#because even fantasy manor lords have to do taxes

[sleeepydraws]

.... just gonna put this here without context...

kthxbi

[thickasthievesrpg-hidden]

WELCOME TO THE HEIST, HAYDEN!

YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF CIRO CAPECCHI

A note from Admin Risa: Welcome back, my love! I’m so glad to have both you and Ciro back. Undoubtedly, you’ll do his role all the justice in the world, and I’m very excited to see you both on the dash again! Congratulations on your acceptance! You’ve been to the museums, the banks, the isolated manors with their black dogs and gilded keys. You’ve stolen their necklaces, their jewels, the prized heirlooms in their vaults and their safes. They’ll watch out for you. Please visit the after acceptance page and submit your account within the next 24 hours – we’re excited to have you with us!

I. INTRODUCTION

Name/Alias + Pronouns:

Hello! Before we jump into my actual application, I just want to extend a sincere thank you for giving me and so many others the opportunity to apply to such an impressive roleplay. No matter what the outcome ends up being, I am genuinely so excited to be applying, and I hope that I’ve been able to convey that in what I’ve written. Of course, that isn’t to say that I’m not a little nervous, because I most definitely am. Eek! Honestly, though, it feels like an honor to be given the chance to even briefly enter the world you’ve created, so I’m immensely grateful to each of you for giving me that. As someone who has administered several groups over the span of her roleplay career (though never on the scale that Thick is Thieves is on), I know how mentally taxing it can be, as well as how much free time it can eat up, so kudos to you for the wonderful job you’ve done, Risa and Taryn (and Ashley, too). With that small bout of praise and gratitude squared away, my name is Hayden, and the pronouns that I use are she/her/hers!

Age:

I’m currently only seventeen years old, but I will be turning eighteen very soon. My birthday falls on June second, and while I’m slightly intimidated by the idea of being a ‘real adult’ in the matter of just a few weeks, I’m also quite excited at the same time and very much looking forward to it. I mean, you only earn the privilege to vote once, don’t you?

Timezone + Activity:

I. BASICS

Desired Role:

Ciro Maurizio Capecchi

Analysis:

sexuality/romantic preference — At just thirteen years old, Ciro Capecchi—burgeoning on adolescence and tiptoeing the line that divides careless childhood and disillusioned juvenility—began to realize that he failed to have much of a preference at all among genders when seeking companionship, physical or otherwise. Perhaps such realization would not have taken so long, but he had never thought to entertain crushes as a child, already too fixated on the blackened underbelly of his precious Palermo to take note of anyone around him in that way. However, the intense rush of hormones that accompanied puberty quickly transformed Ciro’s perspective on the matter, and without a word of warning, he found himself acutely aware of boys and girls alike: how each of them fashioned their hair differently from the others; how midday light caught the slopes of their cheekbones and the sharp curves of their jaws; how their lithe bodies filled out their Armani suits and Dior dresses, and later, after he had grown into himself a bit, how they didn’t; how easily mere glances could suddenly light a flame deep within him; and how, despite his best efforts, he was hopelessly, irrevocably invested in each and every one of them. His tendency toward brief, fleeting bouts of infatuation emerged with the rapid cycling of his crushes, a new one surfacing nearly every other week. The entire experience jilted him to a tremendous degree, particularly once he began to develop unexpected and unwelcome feelings for the very picture of French aristocracy, a boy two years his elder and princely in a way that Ciro felt he could never quite match. In a thinly veiled attempt to either avoid or suppress his crush, he rapidly redirected his attention to Silas Beauregard’s frigid younger sister. Beautiful Xanthe, her golden hair swishing at waist length as she spurned his advances with a girlish giggle and a twinkle in her crystal blue eyes, proved an effective distraction, and their flirtation—or, rather, his dogged pursuit of her—has persisted to this day. While his fixation on Xanthe has not changed, Ciro certainly has, which is perhaps most evident in his acceptance of himself, a development that is largely the responsibility of his mother. When Eleanor’s abrupt departure tore the Capecchi family asunder, his problem of liking boys and girls suddenly seemed trivial at best, and he was rather quick to reassess whether denying half of himself was worth the effort anymore. Seven years later, Ciro is still not officially out as bisexual, having never formally or directly acknowledged it to anyone, but it is an open secret among all five families and the Magpies in particular exactly whose beds he spills drunkenly into after the exorbitant affairs he calls parties.

birthdate — Ciro was born messily and painfully on the edges of winter, just as the crisp autumn of October gave way to the seeping chill of November. His was an ugly birth, one that came in the midst of Francis Villiers’ ascension to Thief Lord, a gruesome delivery that part of him suspects his father would prefer to forget altogether. Were he a religious man, he might think it divine intervention that someone such as him, with a heart so deliberately forged with steel and frost, was brought into the world just as the air of Palermo began to slip into unusually wintry degrees; were he privy to the gory circumstances of his birth, he may find some depraved metaphor somewhere between the deep crimson his mother spilled out onto the cot beneath her and the blood now on his hands, a stain left behind by the wicked things he has done. However, finding himself more attuned to hedonism and intemperance than worship and poetry, he instead chooses to focus the energy that would be expended on that analysis into organizing one of his most lavish parties of the year: a decadent festivity second only to his extravagant Bacchanalia, held in celebration and honor of his birthday, the fifth of November. Upon closer inspection of his birth date, it is quite appropriate that he was born on Guy Fawkes Night, an English holiday commemorating the dissolution of the Gunpowder Plot. From the attempted assassination of King James I to the bonfires lit throughout London following its failure, the entire day screams of Ciro’s fiery, deadly nature, while also paying homage to his absent mother’s homeland. However, forfeiting the historical relevance of his birthday, each winter, Ciro’s party proves to be nothing more than a grandiose, self-indulgent ode to himself, sung to the cacophonous tune of white powder and crackling fireworks and expensive liquor. Guests still willingly attend, though, in spite (or perhaps because) of Ciro’s blatant, unwavering egomania, and he revels in the attention he receives from them. He revels in all of it: the debauchery, the vanity, and everything else that comes with the parties held in his underground den of wonders.

