REESE

chapter twenty five.

Third Person POV:

It is easy to fabricate civility.

Fake smiles, counterfeit alliances, mock-safety, all scenarios that have been entrenched in the fabrication of the auspicious Mafia Ball. The Ball was an event that was supposed to be a regal representation of wealth, class, and respect between families all intertwined in the same business, but it had now been molded into an opportunity for deceit, disloyalty, and betrayal.

What was once a tradition created with pure intentions in order for friends and foes alike to partake in a ceasefire that would hopefully work to end wars and conflicts, had now turned into a cunning competition and a ploy for power.

Power was a commodity that people killed ruthlessly for.

Throughout the years the Mafia Ball has been notorious for being a place where information was sold, traded, and collected. There was a zero-tolerance policy for violence and no weapons were allowed into the event, but that didn't mean mafias couldn't hurt one another. Families become revealed, significant others are identified, and alliances are recognized. By enforcing a strict 18+ age limit at the Ball, it was overtly obvious that everyone in attendance was fair game.

These men and women were the current and future leaders of empires that rose and fell haphazardly and by showing your face at the Ball, you were inadvertently agreeing to a lifetime of looking over your shoulder. Going to the Ball was undoubtedly a monumental risk for every mafia, but it was also a necessary one.

Only cowards back down from confrontations, and the Mafia Ball was confrontations galore.

In an industry where violence was normalized and brutality was encouraged, intimidation was no easy feat. In the mafia world, intimidation took form through names. An individual's identity was brought into existence and maintained through his or her surname, and lower ranked individuals in the mafia were identified by the surname they worked under. Names like Vanderbilt had a reputation, the simple utterance of the surname was enough to instill fear in the populations. Faces were meaningless entities in the long scheme of things, but names, names held power.

The most powerful empires all had one thing in common, secrecy. Their names may have been known worldwide but that was all they allowed to be known about them. Secrecy was a shield emitting waves of protection, but inevitably all secrets come out eventually.

There comes a point when large empires hit their peak. They stop counting their money, they force their publicity to plummet, and all they have to do is sit back and relish in their power.

Fear and paranoia surround their names at such high volumes that the empires start to become myths. Their domination becomes one of legend. When this phenomenon occurs two things can happen. One, the empire continues to seamlessly reign supreme until their reputations start holding enough potency that no action against said empire would be endorsed. Or two, people start to question if the legends are really true.

When there is no one to stop the rumours and lies from circulating, misinformation starts accumulating. Which in turn causes people to grow a sudden bravery against higher powers they have no business attempting to destroy.

The American Mafia was going to end that same bravery today.

The American Empire rose to the top of the mafia world approximately eight years ago. Their sudden rise to the top took everyone by surprise. One minute the mafia was crumbling with corruption within, the next they had solidified into an organization that was seemingly indestructible.

Minds were plagued with the same inquiry.

What had happened?

They were asking the wrong question.