Awakening to the dead silence of the house that he now shared with four others, Luca stretches and gets off the couch he spent the night on. Quietly he steps through the living room to the front door of the house, attempting to not wake anyone else up. He reaches the door, and laying on the doorstep is the Sunday newspaper. A cold sweat runs down his neck however, when he reads the headline.

Two Dead in Apparent Mafia Hit

Under it were pictures of the two victims. Luca recognized both immediately. Antonio Starnari, better known to him as Nari, Luca's former drug running partner. Saddened by the loss of two close friends in under two weeks, nothing could prepare him for the other victim.

The face however was staring him in the eye, the guilt almost forcing him to turn away before he became physically ill.

Victoria Serapin, Luca's now late ex-girlfriend.

The grief stricken young man manages to pull himself into the house and shut the door before his mind goes back to the last words they said to one another before Luca left the Heiman clique for good.

"You know as well as I do, Heiman will fucking kill you when, not if he gets to you. I'm not risking my life over a dead man, Luca! I have too much to live for." "Is that so? Try thinking about that when Heiman orders a bullet between your eyes for being so closely related to me..."

I called it.

I fucking called it.

Anger seeps into his blackened heart, twisting his psyche into that a flaming statue. Suddenly however, that flaming statue he now calls his heart freezes over, gone cold at the depressed apathy he feels as the shock sets in.

Three friends dead, in the blink of an eye.

All of them killed by the same man.

Jeffery fucking Heiman.

He begins whispering to himself, as to not wake the others from their alcohol assisted slumber.

"Heiman, you want this?

You want me to come to you?

There will be blood next we meet."

Struggling to keep his voice quiet as he rants, he finally cracks under the pressure and screams.

"MARK MY FUCKING WORDS!"

Not a single soul in the house stirred. Confused but not questioning how something so lucky was to happen, Luca decides it's best to go for a drive to cool off.

He exits the house once again, not bothering to shower or even change clothes.

Locking the door behind him, he leaves the house key under the doormat in case he doesn't return.

He gets into his car, starts it up and drives off.

The man, shell, or whatever you want to call him has only one destination in mind.







Stepping through the large metal doors with rusted hinges, a sense of nostalgia runs through Luca's head. Stopping to considering the bullshit he and his former group of partners had peddled from this very location almost makes him smile. That sense is not enough to make him forget, however. Looking over at the dust covered stairs, he begins to second guess himself.

Why did I come here?

Ignoring the little voice in his head telling him to turn back, he walks towards the dusty, unkept stairs.

Just like they always were.

The stairs creek under his feet. Determined to get to the office for whatever reason, he pays no attention. Making it to the top of the stairs, he pushes the door open. The door finally had enough and falls off its dirty and damaged hinges and collapses to the ground in an explosion of dust. Covering his mouth so that no dust enters, Luca steps into the office he and his colleagues used to call home.

Seeing the tables strewn randomly across the room, as they always were is what strikes him as odd. Normally after the meetings the tables would be organized in the pattern they were before they showed up, as to maintain the illusion that the warehouse really was abandoned.

Who would move them this way, and not put them back?

Putting aside the question that he really didn't even want to be answered, he takes a seat at one of the tables. With his eyes closed, it's easy to pretend that last month or so never even happened, and that everything was how it should be.

How it should be...

Without warning, a song that he's heard hundreds of times before pops into his head.



As each line is etched into his brain, he begins to have a greater understanding for the suffering that Marius must have felt during the scene this song was sung. At last, the line that sends him over the edge is etched forever into his mind.

Oh my friends

My friends

Forgive me

That I live and you are gone.

Bolting from his seat and flipping over the table he was sitting at, the grief ridden young man feels at his lowest low.

He looks over his shoulder and sees a familiar face standing behind him.

"Heard the news, huh?"



"Gauntlet City, where so many new champions will be crowned!

The Black Circle winning the Trio titles.

Sebastian Duke becoming the U.S. Champion.

And Luca Arzegotti becoming the X-Treme Champion.

Now as far as I know, including myself there are 3 people in this match as of right now. The other two being John Black and the current X-Treme Champ, Angelus.

Mr. Black, I regret to inform you that you have no chance in hell of being anywhere close to winning this match. 'Now, why is that?' I already now you are asking, and for that my answer is simple.

Because you're John Black, you can't even win a countout victory right!

John's been stuck in predicament after predicament for a while now.

First he bites off way more than he can chew with a now dead chick. For that he gets a tampon to the mouth and becomes the ass end of all jokes.

Then he loses to Ann Thraxx in a match where he was all ready to leave Shove-It for a year or something like that. Instead, he becomes the slave of John Madison until he wins again.

He then beats Cyren, not hard right?

Right?

Well apparently it was, as he couldn't even win by countout correctly, and he remains Madison's slave.

He claims himself underrated.

It isn't underrated when you suck, John.

I bet you'll be stuck as Johnny Madison's slave until your dying day, unless some other sucker is even stupider than you.

The common factor of all his actual issues?

The Black Circle.

How fitting that a Black Circle member will destroy this chance for you, huh?

Not saying you'd make the most of the opportunity anyway, I doubt you know how.

Angelus, in the case of one quite like you, I feel as though congratulations are in order.

Congrats on being able to hold that belt for as long as you have.

All the kicks in the world won't be able to save you on Sunday, however.

Remember how you can't beat Mark Flynn?

I laid him out on Saturday, with ease.

The rules to this match is that there basically are no rules.

I can strike at any fucking time I want to, Angelus.

I can and will turn you into a less dramatic form of what I turned Flynn into.

Remember that, Angie."