birthplace/hometown — In spite of his persistent habit of cavorting across the globe, back and forth with such swiftness that it is quite remarkable he ever gets any rest at all, Ciro will always consider Palermo, Italy his home. It is where he was brought into the world, choking and bathed in blood, and it is where he intends to die as well, most likely in the same manner. He led a… comfortable childhood in Palermo, doted on by his mother and ignored by his foolhardy father. From early on, he was a brooding boy of melancholy disposition, but lacked the propensity for deliberate cruelty that his elder sister, Alessia, exhibited so thoroughly. If he were asked today, he would not claim that he was a happy youth, per se, but he certainly would not deny that he was taken care of adequately, and in the grand scheme of things, that was more than enough. After all, he was given free reign of the expansive halls of Villa Capecchi, given room to frolic and play and create extensive fantasy realms, ones where the dragon was never slain and the princess was never saved and the kingdoms all eventually fell to ruin. The dragon—a big, angry, foul beast and Ciro’s exclusive territory—would always triumph over the poor knight, blasting through his shining armor with its fiery breath, leaving nothing but ash and scorched silver where a valiant would-be hero once stood. Then, with mechanical predictability, the dragon would take the princess that it had been lording over to yet another dilapidated castle to wait out the next onslaught of knights, armed with nothing but a fierce greed and fire. More often than not, Ciro delegated the roles of knight and princess to Santino and Violetta, respectively; Tommaso and Alessia were always either too old or too busy to make believe with him, and the structure of his play allowed him a certain degree of cruel control over his younger siblings, one that he relished. Although not entirely intentional, his childhood games were told in three mostly unchanged acts: hope, loss, and recovery. If he were just slightly more self-aware, Ciro would perhaps notice a sort of subtle parallel between the cycles he goes through today and the recurrent nature of those long-forgotten games: his unremitting hope to someday ascend to power within either Cosa Nostra or the heist, the feelings of deep loss he experiences when an opportunity to seize that power slips through his clutches, and the gradual recovery of his bearings that occurs when he skulks away to lick his wounds and plot revenge on those he believes have slighted him. In a way, this uncanny resemblance almost makes Ciro appear prophetic, but mostly, it points to a young man doomed to repeat the same stagnant, cyclical pattern of hope, loss, and recovery forever, barring a dramatic shift in behavior. However, so long as his beloved Palermo is still there for him to come home to, his priorities will most likely continue to lie outside of attempting to avoid his own systemic self-destruction. The city is almost like a mother, filling the shoes of the one who abandoned him. It nurses his wounds and coddles his bruised feelings, but instead of doing so with bandages and gentle words, it offers him liquor and women, and he fervently accepts. Palermo may be his home, but he prefers to call it his patria.

occupation — Born to live and bleed and die for Cosa Nostra, Ciro knew from quite a young age that, eventually, he would be formally initiated to the ranks of the Capecchi cosca, Palermo’s faction of the sprawling criminal syndicate that lords over Sicily with powders and pistols and pills. Part of him feared this fate as a child; after all, his position within the mafia was all but carved in stone, an inevitable and unalterable part of his future, and the mere concept of irreversible change easily struck fear into the heart of the young boy. However, as he grew, eventually losing the glimmer of impressionable childhood in his dark eyes, so did his curiosity in and wonderment at the cosca. At just eleven years old, small and stealth, Ciro began to slip past the Capecchi children’s au pairs at opportune moments to follow his elder siblings through the cobblestone streets of Palermo, desperate to catch even a fleeting glimpse of something related to the future waiting for him in the dim alleyways and smoky villas of the city. While sightings of mafiosi in the flesh were few and far between, this behavior persisted for quite some time, until Ciro was eventually caught in the act; as surreptitious as he had been, he had not managed to escape the watchful eye of Vico Capecchi’s soldiers completely. Within the year, the boy was being utilized by the mafia, although sparingly. Sneaking here, stealthing there… it was all just fun and games to Ciro, fantastical tales of swashbuckling and delinquency to relay to Hale Rothschild at their next conclave. However, his natural agility did not negate his youth, and it was eventually agreed that twelve was simply too young to be fully immersed in the dark netherworld of Palermo. With the swiftness of a ship at sea, he was ejected from a society he had only just been introduced to, and he would have been lying if he had said it did not sting. Their attention refocused, neither Vico nor Lorenzo took note of the fire that had been lit within Ciro, the insatiable hunger for more. Still just a child and naïvely enthusiastic about the utter devastation he was capable of bringing, he had already found his greatest lover: the tantalizing thrill of danger. He wanted more. He neededmore. In a cruel twist of fate, he succumbed to the beginning of his long, illustrious affair with crime just as the mafia excluded him from it. Over the next several years, Ciro tried his best to keep up with his father and elder siblings, but his pace always seemed just a step too slow to match theirs. He ached as he watched Tommaso and Alessia move strides ahead of him, each of them with a sturdy hand clapped onto their shoulder, Lorenzo guiding them with what little parental instinct he was able to muster. The game was rigged, and from the very beginning, it appeared as if he was rigged to lose. Eventually, Ciro managed to carve out his own niche within Cosa Nostra, one that reeked of sweat and sex, but his ascension within the mafia resembled a crusade for acceptance more than it did a volley of death. Fighting tooth and nail was what it took, but he did it enthusiastically, with a fervor that went entirely unnoticed by his father. These days, he wields a revolver forged with steel and blood, the weight of it comfortable and familiar in the palm of his hand, and rakes in cash for Cosa Nostra through the sale of various narcotics. The majority of his transactions occur during his infamous soirées, pounding bass serving as background accompaniment to low murmurs and quiet taps of sharp metal against glass. Every euro that he earns is a small reminder that, in spite of his father’s disinterest in his advancement within the cosca, Ciro has managed to make a name for himself, both as a soldier and a socialite, and he has no plans of slowing down any time soon. Still, beneath his inflated sense of accomplishment, there is a lingering, slowly festering bitterness reminding him that while he sits lamely at the bottom of the mafia’s hierarchy, both Tommaso and Alessia—his cherished elder siblings, each of their temporary absences not yet forgotten by their brother—serve as caporegimes beneath Don Herrero.

criminal occupation — Sharp of tongue and quick of wit, it only seems a natural progression of his person that Ciro serve as con man for the heist alongside Alessia. After all, one of his greatest talents, outside of begetting death and inhaling blow, lies in manipulation and untruths. Deception comes so effortlessly to him that, were he not bred for the mafia, he would assume that he was born for guile and theft. He is the antithesis of James Bond, clad in stolen couture and silver-tongued lies—women want him, men want to be him—and he exploits it to its absolute fullest. In short, harnessing his forceful personality for the sake of the heist is easy for Ciro; it always has been, ever since his initial invitation to the underground society of thieves. However, his true power lies in manipulating that charm to add to his sprawling, intercontinental web of connections. Alessia, with her feminine wiles and duplicitous leers, could con the entire crew without breaking a sweat, and there is a part of Ciro that believes every affected simper is but a calculated ruse of his sister’s design. Were he still in his youth, he would almost feel sorry for her, knowing that her precious corpse of a husband was the only one who ever knew the woman beneath the wolf. He has no energy to waste on pitying her, though; he is no longer a child, and his cruel sister’s heart is no longer his concern. Ultimately, the point is that neither Alessia nor the society truly need Ciro to act as a con man, particularly when he is far more adept at acquisitioning useful outsiders to assist in heists. He has contacts on six different continents, all but desolate Antarctica, each with distinct strengths that they bring to the table, but Ciro is all too aware of the risk that comes with involving outsiders in their heists, so no one ever gets the whole story. It is always just a fraction, a small excerpt of whatever plan the Capecchis are concocting, and not a syllable more. He murmurs a cool, collected, “I need your help,” into one of his many cell phones and leaves it at that, because for the most part, it seems his associates have learned better than to go fishing for information. The ones who have not have been swiftly removed from his list, without hesitation or remorse. Separate from his cons and his connections is his presence within the Magpies. Ciro adores the Magpies in spite of finding the Villiers’ bird imagery ridiculously silly and would defend them fiercely if a situation required it. He loves the concept of willfully blurring the lines between the five families just for the sake of feeling like he is part of something special and exclusive, and over time, he has grown to love his feathered comrades as well, but feigns detached aloofness in their presence. Emotional investment is a sign of weakness if he has ever heard of one, and in their world, the weak are shoved aside, forgotten, and excluded. They end up like little Cecily Villiers, in all of her sickly uselessness, and that is the last thing that Ciro will ever allow to happen to him. Even the deepest of loves are not worth obsolescence.

