To Be an Honest Man: Dedizione All'Amore: Chapter 1 – A Foreign Threat

Chapter 1 – A Foreign Threat

The two explosive lovers, my brother and his wife, head into the warehouse at the docks guns blazing and run out like two kids who kicked a hornet’s nest and are trying not to get stung, except the hornets are firing foreign silenced pistols and rifles at them. Coming to their aid, my wife and I surround the foreigners with gunfire of our own, and are then aided by members of the family who bring the real heavy firepower. When the smoke settles, we go in and make sure none of the foreigners kill themselves with their guns or cyanide pills in their mouths. I make sure one of the foreigners can’t kill himself, and then start questioning him in our shared language.

He looks disgusted at me, spits in my face, and says in English, “You speak Mediterranean like a true Medigan, you’re dog shit and a disgrace to the old country of Lupa.”

“The Mediterranean Empire shouldn’t be in the United Chimaera States. You should keep your trashy ideology to yourself and the old world,” I say.

“Why should we? We improve everywhere we conquer. We have all the territory the Roman Empire once had, and what we don’t have is being conquered by our allies in the Zeitloses Imperium. What do you have in comparison? Nothing. If your authorities need criminals like you to watch them, then they’re pathetic, and you are as well. Your wife looks like a tanned pig with all that jewelry, makeup, and tacky clothes-”

I punch the foreign man in the face to shut him up and knock him out.

“You didn’t have to do that, Vincenzo. I wasn’t insulted by what he said,” Marin says.

“I don’t care. No one insults my wife. Besides, the cops will question him next.”

“We could’ve questioned him. You know I have a way of making people tell me what I want to know.”

“You’ll have to save that for me for later.”

“Uuu. Let’s not wait too long, then, and get out of here.”

Marin and I walk over to check on my brother, Cesare Campione, and his wife, Okazaki Mistico, or rather, Okazaki Campione now, both of whom are talking and laughing like kids who got off an exciting ride.

“We got’em good, didn’t we? I love it when a plan goes exactly as planned!” my brother, Cesare, says.

“I told you Providence was on our side, didn’t I, honey?” Okazaki asks.

“That you did.”

“Hey, you two. Are you both okay?” I ask.

“We’re great, Vincenzo. Are we good to head out?”

Just as Cesare finished speaking, the cops head up to where we are and start arresting the foreigners and putting them in their trucks. Heading over to the police sergeant, we acknowledge each other and head our separate ways as if we were just coworkers exchanging shifts. Cesare and I take our wives to Angelo Delicato’s restaurant to celebrate with the other members of our family.

Angelo comes to congratulate us for doing our duty for our country, and I ask him, “You can get on in this deal we have with the government if you want. We can use all the help we can get.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear of any foreigners causing trouble in the neighborhood, but that’s all I’ll do for you,” Angelo says. He’s dressed as slick as always and looks like the spitting image of an aged Mediterranean man of honor who never has a wrinkle on his shirt or hair out of place. “You know how I like to do business, quiet, simple, and in the neighborhood.”

“Where’s Russell? I haven’t seen the old mechanic in a while,” Cesare says.

“Russell is doing business with the new families in the country. He’s gotta make sure they’ll do as we request if they want to be a part of our family.”

“Is he accompanied by anyone from the family?”

“Some people and his trusted bodyguard, some Great War veteran named Frank. Frank will keep Russell safe and do the dirty work for him. They’re like father and son, those two, despite the difference in race.”

“The king has to make sure his governors are doing their jobs correctly,” Marin says. “The new man who took over Amoroso Puramente’s territory and businesses, James Sovrano, is doing well.”

“I’m sure you’re keeping a close eye on him, Mrs. Campione.”

“Yes, Mr. Delicato. He wants to make sure that he’s a true man of honor, unlike the previous traitorous leader. At least that’s what I heard from the people under him.”

“Keep up the good intelligence gathering on him and the others, and please, make sure your husband and brother-in-law don’t get into any more serious trouble than they’re already getting into.”

“Yes, Mr. Delicato.”

Angelo turns to Okazaki, “Mrs. Campione.”

“Yes, Angelo. I’ll make sure the boys are on the path laid out for us,” Okazaki says.

Angelo kisses Marin’s hand and Okazaki’s hand and walks away. While Okazaki and Cesare eat, drink, and celebrate, Marin and I talk about what we should do next.

