me to outpace my opponents, I soon had control over it all: the National Government, the National Bank, the industrial families in the north, the rural gentry in the south - everyone soon learned to call me 'Boss' and to respect me as a confident, ruthless, but otherwise affable and shrewd mafia leader.
Officially speaking, the War on the Mafia 'ended' in 1988. The judges didn't stop pursuing the truth, but with Epitaph allowing me to reinforce all ends and leave no weak chains for the law enforcers to abuse, I secured an end to the official war by government's decision. At this point, I saw fit to finally send Boingo to Sardinia to study under Father Ernesto, and I also invested in my old hometown as to 'give back what the locals gave me, a home'.
The rest of my Consiglieri were split in terms of sections, with Midler gaining control over the 'Fashion and Aesthetics Sector', Hol Horse over 'Gambling and Police Handling', and Mariah over the 'Banking and Investment Sector'. At the same time, I took extra care in hunting down Pucci, but I was suprised to learn the priest had vacated his post in Italy during my takeover. I had been caught off-guard by this turn of events but... maybe they had been aware of my presence in Dio's potential group in Egypt and suspected I would handle them too.
It made even more sense as I found hardly any spy from the vampire's cult in the peninsula, leaving me to plan other takeovers before going for the big nest itself in the USA. That being said, with affairs blossoming, Italy's economy expanding thanks to my will enforced in policies to legalize weed and reinforce agricultural businesses, a letter came along from a name I hadn't seen in a long while. A party in Florence, allegedly the ascension of the Una Family's new head into society and...
Meeting my daughter as Donatella 'finally' found me.
AN
So, an important thing I need to explain: This story will entertain Harem. While some may think Donatella wants Davide just for herself, the truth she is a bit promiscuous in that aspect. Especially after seeing who two of the Consiglieris are. Also, Polpo is a mixed bag. As mentioned in-chapter he is a bit similar to the Penguin, a 'refined gentleman' that is actually a monster mimicking the etiquette to pass as a rich folk. So, he is loyal but very lavish with the way he wastes the money he makes from his businesses.
Lastly, in regard to Boingo and Oingo: It is not canon that Oingo is a fictional entity. I just came up with it as a 'lazy' excuse to make him inconsequential since I forgot about him and, truth be told, I don't like his personality.