Four Characteristics:

agile [+] — There are a vast number of things that Ciro believes he excels at, but agility was the talent of his that initially forced Vico to take note of him, and that is something that he continues to take a paltry sort of pride in to this day. Just eleven at the time and already so full of lust for the world of malfeasance lying in wait for him, he had been largely ignored by the mafia in favor of his elder brother and sister, and for good reason. Tommaso and Alessia, at their respective ages of twenty and sixteen, were older, wiser, and altogether a more sensible choice for Cosa Nostra. However, Ciro’s ability to sneak surreptitiously through the streets of Palermo, stalking his siblings like a hungry feline in the grasses of the African plains, drew a small fraction of attention away from the pair, enough for the cosca to involve Lorenzo’s third-born in a handful of their simpler maneuvers for a handful of months. He has honed his ability over the years, so he is capable now of stealthing so thoroughly and with such haste that he almost seems to meld with the shadows themselves; this proficiency in nimble movement has aided him during jobs for the heist far, far too many times to count. The fact that he now, fully grown, stands at a diminutive five feet, nine inches tall and weighs little more than one hundred and sixty pounds sopping wet only enhances his natural agility. He would be grateful for his stature if it were not for Tommaso towering several inches over him, even further emphasizing the authority that their father has inculcated him with. It may be nothing more than a simple trick of the light, the way his brother seems to stand at his fullest height while in Ciro’s company, but he still resents him for it.

ambitious [+] — The feeling of hunger, rooted in the pit of his belly, gnawing and insatiable, is one that Ciro has grown quite comfortable with over the years. It has been smoldering within him for as long as he can remember, swelling and bloating him little by little, slowly distorting him into the man that he is today: a grotesque, rapacious version of himself, unrecognizably different from the impressionable child that he was in his quixotic youth. He is driven by an overwhelming greed, a predatory yearning for more, but it is not nourishment that he craves so thoroughly. Ciro hungers for power, for control, but most of all for validation. All that he has ever been is the neglected middle child, forgotten by his father in clear favor of aloof Tommaso and callous Alessia, overlooked in the presence of dovelike Violetta and elegant Santino. The only thing that he has ever wished for is the chance to follow in his father’s footsteps, to prove himself a worthy and capable leader, but he was forced to watch as that opportunity was ripped from his grasp and passed off to Tommaso, who neither desired nor appreciated the privilege that he had robbed his brother of. Despite being jettisoned to the sidelines long ago, Ciro continues to burn with an angry, white-hot hunger. It has cooled somewhat since his youth, not out of choice but of necessity, but his selfish ambition still thrives, and in it lies his motivation to keep pressing forward. Were it not for his drive to rise above his station in the mafia, in the heist, and most importantly, in his father’s eyes, even he is not entirely sure what would spur him on.

belligerent [-] — Violence pulses in Ciro’s veins, and it is obvious to anyone who has ever spent longer than a few minutes in his presence that he absolutely adores the metallic scents that accompany blood and gunpowder. He has recently taken to denying his lineage, but he is entirely incapable of changing how very Capecchi his aggressive tendencies are. Fighting is one of his many vices, but throwing punches and brawling is not the only way that Ciro’s belligerence manifests. While he enjoys showing off his scarred knuckles, he is frequently openly hostile using just his quick wit and his words, particularly with those whom has taken a dislike to. Even when confronted with people that he fears, like his elder sister and Bastian Castillo, he speaks with a pronounced bellicosity on his tongue; against them, he is sometimes even more antagonistic than he would be otherwise, as if his ire is, in some way, a way of coping with his fear, although it is logically warped. Much like his reckless father, Ciro’s immediate response to frustration is to lash out violently, attacking and shattering and breaking things in a fury. It is not the most efficient coping mechanism that he has developed, nor is it the fairest to Villa Capecchi’s maids, but he lacks the will to seek out healthier ones. Until he learns that he cannot destroy everything that angers him, Ciro will maintain his pugnacious and belligerent attitude… but at what cost?

callous [-] — Ciro has never been tactful, and almost as if to justify it, he decided long ago that it simply would not be very aligned with his family’s values for him to be so. He believes that, first and foremost, Capecchis are meant to march into moonlit battles with their guns drawn and at the ready, leaving only the pooling blood of their enemies in their wake, and fortunately, aiming his revolver has never required him to possess any substantial amount of social grace. The belief that he can lack diplomacy so long as he is a capable killer and a capable thief has shaped him as he has grown into a cruel, insensitive young man. He frequently masks this heartlessness, favoring to play the part of a silver-tongued, smooth-talking Lothario—the perfect counterpart to Hale Rothschild—but his true colors often bleed through. Surprisingly enough, his awful flippancy extends even to his closest colleagues and confidantes. Although he cherishes his self-made family, his precious Magpies and his wily thieves, not even they are safe from Ciro’s sharp, caustic words, which is exactly how he prefers it: it keeps the rest of the society at arm’s length, and it keeps anyone from daring to toe any closer. He knows better than anyone that, no matter how severe he’s capable of being, his bite will always be far worse than his bark.

debonair [+] — Ciro has always valued the finer things in life, an appreciation that is never more apparent than in the way he styles himself. Ever attentive to the latest fashion trends, he actively seeks out the finest menswear that money can buy and sinks thousands of euros into it each year; it is one of his few vices that he purposefully avoids obtaining through theft and deceit, though he sometimes cannot resist breaking his own rules. The way he presents himself to his colleagues clearly reflects his dedication to style, and he brazenly allows it to pervade various other aspects of his life as well. For instance, although nine millimeter Glock pistols are standard issue for the mafiosi initiated into the hierarchy of Cosa Nostra, Ciro’s weapon of choice is an antique Smith and Wesson single-action revolver, barrel black as night and inlaid with gleaming golden swirls and flowers. Its grips are mother of pearl and engraved with an insignia he has never quite been able to pin down: an exquisite, scripted R laid beneath a crown. Every now and again, he fondly remembers the jokes that Hale made when he first acquired the gun, flippantly suggesting that his friend had accidentally stumbled across a Rothschild relic. As far as Ciro is aware, the gun dates back to the late nineteenth century, but he could not care less about its origin; what is important to him is that it is within arm’s reach at all times, loaded and ready to sear hot metal into flesh and bone. It is startling, the lack of hesitance that such a handsome, sophisticated young man has to get his hands slick with blood, but he has always operated under the reasoning that one suit stained is simply an excuse to buy another.

dutiful [+] — The duties expected of him, both from his beloved Cosa Nostra and the global network of thieves that he considers his family, are perhaps the only thing in the world that Ciro holds in higher esteem than himself. Contrary to what many of his associates may think of him, his callously juvenile antics—from showing up to important society meetings on the tail ends of cocaine binges to speaking with unfettered filth in his mouth—conceal an earnest respect and passionate ardor for the criminal lifestyle into which he was born, and it is exceptionally rare that Ciro does not pull through when it is required of him to do so. Beneath his mask of red-rimmed eyes and expletive-laden speech, Ciro is dependable almost to a fault, and there is a part of him that wishes he could bear to let Lorenzo down just once. However, he is fueled in part by a rabid desperation to impress his father, and that does a splendid job of preventing from ever truly risking his disappointment. Whether his assignment is to execute a hit for the mafia or pull in one of his many contacts for the heist, he nearly always manages to accomplish it with a swiftness that could quite easily betray his childish behavior as a mere ruse were it not for the haste with which his filthy derision returns.