“The government expects us to make sure that the infiltrators from the Mediterranean Empire and Zeitloses Imperium don’t infiltrate our country with their heinous ideology of Von Menscehn und Vorfahren or just Vorfahren as it’s commonly called. Once we do it, they’ll be more favorable to us, even help us get a president into office who will be on our side,” I remind Marin and myself. “They don’t care if the problem completely goes away as long as it doesn’t bother them in our country, but I care. Over in the old world, those two empires are turning it upside down, killing and jailing people from different races and beliefs, both political and religious, and taking land that they think is rightfully theirs because the past empires had it.”

“I know where you’re going with this. They’re coming over here and trying to spread their belief here to conquer the United Chimaera States as well,” Marin says.

“They won’t. I’ve foreseen while meditating in the adoration chapel. It’ll be us who will stop their reign of terror,” Okazaki says.

“Yeah, we’ll make sure those Vorfahren bastards won’t mess with us or ours. Tell me more about what you saw,” Cesare says.

As Okazaki explains her visions and connects them to the present circumstances, Cesare looks enamored at her as if under her spell. I swear he’s been different ever since they first met. It’s as if Okazaki knows how to bring something out of him that no one else can. When we first met up with Okazaki and Marin, they were known as and still known as the Gatta Sorella, the Cat Sisters. Okazaki was the one who arranged the meeting and said to Marin that we were the men that they were meant to marry, and after a series of dates, we got married.

Okazaki has always been the spiritual one, loving to talk about visions and dreams, to pray and adore, and to be gun-ho about doing what needs to be done, as she believes is the voice of God, the saints, and her guardian angel. She always wears a golden cross necklace, a golden St. Benedict medal choker, and a golden miraculous medal necklace, along with pink clothes and makeup. She’s Cesare’s bella nera, and to balance out her wild visions is my wife, Marin. She was once Marin Carena, the planner of the two. Just like me, Marin likes to plan things out, get all the details, and then act either diplomatically or use violence as a last resort.

Okazaki and Marin were known as the Gatta Sorella since they did much good work for the family on their side of the city, rooting out traitors and men and women who worked only for themselves rather than for the whole family. Just like Okazaki, Marin wears golden jewelry, except Marin wears four golden bracelets on her right arm that have Scripture verses on them and three other golden bracelets on her left arm that have wise words from the saints. Marin wears purple clothes and makeup rather than pink, and both girls are influenced by an Eastern fashion style called gyaru. Sometimes the two will work for the Church with our primary contact, Bishop Rodrigo Dovuto, to help clean out any of the false faithful who are trying to destroy the Holy Church from within.

“Vincenzo,” Okazaki says as she turns to me. “I can tell you’re letting the stress of the situation get to you. It’s making your mind retreat into old memories of comfort so that it can relax.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t let the stress get to me, but even being here with the most important people in my life isn’t helping much. I’m sorry to admit that,” I say.

“No, you’re right to feel that way. Our leaders don’t want us to directly go after the opposing leaders of the other countries since that would start another Great War, so there’s no helping us there, so we must help ourselves instead, and I know just the place that will help us further our goal of getting rid of the poisonous foreigners.”

Okazaki brings us to a home for the poor that’s run by the Church.

She says, “I’m sure Vincenzo and Marin figured out the foreigners who are poisoning our country with their ideology came in not just from the docks and airports, but with the fleeing immigrants as well.”

“That’s right,” Marin says with a look of surprise on her face.

Neither of us explained to Okazaki or Cesare that we knew the Vorfahren infiltrators were coming in with the immigrants, but hadn’t brought it up because we didn’t know which boats or planes they came on or where they went from there.

“I know you didn’t bring it up because you didn’t know where they were entering from and where they went, but I’ve been told-”

“In your dreams or a vision?” I ask.

“By my friends in the Church this time. They told me that they stay here with the immigrants and use it as a base of operations, a place to hide weapons, manufacture propaganda, and meet with people in power.”

“Let’s go in there and take care of business then. Thanks as always for your help, babe,” Cesare says as he pulls out his revolver that’s loaded with shotgun shells. There’s the old Cesare.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Marin and I say.

“What?”

“We can’t just go in there, turning the place upside down to look for the Vorfahren, or what I mean to say is that we can’t do it without permission,” I say.

“When did we need their permission to do anything we know to be right?” Okazaki says, while taking out her foreign pistol with exorcist prayers engraved on it.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Marin says with her hands out in front of Cesare and Okazaki. “What do you think this is going to look like to them, us just going in there shooting and taking people in for questioning?”

“Like a bunch of criminals doing what we do. Come on, Marin. You’re used to this.”

