T h e | O p e n i n g

Vittorio DiSperanza was born in Milan, Italy, on August 7th, 1872. His father was an abusive alcoholic who squandered the family's hard-earned money and beat his mother to death before Victor's seven-year-old eyes. As a result, the child grew up misaligned (to say the least) and developed an enormous, ruthless ambition to leave his roots behind and climb to the top in any way possible. For the first seventeen years of his life he drove himself mercilessly, teaching himself to read and write between shifts at his jobs, and became thoroughly convinced that Sicily, and the mob life, was the only path for him. Violence--money--power--to a boy who had known no other goals but those, the Mafia seemed perfect. Thus decided, he began to eliminate all barriers between him and his goal.

At eighteen, he murdered his father in cold blood. Using the rest of the savings, he began to buy information in the backalleys of Milan, looking for a way into the mob. At twenty, he met Mercedes Giovanni of Madrid, who he soon discovered to have blood ties to the Family he so wanted to join. What he didn't know was that she was slated for Embrace into Clan Giovanni--a responsibility she was all too eager to shirk.

Ignorance is bliss, and what was unknown to him did not factor into his decisions. Finally, here was the chance he had been waiting for all his life, and he was not going to let it slip away.

He courted the girl, pampered her, flattered her, swept her off her feet, and convinced her to begin bringing him to the family functions, where 'business' was discussed in the corners by the men while the women bustled about. It wasn't long before he was included in the hushed discussions, first with low-level jobs, and then with increasingly prestigious objectives.

At twenty-one, he swears by the Omerta. He was in.

Immediately, Mercedes was forgotten, cast aside in his scramble for the top. Spurned, she clamored for action, but Mercedes herself had never been interested in the criminal side of the Family. She was artistic, brilliantly inspired, and found no interest in the intriguing of the mob.

Scorn La Famiglia, and La Famiglia scorns you. Her protests were ignored. Hurt and upset by the rejection, Mercedes returned to Spain, where she would soon be embraced by a Toreador Antitribu, Desdemona Scheffield (her talent, after all, was far too good to be wasted on those uninspired Giovanni). Before long she had caught the attention of the Archbishop Moncada, who took her under his wing.

Victor was oblivious to this turn of fate that would eventually come back to haunt him. His twisted dreams were finally coming true, and his climb through the ranks was blindingly fast. Though he was not a blood member of the Family, his ruthlessness and his brutality, coupled with his excellent judgment and his cunning, made him a favorite and his name soon became known even in Sicily.

His ambition had brought this far, but it would also be his undoing.

It was never enough for DiSperanza. Not satisfied to climb slowly and steadily, he began to plot the demise of his superiors. One by one they met with unfortunate fates, and he rose to take their positions free of blame and guilt. But the higher he went, the harder the assassinations became...until finally he was met with a dead end.

Alessandro Giovanni was too powerful to topple, and no assassin would take on the job, no matter the price. Victor could not accept defeat. July 29, 1898--nine days short of his twenty-sixth birthday--Victor walks into Alecsandro's office with a fully loaded revolver.

One bullet to the head was not enough to kill Alecsandro. Nor was two. Nor three.

It took all six bullets to drop Alessandro. Thoroughly unnerved, Victor threw the gun aside and ran, barely escaping the guards pounding up the stairs to check on the dead Giovanni. His gun was found, and his fate was sealed. Not only had he killed a superior member of the Family--he was also a mortal who had murdered a vampire.

He should have died terribly. He would have--had it not been for a LaSombra Bishop, Marco d'Angelo, who had had a feud with the Giovanni for decades over the Milan territory. This was a stroke of pure luck, and interested, Victor was spirited away while his background was delved into. Sufficiently impressed by the trail of crimson written all over DiSperanza's book of days, the Bishop embraced the fugitive Mafioso.

Upon which the problem became keeping Victor from the clutches of the enraged Giovanni, whose threats grew louder and louder by the night. Eventually, the conflict became widespread enough to arouse the attention of the Regent Melanie Gailbraith, who demanded that the troublesome neonate to thrown to the wolves, if only to hush the clamor that was disturbing her rest. In an act of desperation, his sire sent him to plead for his life before the Regent.

Six years ago, DiSperanza charmed a woman for a new life in the mob. Now, DiSperanza was forced to charm a Regent for a new life without the mob. The audience with the Regent was gruesome. The Testing was reduced to child's play in its face. But Gailbraith emerged reasonably impressed and DiSperanza emerged alive. More importantly, he would stay alive.

Immediately, the Regent took steps to remove him from the Giovanni sphere of influence. The perfect candidate appeared to be the LaSombra Archbishop Moncada of Madrid. DiSperanza left Milan for the first and last time, and embarked on a journey to a new guardian in faraway Spain.

Moncada already had a mentee (who, incidentally, had been recently making bids for independence), and did not need another. However, to avoid incurring the wrath of the Regent, he agreed to see that DiSperanza was safe. The answer soon became obvious to him. He would pair the LaSombra with his Toreador Antitribu mentee, and set them in a pack on their own. Thus, both the Toreador and the Regent could be satisfied.

Imagine Victor's surprise when he realized, lo and behold, the leader of his newly formed pack was none other than Mercedes Giovanni--now "Mercy". He was back to square one.

Adapt. If he had learned one thing his unusual life, he had learned to adapt. A setback? That was all right. In the end, it would always be temporary. Though he and Mercy clashed often, the Vaulderie and the watchful eyes of the elders kept them from murdering one another. At any rate, murder was not the way to get ahead when one dealt with 'family'. He would bide his time, and sooner or later, his chance would come and he would take control.

The decades passed. Their pack grew from two to four, from four to nine. In the late 1990s, they relocated, moving from Spain to the United States. Finally distanced from Moncada, DiSperanza felt that his chance may have once again come. By year 2000, he had challenged Mercedes to Monomancy. He won leadership of the pack, but Mercedes emerged alive, unscathed and proud as ever.

No one but Mercedes and Vittorio know what happened that day, and they aren't talking.

In the subsequent year, he played a strong supporting role in the Sabbat Crusade, landing him the honor of being named Paladin of the Archbishop of Atlanta. For a while he was her eyes, her ears and her fist in Charleston; then, rather abruptly, his honor was cut short when the Archbishop was mysteriously assassinated. If Vittorio had any idea who did the deed, he has kept silent and shown grief as was appropriate. Due to their rivalries over Charleston, which housed one of the largest harbors on the Eastern seaboard, the Archbishop of Miami's hand was suspected. Miami's Archbishop, it might be noted, was "honored" with the title of Priscus and sent away into the Anarch States. The matter was then put to rest, though it is rumored the new Archbishops are being watched very carefully and may not last long. After all, anyone that eager to take the spot may well be implicated in the crime.

Vittorio, of course, has moved on. Word has it he has returned to Charleston, where the rest of his pack resides. He is laying low for the time being, but there is no doubt one day the call of his insatiable ambition will drive him to rise again, perhaps to gain more power; perhaps, this time, to die.