fastidious [+] — Within the society, the Capecchis are perhaps best recognized by their rash, gunslinging violence, and Ciro has, for the most part, been an avid supporter of such an approach to thievery. They sidle into the joint, murmuring a hotheaded mantra to each other in anticipatory whispers—prendono nessun ostaggi, prendono nessun ostaggi, prendono nessun ostaggi—and eventually leave with their pillage; if they are lucky, and they usually are, they go out in a white-hot blaze of exhilarated gunfire and glory. Ciro adores it, the bloodshed and savagery that comes with the Capecchis’ impulsive frenzy, but there is a part of him that yearns for order. He has an attention to detail that his father seems to lack, a diligence and desire for precision that sometimes seems better suited to the larking Villiers or even the minimalistic Lees. While he is rarely able to exercise it during jobs, Ciro’s meticulous nature oozes freely into his private life. He keeps his personal quarters at Villa Capecchi eerily neat, he is almost obsessive about organizing his extensive wardrobe (first by piece, then by color), and he is extremely particular about the state his numerous luxury vehicles are kept in. The same attention is lavished on each of his parties, as well as Il Coniglio Nero; his guests need only ask, and their every wish is usually taken care of in a matter of minutes, largely thanks to Ciro’s careful planning. In short, no effort is spared in making his life as comfortably precise as it can possibly be.

insecure [-] — Hidden beneath all of Ciro’s bluster and bravado and belligerence lies a profound and entrenched insecurity, one that has been slowly, but surely building ever since his youth. Lacking the natural inclination for introspection required to benefit from thoroughly examining his flaws, he purposely avoids thinking about it too deeply or too often, and consequently, he copes with his revulsion at himself by attempting to drown it in his many vices. Fighting, drugs, gambling, drinking, women… they are all carefully selected distractions, ones that prove surprisingly effective in spite of exactly how extensive his insecurity is. Each of them allow him to funnel the energy that would otherwise be focused on hating himself into something else entirely, something equally self-destructive, but requiring far less contemplation. If he did not make a point to ignore his self-loathing, it may occur to Ciro that the root of it, like so many of his other problems, lies in his father’s apparent prejudice against him. Lorenzo has never had any tangible amount of faith in his son, nor has he ever actively tried to conceal that from him. Unfortunately, a person can only endure that for so long before they begin to lose faith in themselves. Living under Lorenzo’s thumb has warped Ciro’s perception of himself grotesquely, but he does his best to mask that ugly insecurity with an unrepentant, imitated arrogance.

multilingual [+] — As a pensive child with more spare time than he ever knew what to do with, Ciro spent much of it schooling himself on the ins and outs of foreign tongues. He found himself fascinated with how their syllables clashed discordantly with those of his native Italian and even more so with how effortlessly he could manipulate his thick accent to better suit them. At best, his early dedication to multilingualism was borne out of pure childhood boredom; at worst, it was the first subtle sign of festering resentment at the attention that his father lavished on Tommaso, nearly a decade Ciro’s elder and seemingly without flaw. Regardless of the root of his small obsession, he has managed to amass fluency in seven languages over the years, matching his comrade, Evie Villiers. Among them are Italian, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, and German. He learned Portuguese and German during periods of idleness in an attempt to relieve himself of some persistent lethargy, and Spanish was rather easy to grasp due to its innate similarities to Italian, but the other three have served a distinct purpose over the years: to ease communication with the Villiers, Beauregard, and Rozanov families using their respective native languages. He also picked up bits and pieces of broken, conversational Arabic during the time his crew spent in Cairo, but rarely attempts to flaunt it. Barring Arabic, he can speak each with the eloquence and articulation expected of a Capecchi, but favors his mother tongue above the rest.

opinionated [-] — For lack of a better phrase, Ciro sticks to his guns. He is obstinate and unyielding in the worst way, often refusing to change his opinion or course of action in spite of clear, irrefutable evidence that he is in the wrong. The best and most obvious example of this lies in his ceaseless pursuit for acceptance and power: he persistently blames his apparent inability to advance within Cosa Nostra’s hierarchy on his father’s purported prejudice against him, but truthfully, it likely has more to do with Ciro’s intrinsic inability to compromise or concede his argument in favor of a fundamentally better one. Inflexibility and leadership simply do not mix, and when they do, despots reign. He argues and bickers and feuds with whoever will entertain him, frequently just for the sake of doing so. Even in circumstances where the outcome of a dispute has no material importance, Ciro often stubbornly refuses to back down, like a feral dog whose sole instinct is to bite and scratch and snarl in hopes of victory or death in the pursuit of it. In fact, to his memory, the only times that he has voluntarily surrendered to an argument was when it occurred to him that doing so could potentially provide some benefit to him, either immediate or delayed. Otherwise, Ciro only submits when absolutely forced to.

persuasive [+] — Perhaps he was born with a natural command over language steeped into his bones, or perhaps it is a result of nearly two and a half decades’ careful practice, but Ciro possesses a certain charismatic articulation that draws people to him like moths to a glowing flame. He is a silver-tongued devil in every possible sense of the phrase, accoutred in fine suits with names like Valentino and Armani and Givenchy attached to them, coercing left and beguiling right, his victims too enamored of his mesmeric speech and hypnotic gaze to even notice that they have been duped until it is already too late for them. In another world, one where he strayed from the world of malfeasance and crime that he currently thrives in, he may have been a successful attorney or business magnate. Instead, he has focused his natural talent for blandishment elsewhere. This is how he lures hordes of women (and men, too, particularly the overtly boastful ones who think that they are much too clever to be swindled) to his bed and between his sheets. This is how he manipulates and exploits his dynamic personality for the sake of his family (not the one forged by flesh and blood, but rather, the one that he patched together himself using miscreants and thieves). This is how he has managed to survive this long in a game that has been rigged against him from the very start: by wielding his sharp wit and cogent speech like a pair of lethal weapons.

Expansion:

evan alexander — From the moment that he first laid eyes on Evan Alexander, Ciro loathed him. He was not unlike the boys that Ciro had spent his youth with, heirs to fortunes too large to even conceivably imagine, and in truth, he was not unlike Ciro himself, striking and dignified even in the face of overwhelming uncertainty. However, from where he stood, Evan seemed to reek of a particular arrogance, the type exclusive to vile and narcissistic Americans. His charm, which Adelaide Rothschild and Xanthe Beauregard both fell rather quickly to, gleamed with the fakeness of a veneer, a flashy show in the place of substance. Ciro resented him with a fury, and somehow, naïve little Violetta had the audacity to suggest that his hatred was borne out of envy. Wasting no time to entertain that ludicrous idea, fifteen-year-old Ciro retreated to plot against Evan. However, in due time, his scheming proved altogether unnecessary. All it took was an accusation splattered on the front of a sleazy tabloid or seven, and the interloping American heir had ruined himself, no intervention required. Adelaide was heartbroken, Xanthe was suspiciously self-satisfied, and Ciro was disgustingly smug. With little regard for her grief, he spent the next several weeks informing Adelaide of how right he had been about Evan. Whether the moment was appropriate or not, he was eager to say, “I told you so,” and made a show of it each time he did. Years have passed, and Ciro no longer bothers mentioning Evan, particularly in Adelaide’s presence, having decided long ago that he had spoken his piece, but he still harbors a deep, unjustified resentment for him. His only hope is that the Alexander family remains where they are: lurking in the shadows, licking their wounds, out of sight and out of mind.

