As is my usual routine, I woke up early, about 6am, went on a 5k run around the grounds and through the forest, and then ate a granola bar and an apple for breakfast. At home I would always eat food at Nadia's house; she had a personal chef, and then get the chef to prepare me loads of meals that I froze. I just could not cook, no matter how hard I tried, the universe wouldn't allow it. I always think it's because I excel in some many other ways, I mean, no one can be perfect, there has to be a balance, but I want to have words with whoever runs the universe, as if I practice enough, I should be good at it, fuck the balance of nature and all that. After my run, I went to the home gym in the basement of the Russo's house and began working out.

"You're up early," said Fabricio, walking in.

"Morning Fabricio," I said.

"I really wish you would stop calling me that, especially around other people. You don't want people to know your name in the same way I don't want people to know my name."

"Completely different," I sighed.

"How so?"

"I don't want people to know my name so they cannot track me down, or track my parent's down, who are in witness protection. I can't have people know my name because it means murders cannot be traced back to me so I will not go to jail. You, however, are just embarrassed by your name, I mean you should be, but it is still completely different."

He stood there speechless for a minute or two, before saying, "your parents are in witness protection?"

"Well, they aren't technically 'witnesses', but some pretty bad guys were after my dad, so we just had to."

"Wow," he gave me a slight smile, that sort of felt like he pitied me or something, I don't know I can't tell, "before you start your first day, you need to know the situation. Come to my office."

"My uncle, who is Rico's father, killed my dad when I was twelve. I was set to inherit my dad's title of the boss of bosses, but because I was only 12, it went to my uncle, to go back to me when I turned 18. Of course, a man who kills for power will not just hand it over when the time comes. He spent his days building up his army, and when I turned 18 threatened to kill me, my sister, my brothers and my mother if I tried to take the power off him. He gave me some turf, as a 'kind gesture', but that was all. Since then we have had a turf war, he kills my men, steals my drugs and keeps a limit of my turf, taking from me if he thinks I am growing too much. Giovanni Furfaro is one of his closest friends, who stole all that cocaine from me, and Vivaldo is another close friend. My uncle is called Domenico Pagnotta, ditching the family name as a final stab in the back. From the day he killed my father, Rico has been on my side, which angered Domenico even more, but right now, he is furious about the deaths of Vivaldo and Giovanni, and our raid on his warehouse, the one where we found you... do you understand so far?" I nodded and he continued. "I am now twenty-six, and it is my birthright to be the boss of bosses, not my blood-thirsty, backstabbing uncle who threatens me at every move. One of Domenico's huge imports is that of child smuggling and trafficking, as well as trafficking women. It was Erasmo who stole the children from the head of the Polish mafia under orders by Domenico, and when I found out Erasmo, who was a close friend of my father, was on Domenico's side, I was glad that you had killed him. My men are loyal, and we have made it so there are no moles, but we do have moles in Domenico's organisation, which is one strength. We all have a tattoo on our ring finger," he showed me his tattoo, it was the tiniest three dots, one black, one white, and one red, on the side of the ring finger, so that it was hidden by all the other fingers. "Anyone with this tattoo is safe to talk to, and if you show it, they will know you are safe too, just don't go showing it around and break our cover."

"I want a tattoo," I stated.

"That's all you picked up from that story?"

"I picked up everything you said, but I have no idea what to say to that, so I want a tattoo. I understand what my job is, tattoo time."

"I haven't even told you-"

"Well, it's obvious, strengthen your cyber security, because it is fucking awful, hack into their security, find out what they are doing, kill whoever you tell me to kill and help you claim your birthright, did I miss something?" I asked

"At all times, protect my family, watch out for them, and keep them safe," he replied, "but other than that, you pretty much got everything. You, Sav, are my secret weapon. He would be pissing in his pants out of fear if he knew who was on my side, but this is a secret. Only my close family knows you are the Thorned Rose, everyone else thinks you are just another employee. You deleted the CCTV footage, and everyone who saw your face in person was killed in the raid, no one knows who you are, you are safe from that, for now."

I smiled at him, thanked him for the job, and left.

I already knew I was going to love this job. This isn't just randomly killing random people because I was told to, this is a challenge, a huge challenge that I want to win, and I will not rest until my task is carried out. I looked down at my tattoo, the first one I had ever got, and knew I was now part of the Russo family mafia. I no longer felt bored, I felt... I felt excited.

Their current IT and cybersecurity guy sat in the CCTV office, which was a small room, with many different computer screens that split-screened into the different camera views. There were also two computers, a spinny chair and a hot drinks machine. He often sneaks out to one of the spare bedrooms though and has long naps, probably because he is literally seventy-two years old. He is a small, scrawny man with grey hair and a huge bald patch on the top of his head, with barely any muscle mass, or even fat for that matter, and he toddles around the room. When I asked him about the cybersecurity, he didn't even know what the bloody word meant. I stormed out of the room and into Fabricio's office, he was in the middle of some meeting with some men, but I couldn't care less.

"You want to know why you aren't one of the most feared men in the world? Because you have a relic working as your head of cybersecurity, who doesn't even know what the bloody word means!!" I shouted at him. He stood up immediately, as the men around him chuckled. He looked angry, but his face softened.

"Ah, Sav, meet my capos," Fabricio indicated to the 6 men sitting next to him, "they are all parts of different families, heads of a group of soldiers, that are all loyal to me, not the scumbag Domenico. This is Lazarro, Zaccaria, Dino, Stefan and Eros, of course you already met Rico, and Dimitri, who is my underboss." They all smiled and held out their hands to shake mine.

"Men, this is my new head of cybersecurity, Sav, tell Mr Verga to retire, I will give him a... generous bonus."

"Sav, how did you come to join us?" asked one, I think called Lazarro.

"I just sort of found myself in it accidentally," I smiled, and they chuckled.

"Have you any Italian heritage?" asked one, maybe Dino, or Stefan, Fabricio just pointed in their general direction when introducing me.

"Not that I know of."

"What is your heritage? Last name?" asked the other one of either Stefan or Dino.

"Just Sav is okay, and I am a person of the world. Lovely questions, but I have to go retire a man," I left the room. Like hell was I about to tell them my heritage, and especially not my last name. If I tell them I am from Russia, that narrows it down to the country where I grew up, which can be narrowed down to my parent's location, who exactly I am, what my father was involved in etc, and even more so if I gave my last name, even though my parents have changed their name from Trufanov to Petrova (a common Russian last name, so less likely to be found), I would never take the risk. I went back to the CCTV room, told Mr Verga to retire, which he happily did, thanking me and shaking my hand and kissing me on the cheeks a ridiculous number of times, and I started updating the security.

"Please knock first before coming into my office, it's rude to interrupt," Fabricio spoke sternly to me as he walked into the CCTV room.

"Always the hypocrite," I muttered to him.

"How?"

"This is my office, did you knock? No, you barged in, yet you are telling me off for barging into your office earlier. I'll knock if you do, but you don't, so I won't," he had absolutely no comeback, I won, again.

"You're a little minx, aren't you?" he grunted.

"I've been told that before," I smugly replied, "now please leave, I have had to build this program from scratch, not even with a damn backbone, and it is a lot of work. I better be getting paid a damn lot."

"I really do appreciate this, and once this is finished, take a rest day, and the day after your rest day, we will fly to Poland and kill the head of the Polish mafia. Women and children traffickers are my least favourite people."

"I'll work twice as quickly if that's the prize I get at the end of it." We nodded at eachother and he left.