- Seeking +25 (preferably Female) partner. I, myself, am 30F.
- Will keep to the PM's for now, though I may request Discord for OOC.
If you are interested, please write an introduction for your character outlining your ideas for who they are and how they might know Gio. Are they part of his organization? A former lover? A sworn enemy? I'm curious to see what you come up with! We can discuss particulars afterward~
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Laurel Heights had been named with a very specific vision in mind - maybe two hundred years ago it was a small town nestled in the Appalachian foothills, framed by ancient, sedate rivers and held in the dense and verdant embrace of an old growth forest miles deep. It had humble beginnings and an honest dream which gradually corroded with its enormous success as the years fell away to decades and the decades, to centuries. In the year 1949, nothing more remained of its youthful vigor - all was metal and glass and lights and sound, fueled by a relentless hunger for things beyond reach.
The now sprawling city, with its glittering theaters and restaurants and clubs, was as beguiling as it was dangerous - and made still more so under the watchful eye of one man.
There were (relatively) safe havens, of course - the Northside, with its museums, libraries, and glamorous malls, and the Eastside, where wealthy men ensured the maintenance and protection of their fortunes and exclusive neighborhoods by hiding them behind high walls and armed guards. But everyone who had spent any time in the Heights knew to pack heat in the Westside, with its aging housing and ghettos, and to avoid the Southside altogether.
The Southside was Mr Giovanni Russo’s territory, and what a hellscape it was - lavish and sparkling like a gilded cage and always, always shrouded in an air of menace that its inhabitants could never fully shake.
But who was this Mr Russo and what made him so influential, so unquestionably powerful, so extraordinarily dangerous?
Giovanni had been born and raised in the Southside, had attended its schools, played in its parks, and had watched its gradual and steady ruin at the hands of the numerous gangs that had sprung up like hateful weeds from the sun-worn cracks of the concrete sidewalks. The steady descent into violence had begun with his father’s own declining health.
Giuseppe Russo had, at one time, been the most powerful man in the city and his reach had extended far beyond that of any elected official - his organization had been like a great Kraken with its tentacles coiled around nearly every aspect of illicit industry which the Heights had to offer. No one could touch him - except that most hateful of diseases, cancer. It sapped the last of his strength within a matter of years and with it, his power and influence. For a time, the Heights had descended well and truly into chaos as powerful men fought to fill the vacuum Giuseppe - once known as Il Tigre to allies and enemies alike - had left in his wake.
Giovanni had not been destined to assume his father’s place - he was but the second born son of the Russo family. It had been his father’s dying wish that Arturo, Giovanni’s elder brother, should take command and bring back order. Arturo had been weak, however - he had allowed himself to fall in love with a woman and it had ultimately cost him everything, including his life. There had been no open casket as his funeral for there had been nothing left. And so, the task of rebuilding his father’s dynasty was left to Giovanni.
Never was a man more suited to such a Sisyphean labor than him.
Brutality ran like blood through his veins and it was not long before he became well and truly feared. Lesser men flocked around him like vultures to carrion, hopeful that they might gain whatever it was which made him so ruthless, cold, and cunning. Though many pledged their allegiance to him with barely an inducement beyond the hope of being spared his wrath, Giovanni’s loyalty was bought at a monumental cost - nearly always through personal sacrifice. Beneath his iron hand, his father’s organization was gradually rebuilt and even expanded until his reach encompassed nearly every aspect of life in the Heights and had snuffed out most or all of his would-be competition.
Few in the city (or anywhere else) could claim to know Giovanni well, but everyone knew him on sight - dark hair, olive skin, and a perpetually hard expression which made his angular features even rougher and less handsome than they already were. He was a man built for strength and power, not beauty - tall and broad, with muscles akin to steel coils and a tapestry of tattoos all across his arms and torso.
To his subordinates, he was Mr Russo; to his friends, he was Gio; to everyone else he was Il Giaguaro - the Jaguar - and this was his jungle.
Knight 7