estela alvarez — There is something deliciously taboo about Ciro’s longtime fling with Estela Alvarez, and in truth, that makes him all the more invested in it. His attention first latched onto her when she was still dancing at Il Coniglio Nero, provocative and supernal in the dim lighting of his beloved club, and her grip on him has been viselike ever since. However, in the initial stages of their affair, Ciro was more enthralled with her lineage than her. Bedding the granddaughter of Alejandro Herrero was (and still is) a thrill for him, because it provided an opportunity for him to retaliate against Lorenzo Capecchi by crawling into the enemy’s bed and sleeping with her. As far as Ciro is aware, his father never found out about his small act of rebellion, but he received a sort of paltry satisfaction out of it anyway, one that eventually morphed into an attraction to the woman herself, pure and untainted. In comparison to Estela, chasing the skirts of unattainable women like Xanthe Beauregard feels like mere child’s play, and he is reluctant to keep up the pretense of those boyish flirtations. He still keeps an assortment of girls on retainer, each of them ready to heed his beck and call, but Estela is the woman that can be found between his sheets most often. Their vibrant personalities have a tendency to clash, but that occasional friction aside, Ciro prizes and spoils and treasures her, and in spite of his hesitance to involve himself in matters of the heart, he feels deeply for her. When their parents were wed, he made repeated attempts to quell those emotions, driven by the knowledge that their fling would forever be second to the marriage, but those efforts appear to have been in vain. Estela is the worst drug that he knows of, irresistible and devastating at once, but like an addict, Ciro cannot seem to keep himself from coming back to her.

silas beauregard — To be frank, Ciro is fairly certain that Silas Beauregard despises him. The sons of two members of Reginald Avery’s original crew, close in age and fiercely competitive, they have a history spanning back to even before their births, one of teasing cruelty between their fathers, and they have managed to continue that legacy, though on a much realer scale. However, their relationship was not always quite so feral, nor was it always composed purely of vitriolic glares and complacent sneers. In fact, he remembers a time when it was distinctly the opposite: at fourteen, imbued with a certain awkwardness in spite of his dignified upbringing, Ciro found himself developing an upsetting, unwanted crush on his his closest friend’s cousin, two years his elder and possessing a divine elegance. While the feelings confirmed the questions that he had been asking himself about his sexual preferences, they made him feel weak, and he was quick to suppress them. As soon as Ciro began to focus his energy on pursuing Silas’ sister, the feelings he had been experiencing for the Beauregard heir seemed to transform overnight, shifting from gnawing attraction to pure resentment. How dare someone make Ciro Capecchi feel weak just by existing in the same space as him? Like a child denied a toy, he realized the indignities that fate had served him, and in that instant, he decided that he loathed Silas Beauregard. From that moment forward, he acted accordingly. However, he does not, in fact, loathe Silas, particularly since his schoolboy crush has dissipated into nothingness over the decade that has passed since it first emerged; he has, at the most, a mild dislike for the man, which actually puts him rather close to the bottom of Ciro’s lengthy list of enemies. The Italianprincipe oscuro, in all of his savage glory, has always had a proclivity for melodrama, and Silas is simply another hapless victim of it.

lorenzo capecchi — Throughout his life, Ciro’s relationship with his father, the foolhardy and reckless Lorenzo Capecchi, has been tumultuous at best and toxic at absolute worst. Something has always seemed to lack, and in spite of his best efforts to earn his father’s approval via flashy displays of diligence, he has never felt visible or appreciated or welcome in the sleazy underbelly of Palermo. For as long as he can remember, Lorenzo has shown a clear and unabashed preference for his two eldest children, and over the years, that ignorance has proved as damaging to Ciro as the world of depravity and sin that he openly glorifies. While the drugs alter his mind and the liquor burns his throat and the women break his heart, the lack of attention that he receives from his father eats at him, gradually degrading all of the parts of him that were once whole and good, twisting and distorting them into something else entirely, something sinful and selfish and rotten; in his youth, he had aspired to grow up in his father’s image, to eventually be identical to him in every sense of the word, but now, as a disenthralled young man, he only wishes to someday be better than Lorenzo. Unconditional love has morphed into a fierce aggression, one that lacks any consideration for boundaries or territorial sentiments. In other words, Ciro’s current objective is to attain anything that his father holds dear, from Cosa Nostra to the heist and everything else in between, and destroy him and the rest of the Capecchis in the process, with little concern for how long it may take him to succeed.

santino capecchi — From the moment that Santino Capecchi was first brought into the world, screaming for air in a way that made his brother’s blood curdle, something within Ciro envied him, a condition both inexplicable and indelible. He was only five years old at the time of Santino’s birth, still enough of a child for the idyllic fairy tales and swashbuckling pirate stories that their mother told to help lull him to sleep, and yet within a matter of just a few weeks, he had succumbed to a preoccupying resentment for his infant brother. Like a leech, Santino clung to their mother and monopolized the attention that had once been lavished on her middle child, and Ciro absolutely loathed him for it, in spite of the fact that his helplessness could not realistically be avoided. As a consequence and a punishment, Santino received the brunt of Ciro’s cruelty as they grew up. He bullied his brother constantly, but learned early on that he would have to be subtle if he wished to get away with it, and so his torment was never overt. Never scrapes and bruises and sobs, but rather, derision and ridicule. His rancor only subsided when Ciro was a teenager, after he took note of their father’s clear preference for and faith in their older brother; incensed by Lorenzo’s ignorance and envious of Tommaso, his anger shifted permanently, and Santino was left unburdened by his brother’s ire. Their relationship cooled, and over time, Ciro grew to care for him in a way that he had assumed impossible for the better part of his life. Despite initial reservations, he eventually came to respect and even admire his brother, and that makes his plans to disintegrate his family all the more painful. He knows that if one of them is deserving of punishment, they all are, but that knowledge does not make ruining his brother any easier on what shreds remain of his conscience. What keeps him steady through his confliction is the quiet reassurance that not even Santino is innocent. After all, he, too, has blood caked into the crevices of his Apollonian hands and lies sleeping beneath his tongue; he, too, has a graveyard of sins and a mouth full of rotting golden teeth, gums blackened and sunken from the sweet decay of opulent vice. Ciro may pity the man, but he will never allow himself to pity the deed that will destroy him.