“We usually have a cover for our actions.”

“We have the government’s cover. We’ll explain to them later what happened, and with what we’re coming out with, they’ll have no choice but to grin and bear the reward. So, are we doing this or not?”

Marin looks at me, and I shrug.

“I’m only doing this because you and your husband will do it even without us.”

“You know it, sis.”

I take out my golden pistol loaded with rifle rounds, and Marin takes out her magnum. We head into the poor house, and Okazaki tells the front desk worker she knows to go home for the night, and she does.

“I hope you make them pay,” the worker says as she leaves.

Okazaki then leads us to the priest that she knows and asks him to reveal the location of the Vorfahren to us.

“Okazaki, please, there are poor men and women here. If the authorities were to find out about what we’re doing, then everyone here could suffer,” the priest says.

“Father, they already are suffering. With the Vorfahren here, they will suffer even more, especially if they corrupt the country with their false beliefs and hatred,” Okazaki says.

“What’s the worst that they can do? Kick you out? Shut this place down? We can ensure that doesn’t happen,” Cesare adds.

“Cesare, beloved, some of the people who work here aren’t forced to hold evil men and women here against their will. A lot of them want to for one reason or another.”

“Is that true?” The priest has a hard time answering, giving his answer through his stuttering and jumbled answer. “I ought to shoot you. Tell me one good reason why you let these people subvert the country you call home.”

Again, the priest stutters and has a hard time giving a straight answer, so Okazaki says, “I’ll answer for him. I can read in his soul that he doesn’t want the government to shut them down or the Church to stop sending them funds, because if this shelter is compromised, then they’ll stop making hundreds of thousands for all the immigrants they’re taking in. He has a lot of excuses for using the money to care for the actual poor and needy, but he knows what he’s doing is wrong.”

As Cesare points his revolver at the face of the priest, the priest tells him to wait and tells us, “They’re in the basement. Here.”

The priest presses a part of the wall like a button, and a hidden door opens.

“If this is a trap or you don’t tell the cops everything you know, I’ll cap you myself,” Cesare says to the priest.

“It’s not a trap. They stay down there, make their propaganda down there, store their weapons, and meet their people. I swear!”

Cesare looks at him, then at Okazaki, who nods at him. The four of us head downstairs to see people working on picket signs, flags, and papers with Vorfahren symbols and propaganda on them.

Marin grabs all of us, pulling us aside and whispering, “Okay. We have to play this smart. No guns blazing because we need this evidence intact, meaning we need a lot of these people alive enough to talk to the authorities.”

“What should we do then?” Okazaki whispers.

“We go with the usual Gatto Sorella plan of attack. Pretend that we have more strength than we actually do, and with our boys, it’ll be easier to fake it.”

“We get it. You don’t need to explain the plan to us,” I say, to which Cesare agrees.

“Let’s do it then, on my go. Let the ladies take the lead,” Marin says

Agreeing, Marin sends the cops our coordinates through our phones for immediate backup, then she and Okazaki take the lead. They shoot their guns up into the air, announce that the cops will be here soon, and that the only hope of them getting off easy is their cooperation. Everyone here has their hands up, and those who look down at the guns, I shoot in the direction of, hitting the wall, and threatening them to keep their hands up.

“If I were you, I’d do as the ladies say,” Cesare adds. “I’m feeling awfully trigger-happy tonight, and you people are already pissing me off with what you’re doing in the old world, and now you want to bring your disease here? No. You don’t get to do that.”

No one says a word, and the four of us are able to keep the crowds under control until the cops come here and arrest everyone without anyone fighting back or firing a shot directly at anyone.

Outside, I say, “I know that the Vatican is compromised in the old world, but for some reason, I didn’t consider that the people here were as well, especially in our own neighborhood. How did we not see this happening?”

“We’re up against people who took their country’s government from under them. Our country may not be in the same circumstances as theirs was, but there are a lot of people here that are sympathetic to their cause, even in our government,” Marin says.

“We’d better report back to Vito D’Accordo about this. With his responsibilities over who and what comes in and out of this country, I’m sure he’ll want to plug this hole as fast as possible,” Cesare says.

“And then go to our contact in the Church,  Bishop Rodrigo Dovuto. If anyone is going to get into trouble, it’s him,” Marin says.

“Let’s hope the good bishop is actually good then.”

“If anything, at least we have a better lead on getting rid of the problem from our city,” Okazaki says.

“That’s right. Let’s get to it before the Vorfahren can plan around it,” Marin says as we head out to go to our separate contacts.