Made Man

The consigliere of the Rosetti family, Marcel Aubert, was nervously sweating as he paced back and forth inside his office. An attack on such a scale had happened across all of their territories, yet he hadn't even been aware of it coming.

The reason he was panicking so much was that it was his job as the consigliere to gather intelligence about such things before they happened.

"Fuck!" he cursed as he clutched his hair. "No, no, no, I must do something about it."

Suddenly, he stopped in his footsteps as he thought of an idea. His lips curled up into a sly grin as he mumbled, "That's right… I can just find a scapegoat and accuse them of being a Buccanti spy."

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this made sense and would be beneficial to him. All he needed to do was find a suitable person to take the heat off of him.

...

That night, due to the sudden attack by the Buccanti family, the Rosettis had lost a vast majority of their territory. All the neighborhoods in Queens that they had been in control of, as well as a few in Brooklyn, were lost.

However, the Buccantis weren't able to completely eradicate their control. Thanks to David killing most of their gangsters in Hell's Kitchen and Port Authority, the Rosettis had managed to keep their control there.

David had become the sole reason for the failure of the Buccanti family's goal of completely eradicating the Rosetti family's control. The same night that he had been taken to the hospital, inside a penthouse in Lower Manhattan an important meeting was held.

Three men in expensive-looking suits were seated at a table. One of them was an old man who appeared to be in his sixties wearing a blue three-piece suit. Although he appeared to be old, he didn't have any wrinkles or lines on his face.

The old man had a good build and appeared to be much healthier than most young men. He was none other than the don of the Rosetti family, Enzo Rosetti.

Opposite him, sat a bald middle-aged man in a brown suit and a cream-colored fur overcoat. The thick beard on his face made him appear very intimidating. He was the don of the Buccanti Family, Marco Buccanti.

The two men were feared in the criminal underworld of New York, but right now they were politely sitting at the table with solemn expressions on their faces. A hint of nervousness could also be seen in their eyes.

After all, the one sitting at the head of the table was the leader of the five families! The blond-haired, blue-eyed man appeared very young compared to the two. He was wearing a black, pin-striped, three-piece suit. He was the don of the Luciani family, Antonio Luciani.

Though he had a faint smile on his lips, the aura he naturally emanated was terrifying. So much so that both Enzo and Marco found themselves nervously gulping from time to time.

"Do you know the reason I called the two of you here?" Antonio asked with a smile.

The two dons didn't reply; they knew it was a rhetorical question. After the commotion their fight had caused all over New York tonight, how could the both of them not know why they were summoned?

Enzo looked at Marco with great resentment. He gnashed his teeth in anger, but didn't dare to speak out of turn. Marco, on the other hand, had a solemn expression on his face, but the hint of schadenfreude couldn't be hidden in his eyes.

Antonio looked at Marco with narrowed eyes. "I don't care if you guys fight amongst each other. You can do anything you want as long as you don't involve innocent bystanders." Suddenly, Antonio's voice turned cold as he released a bit of his killing intent. "But tonight you crossed the line, Marco."

Marco's body trembled ever so slightly. He looked at Antonio and spoke respectfully, "Boss, but we didn't implicate the innocent tonight."

"Oh?" The killing intent radiating from Antonio increased a fold. "The people from the city commissioner's office told me that your boys killed quite a few innocent civilians tonight. Or do you think I'm lying? Did you really think your bullets had eyes? Maybe they had more brains than you, stupido fottuto idiota!"

Marco shot up to his feet and bowed. "F-Forgive me, boss. I wasn't aware of it."

Antonio sneered, "You can't even put a leash on your dogs. I wonder if you're really fit to be a don."

Marco began profusely sweating. In New York's criminal underworld, Antonio's word was the law. Hearing his underlying meaning, Marco couldn't help but wonder if he was going to be replaced with someone. He cursed the bastards in his family who dared to kill the bystanders.