magnus lee — Growing up an heir to a fortune of inconceivable size is difficult. Although privilege pervades nearly every aspect of his life, there is a persistent, insurmountable despondency that has followed Ciro since birth. His efforts to drown it in booze and drugs and women have never proved successful at anything other than robbing him of his sobriety, and beneath his bravado, his melancholic boredom lingers. In spite of coming from different worlds within the heist, that leads Ciro to suspect that he and Magnus Lee are not entirely unlike each other. The pair have a taciturn friendship, one built on a foundation of parties and poker chips, but there is a parallelism between the two that is difficult to ignore. While Ciro has spent the better part of his life trying desperately to impress his father, Magnus was born with Raphael Lee’s faith already invested in him, and he rejected it. He grew up with the one thing that Ciro has always desired laid on a silver platter and placed in the palm of his hand, but with an impressive disappearing act, he utterly destroyed it. As a consequence, the two now serve as unexpected, but perfect foils to each other: the heir who spurned power and the one who hungers for it. However, their friendship does not revolve around the ways that they mirror each other, but rather, how they can best cheat the other out of their hard-earned money. Ciro is a man of many, many vices, and gambling is just another one of them, but he is often reluctant to submit himself to the presence of the common folk of casinos. In short, they lack the finesse that he values in a gambler, and that is where Magnus enters. Ciro lauds his talent with cards and chips, and he is, by far, his favorite person to wager against. They visit casinos together often, arm in arm, a devilish smile painted on each of their faces, and in return, the Lee progeny frequents the parties held at Il Coniglio Nero. In the entire world, there is nobody that Ciro prefers to lose to than Magnus.

adelaide rothschild — Much like a collector who has amassed a surfeit of wares, Ciro has accrued a handful of women he collectively refers to as his girls. They are sacrosanct playthings to him, past conquests to be kept on retainer for future use, and he spoils each of them recklessly. Belonging to this exclusive clique is a status defined by a steady trickle of fine jewels and couture dresses and pricey foodstuffs. In short, Ciro spares no expense on pampering his women, and in exchange, they heed his calls, a relationship that is eerily comparable to that of courtesan and client. He has never struggled in attaining new girls, but something about his small harem has always seemed to lack, and in a cruel parallel of so many of Adelaide Rothschild and Xanthe Beauregard’s experiences with men, Ciro has spent nearly a decade ignoring the former in favor of pursuing of the latter. Until recent months, the Rothschild heiress had never been extended so much as an invitation to his bed, save for the occasional contemptuous summons; he had never required her presence between his silken sheets because he had instead savored the years of fierce warfare that they had been engaged in since his besotted gaze first fell on Xanthe. Every withering glare, every snide remark and cutting word exchanged between Adelaide and Ciro brought him a repulsive sort of pleasure, and as a result, he quickly developed a reputation for deliberately instigating arguments just for the sake of seeing her getting worked up. In the months after Evan Alexander fled from their world, Adelaide grew ever more acerbic, her words spat out with more vitriol and less elegance than they ever had before, and in return, Ciro grew ever more infatuated with their hostilities. His captivation with her has mounted in recent months, and the rancor between them has as well. However, as much as Ciro adores seeing Adelaide bare her teeth and snarl at him, he also knows that he would much rather watch her bare other parts of herself for his pleasure.

hale rothschild — In the grand scheme of things, Ciro and Hale Rothschild are brothers first and foremost, friends second, and associates third; in other words, he values their fraternity more than he does their friendship and their friendship more than he does their fraud, and he does not foresee that changing in the near future. Ciro respects and cares for the Rothschild progeny with everything in him, and if there is anyone on the face of the Earth that he believes is as capable and intelligent as himself, it is Hale, his sole confidante. It almost amuses him, how they have evolved from childhood games of hide-and-seek and champagne jelly beans to where they are today, but he would not change them for all the money in the world. Hale is a shoulder to lean on, a pillar of strength (though he would never dare admit out loud that he uses him as such), and Ciro is fond of likening them to pairs like Frank and Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Leopold and Loeb—criminal duos from years gone by and the undeserving subjects of Ciro’s reverence—largely because he sees little distinction between them and the great crooks of the past. If anything, he believes that they are better. However, in spite of Ciro’s utter dependence on Hale, something always seems to be lacking, and he has never been able to wholly identify what it is. At first, he suspected that he was perhaps envious of Hale’s Kingfishers, but envy is an old friend of Ciro’s, one that he knows well, and this is a different feeling altogether. While he roisters, Hale idles, and there appears to be nothing that Ciro can say or do to fully rouse his friend to the decadence that he enjoys so thoroughly. They still cavort across the globe together, arm in tuxedoed arm, but there is a part of Ciro that fears their exploits may soon be coming to a grinding halt.

cecily villiers — Cecily Villiers, although young and sickly and useless, is a girl that Ciro finds especially peculiar, and despite writing her off as clumsy and awkward long ago, he finds himself musing on her place within the heist more often than he would like to readily admit. He finds it strange, baffling even, that a child of Francis Villiers, the Thief Lord, lacks the most basic abilities required to thieve and con, and he frequently ponders how such an inherently contradictory situation was ever allowed to occur. As if she were not eclipsed enough by her own father, Cecily appears particularly ineffectual in the shadows cast by her elder siblings, an unfortunate circumstance that Ciro empathizes with in spite of his distaste for the girl. Amid his recurrent contemplation of her struggle, Ciro has, in fact, considered that Cecily’s ineptitude could be excused, were she to shine in even one disciple of delinquency, but he has seen little evidence of her excelling at anything in particular. With no criminal prowess, she becomes a liability, and any insight that Ciro has into her plight is forsaken in favor of protecting his trade. Rather than attempt to relate to Cecily in any substantial way, he instead regularly toys with her, his express purpose embarrassing her. She is far too young to be a legitimate conquest of his, and he is well aware of it, but he has made a habit of flirting with her anyway. To the best of his ability, he keeps his language tame and unassertive, and that alone seems to do the trick of making the flush rise in her cheeks and the stutter emerge in her speech. Out of fear of Francis and respect for Evie, Ciro would never dare to legitimately toe that boundary, but it brings him more than enough satisfaction just to see Cecily grow uncomfortable.

charles villiers — Although he does not possess the discernibly brutish choler of the Capecchis, Charles Villiers shares an insidious guile with Ciro, irreplicable in nature and indicative of their mutual capability for delinquency. In another world, Ciro may have sought out Charles to serve as a mentor or adviser in place of the one that he lacks in Italy; alas, their world has not played out to such a fanciful end. Growing up, Ciro did admire Charles, to a certain extent, though he was an adolescent before he ever saw much of him in the flesh. Between Charles’ voyage to Jamaica, his obligations to his enigma of an uncle, and Ciro’s youth, there was little chance for the two to ever feasibly cross paths, and perhaps for good reason. Even as a child, Ciro was a force of nature, all wide eyes and devilish grins, and a pair of dynamic personalities acting together can end one of two ways: terrific or terrible. Years later, after the little Italian principe had been given ample time to play catch up with the rest of the heist, they met their end not with an explosive spectacle, but an underhanded, tactical move that left Ciro in a catatonia of astonishment and anger. In all truth, Charles most likely did not recruit Artemesia Cipriani into his gang of Daggers with the sole intention of riling Ciro, but it often feels that way. He had laid claim to her first; some part of him may have even loved her (crookedly because crooked was the only way that he knew how), and it all appeared to have been for naught because Charles, aided by his own vicious sister, had swept in and plucked her from his grasp, lacking an ounce of contrition. In another world, Ciro may have looked to Charles as a mentor, but in this one, he looks to him as a rival.

