CHAPTER 1: The City of Willowbrook

Willowbrook was a city that belonged to the Mafia. By day, it looked like any other city; a place where people went to work, children went to school, and shops stayed open. The streets were busy, but there was a sense of quiet, like everyone was waiting for something to happen. People walked quickly, heads down, careful not to draw too much attention. It was as if they knew that the real power in the city came out after the sun went down.

An elderly woman sat on her veranda, knitting under the dim glow of a streetlamp. Her neighbor walked by, grocery bags in hand.

“Remember when we thought the mayor was just another politician?” the old woman said, her needles clinking together like the ticking of a clock.

The neighbor paused, a shiver running down her spine. “Now we know better. Arthur Morreti is more than just a mayor. He owns this city.”

Around the corner, a group of teenagers loitered, their laughter fading as one of them lowered his voice.

“I heard my cousin say he saw a deal go down last night,” one of them said, eyes wide with a mix of fear and fascination.

“Keep it down!” another hissed, glancing nervously at a passing sedan with darkened windows. “You don’t want the wrong people to know you’re talking.”

Nearby, a street musician was singing a song so loudly, “Everyone knows when the sun sets, the city isn’t ours anymore. It belongs to them.”

At night, Willowbrook came alive. The lights of the city sparkled brighter, and the shadows seemed to stretch longer. This was when deals were made in dark alleys, and whispers of power floated through the streets. The clubs and bars were filled with people celebrating or plotting their next move, all under the watchful eye of the Mafia. Crime thrived in the night, but it was carefully controlled. No one made a move in Willowbrook without permission from the Mafia.

And at the top of it all stood Arthur "The Don" Morreti, the city's mayor and its most feared Mafia leader. Arthur was a serious man, a person who commanded respect just by walking into a room. His face was sharp, with deep-set eyes that seemed to see through everyone. His hair was slicked back, always perfectly in place, as dark as the night over Willowbrook. He had a square jaw and a scar that ran from his chin to his neck; no one dared ask him where it came from.

Arthur always dressed in expensive suits, black or dark grey, with a clean white shirt underneath. A red tie was his signature; no one else in the city dared wear that color. It was a symbol of his power, of the blood he had spilled to get to the top. His shoes were polished, his cufflinks always shining. Every part of him looked like it belonged to a king, but a king of crime, not of royalty.

Even other Mafia bosses feared Arthur. They never spoke too loudly when he was around, and they never looked him in the eye for too long. He was known for being cold and calculating, a man of few words, but when he spoke, everyone listened. He had built his empire by keeping strict order. He didn’t allow chaos in Willowbrook; if anyone tried to break the rules, they wouldn’t live to tell the story.

In a smoky back room at Chicka Rosa, Marco Rossi and his friends gathered around a poker table, chips clinking and cards shuffling. Marco leaned back, smirking as he took a long draw from his cigar.

“Arthur’s got this city locked down tight,” Marco said, tapping ash into a glass tray.

One of his friends, Carlos Bontade, nodded, pushing chips into the pot. “Ain’t nobody bold enough to cross him. Not after what happened to the Gambinos.”

“The Gambinos thought they could play around in Willowbrook,” another man, Lenny, added with a chuckle. “Big mistake.”

Marco laughed, eyes gleaming under the low-hanging light. “That’s why Arthur wears that red tie, boys. It’s a reminder, in case anyone forgets who spills blood around here.”

The men at the table exchanged glances, the unspoken agreement clear: Arthur Morreti ruled not just through fear, but with a sense of unyielding order.

The laughter faded as a distant siren wailed, only to cut off abruptly. Marco’s grin stiffened, and silence fell over the room, broken only by the soft clatter of cards on the table.

Arthur believed that for the Mafia to survive, there had to be rules, and everyone had to follow them. He ran the city like a tight ship, making sure no other Mafia families started fights or stepped out of line. If they did, he handled them quickly and quietly. It was this order that kept Willowbrook running smoothly, even though it was a city controlled by crime.

It was his idea to create a place where the children of Mafia families could be trained. He knew that to keep order in Willowbrook, the next generation had to learn the rules, understand the power, and protect their families from enemies. In a city like Willowbrook, anything could happen to anyone; especially if they had a name, money, or power. No one was safe unless they knew how to survive.

Arthur believed that if the Mafia was going to stay in control of Willowbrook, the children had to be ready. They needed to learn the ways of the Mafia; the laws that kept the peace, the business that kept the money flowing, and the skills that kept them alive. That’s why he created Nosa Costra Academy and his fellow Mafia agreed on this as well, an institute where the children of Mafia families were sent to learn.

Nosa Costra wasn’t like any regular school. The children didn’t go there to study math or history; they went there to learn how to run the family business, how to make deals, how to stay one step ahead of their enemies. They were taught how to survive in a world where everyone wanted power, and no one could be trusted.

Every Mafia family in Willowbrook had secrets. Some were about money, some were about past crimes, and some were about who held the real power behind the scenes. These secrets had to be kept at all costs, and Nosa Costra Academy was where the children learned how to do that. Keeping their family’s secrets safe was just as important as learning how to run the business. If a family’s secrets got out, it could mean their downfall.

At Nosa Costra, the students were taught by some of the most dangerous and powerful people in Willowbrook. They learned how to negotiate, how to lie, how to stay calm under pressure. They learned the rules of the Mafia world; the rules that kept the city from turning into chaos. They were also taught about loyalty, how to stay true to their family, and how to protect the ones they loved.

Sending their children to Nosa Costra wasn’t a choice for the Mafia families; it was a necessity. Without it, their families wouldn’t last long in a place like Willowbrook. Arthur knew this, and that’s why he made sure the Academy was built. In his mind, it was the only way to keep the Mafia strong and the city in order.

While Nosa Costra Academy was mostly for the children of Mafia families, there was another side to it that many didn’t know about. In the shadows of the city, Arthur Morreti had a secret plan to expand the Mafia's power even further. This plan involved children who weren’t born into the Mafia life, but were instead taken from the streets of Willowbrook.

These children were called ANTI-MAFIAS. They came from poor families who could barely afford to survive. Some of these children didn’t even have parents, just guardians who couldn’t take care of them. The Nosa Costra authorities approached these families, offering them a way out of their poverty. The deal was simple: the children would be taken in by Nosa Costra, where they would be trained and fed, and in return, the parents or guardians would receive a small amount of money each month.

To make it legal, the parents or guardians had to sign a document. This paper stated that once the children were sent to Nosa Costra, they were no longer under their family’s care; they belonged to the Academy. It was a hard decision for many families, but the money was something they couldn’t refuse. It was a token amount, but it was enough to buy food and keep a roof over their heads. Every month, a payment would be sent to the families as long as the children stayed at the Academy.

These ANTI-MAFIA children didn’t get to see their families often. The parents were only allowed to visit once a year, at the end of every school year. During this visit, the families could see how much their children had changed, how much stronger and more disciplined they had become. The children, on the other hand, had to come to terms with the fact that they now belonged to Nosa Costra, not to their families.