The reason the mafia didn't implicate innocent people wasn't because of any kind of morals or a sense of righteousness, but because of the trouble that would follow. If bystanders were involved, the police would be forced to step in.

And that would be troublesome.

Antonio looked at Enzo and asked, "How much did you lose tonight?"

"A little more than three-fourths of the territories," Enzo respectfully replied. He cast a hateful stare at Marco and added, "And I'm not even sure how many men I lost tonight."

Antonio thought for a moment, then looked at Marco and declared, "This whole spettacolo di merda ends right now. You're to return half the territory you gained tonight. Understood?"

Marco gritted his teeth in resignation, but, in the end, could only nod. He didn't dare to refuse, for if he did, the consequences would be far worse than losing just a few neighborhoods.

Enzo was the happiest of them all and was truly grateful for Antonio's decision. But deep down, he knew that the boss hadn't done it for his sake, but for the fact that Marco had crossed the line—and this was the resulting punishment.

Antonio got up from his seat ad walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. He said without turning back, "Levati dai coglioni, vermi."

"Yes, boss." The two dons turned to leave.

"Enzo," Antonio turned his head and said, "My men tell me there's a kid in your family that managed to kill almost twenty people tonight."

Enzo was greatly taken aback. The war between the two families had only just ended, hence he didn't know the exact details of what had happened. However, it seemed like someone from his family had caught his boss's eye.

"I hear he's the reason Hell's Kitchen remains under your control," Antonio said with a smile. He then turned back and looked at the towering city skyline and waved Enzo off. "You're quite a fortunate man."

"Thank you, boss." With that, he turned around and left, all the while making plans to completely rope this kid into his family.

...

A month and a half after the war between the two families, David was discharged from the hospital. Needless to say, the doctors were quite surprised by his recovery speed. He had been shot twice, after all.

Not to mention, gutshots take a lot longer to recover from for normal people. However, David had recovered quite quickly from one. Naturally, it was because of his high constitution stat.

A week after he was discharged, David found himself in the don's house by the Hudson River. Including him and his boss, Nico, all the higher-ups of the Rosetti family were present. He had an idea about why he had been called and was ecstatic, to say the least.

As Nico was reminding him to behave respectfully, the door to the room opened and three men walked in. They were the don, underboss, and the consigliere of the family. Enzo had a wide smile on his face as he walked toward the pair.

With a confident smile on his face, Nico was about to get up and greet the don. However, the smile on his face froze when the don walked past him and toward David.

"David, my boy, I'm glad that you're in good health now." He gave David a tight hug, patted him on the back, and kissed him on both cheeks.

"It's an honor to meet you, boss," David replied. He wasn't at all focusing on what was happening. Instead, all of his attention was on his stats, which had finally increased by a decimal point. After being shot, they had decreased and it wasn't until a couple of weeks back that they'd returned to normal.

Enzo didn't mind his behavior at all. He patted his shoulder and laughed heartily. "You put on quite the show back then. As a reward, not only am I going to 'make' you, I'm also gonna forgive your father's debt."

In order to rope him in as a loyal soldier, Enzo was naturally going to heavily reward him. Since the day Don Antonio had shown an interest in David, he'd made up his mind to do everything in order to tie David to the Rosettis.

"Thanks, boss," David absentmindedly replied as he viewed the system panel.

[Name: David Watson]

[Age: 17]

[Affinity: XXXX XXXX]

[Strength: 1.6]

[Agility: 1.8]

[Constitution: 1.6]

[All system functions are locked]

Seeing the lack of expression on David's face after being made, the underboss, Angelo, was furious. His father had personally come to promote the youth, yet the brat didn't even show a bit of excitement.

'This fucking brat…. How dare he not be grateful!?' he thought in anger as his face slightly contorted. The consigliere, Marcel, astutely noticed Angelo's fury, and a moment later, happened to meet his gaze.

[Countdown: 441 days…]