evie villiers — If Ciro is Butch Cassidy and Hale is his Sundance Kid, Evie Villiers is their enigmatic Etta Place, the final puzzle piece required to round out their little trio. There is a delicate refinement to her, an unattainable noblesse and a peculiar elegance, and even Ciro, who claims immunity to such resplendent qualities, often finds himself utterly enthralled by her. She is a force of nature with a powerful charisma steeped in her blood, and he sometimes muses that perhaps if their paths had crossed differently or if he were a different man altogether, he, too, would have fallen in love with the ebullient glow in her dark eyes and the bluster in her speech. Instead, Ciro harbors a deep respect for Evie and the capable thief that she has proven herself to be, one that is entirely platonic in its nature. Were she anybody else, he would have grown envious of her position as leader of the Magpies and accused her of lording over the group in a fashion not dissimilar to the way her father lords over the society as a whole. Forfeiting his envy in favor of friendship, Ciro stands loyally at her side, satisfied for the first time in nearly seven years not to be in charge; she temporarily quiets the power-hungry beast that has taken root in his belly, and there is a part of him is grateful for it. When he is with her, he does not plot or scheme, except to steal, and even then, those subterfuges are ones that they concoct together. On the nights Hale is consumed by his oppressive languor and unable to romp with him, Ciro turns immediately to Evie in the hope that she will fill his shoes, and more often than not, she does. He admires her as a woman and as a thief, and he enjoys her presence, but most of all, Ciro is grateful for Evie. She fills a space in his life that would otherwise be lacking, and if that presence were to disappear, much like the way Etta Place herself vanished from history books, he believes that an lonely, unwelcome hollowness would come over him. If that were to happen, he is not entirely certain what he would do.

II. WRITING

Para Sample(s):

Blinding sunshine glinted off of the exterior walls of Villa Capecchi as the oppressive heat of early August soaked itself into each of the crevices and alcoves of the seaside abode. Massive and threatening, the villa was a sprawling fortress nestled against the precipice of the rocky cliffside, a terracotta façade looming powerfully over the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Heavy midsummer air hung thick and stagnant around the Capecchis’ home, a wet blanket of humidity pooling between skin and cloth, leaving a moist and sticky film on everything that it touched. The sound of waves breaking against the shore echoed from below the villa’s clifftop perch, carrying with it the briny scent of seawater and a cool, forgiving breeze. From within the home resonated its usual bustle: the piercing sound of men barking orders in sharp Italian, the clack of dogs’ claws against glistening marble tile, the low purr of various female voices, the operatic tune carried from the antique record player in Lorenzo Capecchi’s private office. In short, nothing appeared out of place. Silhouetted by an expanse of clear blue and tufts of soft white, the midday sun hung high as it cast its light over the villa and the three bodies laid out within one of its many open courtyards, their bronzed limbs splayed lazily across cushioned chaises.

In the soft haze of early afternoon, idling in the sunshine, the trio—a girl of no older than fourteen or fifteen and her two male companions, each of the three’s complexions sun-kissed and glowing—evoked the image of the ancient Roman pantheon. Their resemblance was evident at a mere glance; the smooth curves of their lithe bodies, their languid movement, the golden luster gently glistening atop their tans, and the self-possessed way in which they drawled to each other all spoke of an ancient divinity, one that could only be discovered buried beneath the rubble and ruin of the temples of yesteryear. Conversation among the three was not frequent, mostly because their basking lent itself more to a comfortable silence than idle chatter, but when they did speak with each other, they did so with a confidence that flowed freely from between their teeth and suspended itself tangible in the open air. Lacking a reasonable explanation for their rampant arrogance and alluring beauty, they had turned to the divine, and as they lounged beneath the sun, even they seemed aware of their holiness.

The girl, impeccably poised with locks of dark hair intricately plaited so as to keep it away from her face, could have been Minerva herself, the patron goddess of wisdom and symbol of strategic warfare. She spoke with tender conviction and a prepossessing wit, carried herself with an elegant impertinence, and radiated authority; both of her companions appeared to be utterly enamored of her presence. On her far right was a young Apollo, the patron god of the sun, all long limbs with an absent smile twisted onto his pink mouth, hands folded beneath his head and kaleidoscopic eyes slid shut. There was something inherently boyish about his disposition, from the crossing of his bony ankles to the slight tilt of his strong chin, and this youthfulness only appeared to build the longer that the three lounged there. After some time, his sprightly demeanor seemed to cause a gentle glow to emanate from where he lay, a soft sheen not unlike the radiance of the sun. He was a child of sunshine basking in his own brilliance, a bright and shining beacon stretched out comfortably in the center of a courtyard of Villa Capecchi, effortless and enticing all at once.

Laid between them was the third of their group: a withdrawn and pensive young man, mouth pressed into a firm line and one dainty hand curled around a crystal snifter. It was filled with some unidentifiable liquor, tawny in color, that he had been absently sipping for several hours. He was just a few months shy of eighteen, but the hard angles of his face and the severity of his expression did not betray his youth; his demeanor spoke instead of a grotesque, acquisitive opulence and a sophistication attainable only after a number of years living with the taste of silver in one’s mouth. In the soft light cast by the afternoon sun, the boy appeared serious and contemplative, a stark contrast against his languid and relaxed companions, although he shared their bronzed complexion and divine composure. Just beneath the surface of his handsome, chiseled exterior hid a darkness, barely restrained, lurking insidiously in the turbid gold and muddy green of his whiskey-colored eyes; it was only the most obvious sign of the recklessness inherent to his person, the foolhardiness that, when unleashed, was capable of wreaking havoc. This boy was Mars, patron god of war and destruction, violence pulsing white-hot and angry in his bloodstream, anger bubbling tempestuously beneath surface, his gaze fixed on something in the distance that neither Minerva nor Apollo could perceive.

Eventually, he spoke, and the illusion was shattered. Their holiness crumbled to dust, to dirt, to ash, all in an instant, and it became obvious that the trio were sunbathing adolescents, not the Roman deities of years passed.

“You know, Hale, when I invited you to spend the summer with me, there was a part of me that thought you wouldn’t come,” he murmured, his words warped by a thick and unmistakable accent. The English language came effortlessly to Ciro, his mouth curving around the syllables of the foreign tongue with ease, but he had never quite managed to eliminate the Italian timbre from his speech, and his companions suffered for it. Time dragged forward slowly, the quiet of the courtyard thick and weighty, as if he were making a careful decision on what to say next; after a long moment of sun-drenched silence slipped by, he finally continued: “After all, why laze away the days with Evangeline and I when you could be off chasing the skirts of Parisian women?”

Hale laughed then, a dry chuckle coated in derision, and shifted lazily onto his side, eyes sliding open in search of his friend. His shirt, an expensive white button-down that he had matched that morning to a pair of cuffed khaki shorts, crumpled beneath him as he moved, leaving creases and lines where the fabric had previously been smooth, but the crinkling went unnoticed by the trio. After all, none of them had ever been the type to cry over spilled milk (or, in this case, wrinkled linen). Once his eyesight had adjusted to the sudden wash of bright sunlight, it took just a moment for Hale’s gaze to find Ciro’s, glowing hazel locking with deep chestnut in an instant. In spite of his disparagement, his mouth was still curled upwards, his gleaming white teeth still exposed in a boyish grin. His look was one of disgruntlement, but happiness. The moment that his smile faltered and his expression was replaced with one of furrowed brows and skepticism, that changed.

With an intense exasperation, Ciro said, “Oh, don’t look at me like that.” There was an indistinct lilt to his voice, a slight twinge of barely suppressed laughter, and although his firm line of a mouth did not betray his amusement, the playful glint in his eyes did. From his chaise, he could see an identical bout of laughter threaten to burst from Hale’s lips, but he, too, was just able to curb it; its only outward manifestation was a slight smile, toying at the corners of his mouth, and a soft, throaty snort. Contrary to how it may have appeared, this kind of mischievous back and forth was not at all unfamiliar to the boys. The vast majority of their time together was spent teasing each other relentlessly and quelling girlish giggles, and over their many years of friendship, they had learned to drop any pretense of maturity or sophistication when in the presence of each other.

“Like what, Ciro?” Hale asked after a long moment. The cadence of his voice rose and fell rhythmically as he murmured his friend’s name in a gentle singsong, and that, coupled with his furrowed brows, conveyed a look of innocent questioning across his features. To anyone else, his skepticism may have appeared genuine, but his friend—more accurately, his brother—was not just anyone.

“Like how you’re looking at me, stronzo,” Ciro said, peering through Hale’s transparent attempt at incredulity with ease. As he spoke, his eyes rolled in a blatant act of snide dismission and then slid shut. Sprawling lazily across the chaise, he took a long drink from his snifter and drained it in the process, apparently ready to return to sunbathing. However, the swiftness with which their companion—who had previously been mentioned as Evangeline, but preferred Evie—raised her head and looked at Ciro, an accosting gleam in her dark eyes, indicated that the meaning of his insult had not been lost on her. Although he was unable to see it, there was a small fragment of her expression that spoke of a gentle disappointment. For the most part, though, the subtle quirk of her strong eyebrows and the small but quizzical smile on her mouth suggested some sort of challenge.

Her gaze still fixed intently on Ciro, Evie clucked her tongue chidingly and said, “Don’t tell me you kiss your mother with that mouth.”

Without a beat, he responded, “No, cara, of course not.” His brows pulled together as if he were confused or even offended by her accusations, but his eyes remained closed, the orange light from the sun dancing gently behind them. Ciro’s vision remained obstructed as Evie relaxed, the fabricated tension in her face quickly dissipating as a giggle began to bubble up from within her chest. However, her laugh, undoubtedly accompanied by some clever quip, was cut abruptly short when he added, almost as an afterthought, “Just yours.”

Neither Hale nor Evie were able to get a word in edgewise before a familiar voice sounded from the shaded portico behind them, gruff and accented and altogether unwelcome in their brief moment of youthful tomfoolery. Although the trio’s reaction was initially delayed, each of them hesitating to glance back and acknowledge their intruder, it was immediately apparent that the voice was that of Bastian Castillo, one of Lorenzo’s many companions and advisors, standing with his pair of ugly dogs in a stream of radiant sunlight that was partially obstructed by the thick stone column on his right. When Ciro did crane his neck back to look at him, he was somewhat surprised to see that the man, who was midway through his thirties and stood as if his body were naturally sloped to the left, appeared even wearier than usual. It was obvious even from where the three teenagers lounged that some kind of stress had taken hold of him, robbing him of the fire that normally lay dormant, but flickering in the deepest hues of his eyes.

Clearing his throat, loud and brusque, Bastian said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but your father asked that I collect you.” His gaze lay intent on Ciro and Ciro alone; Hale and Evie seemed to register as insignificant presences, barely there and of little importance.

Ever an antagonistic little spitfire, Ciro’s only reply was to roll his eyes once more, turn away from the portico, and say, “I actually believe that that would be the very definition of interrupting.” Without waiting for Bastian to respond, he resumed his conversation with his friends, the beginning of a squabble on the horizon. However, their chat did not get far, because within a few seconds, the young Capecchi felt the hard tug of a hand on the scruff of his neck, weathered and scarred fingers hooking themselves on the linen collar wrapped loosely around his throat. The only warning of Bastian’s approach had been the dull clack of his shoes against the stone tiles of the courtyard, a sound that had been ignored entirely by the trio in favor of quarreling with each other.

Bastian’s voice was quiet, its bite barely audible above the distant crash of waves against the cliffside, but lacked any semblance of gentleness when he said, “I think you misunderstood me, Ciro. That wasn’t a request.” The silence that fell over the group then lay thick and heavy like molasses, a burden that seemed to choke each adolescent with an insidious dismay. While they remained enveloped in the soft glow of the midday sun and the briny scent of seawater, the tone of the courtyard had shifted considerably. It felt abruptly serious, like something had gone horribly wrong, something that the three of them had not yet been deemed important enough to know about. Now that Bastian had closed in on them, Ciro could see the worry smoldering in his eyes and the tension embedded in the lines of his face. That kind of pronounced upset was rare in a man like Bastian Castillo. He was not the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, much less his anxiety, and so with every second that ticked by, Ciro could feel a sinister apprehension begin to build within the cavity of his chest, creeping up his throat and threatening to spill out of him like the ugliest kind of vomit.

Mustering as much nonchalance as he was able to, Ciro rose, brushed traces of invisible dirt off of his salmon-colored shorts, and muttered, “He had better make it quick.” With that, he followed Bastian through the massive villa to his father’s office; when they arrived, the room was dark and eerily quiet, the record player cold and silent, and Lorenzo sat behind his heavy, gleaming mahogany desk with a cigar to his lips and his fist clenched tightly around something that Ciro could not quite make out. Seated in the two tufted leather chairs before the desk were his two younger siblings, beautiful Violetta and handsome Santino, confused expressions twisted onto each of their faces. The moment that he opened his mouth to question the situation laid out in front of him, his father unfurled his fist so that he could raise his hand and silence him; out of it tumbled a crushed piece of paper, its writing warped and illegible from where Ciro stood in the doorway.

Unbeknownst to Ciro, he was in the calm before the storm. His life had splintered and fallen apart without his knowledge, and his father had already begun to deal with the fallout, but he was just on the verge of discovering the true extent of the upset that he had perceived. Unfair as it was, he had already experienced his last moments of truly happy, truly vulnerable youth; in time, he would come to yearn for it again, but the death of his childhood was quickly approaching. Ciro had thought that Bastian was leading him to just another meeting with his father, but in truth, he had been led to his own execution, one decreed by a note written in his mother’s hand.

Starter Example:

Idling between two of the trees lining the front terrace of the magnificent Chescote Manor, a cigarette smoldering between his lips, Ciro could not help but observe how brightly the stars seemed to glow in the wide expanse of midnight blanketing the English countryside. That is not to say that they did not shine in Palermo, pricking the night sky with their soft light, but here, the atmosphere was distinctly different. The stars of Ciro’s home illuminated the sea beneath them, lighting up the Mediterranean coast with luster and effulgence, but in Berkshire, the heart of the Villiers’ domain, theirnest, surrounded by the ambience of antique aristocracy, the stars seemed to glitter like diamonds.

He took a long drag off of his cigarette and, after a moment, exhaled a stream of smoke into the night. There was a metaphor lost somewhere in his thoughts that Ciro wasn’t quite sober enough to decode, and like the wisps of gray slowly fading into pungent nothing, he let it go. He had stumbled drunkenly out to the grounds of the manor in hopes of finding a moment of peace and quiet in the midst of the Villiers’ New Year Ball, and his cigarette and his place between the trees had provided him that. However, the familiar sound of footfalls approaching the grand entrance to the manor indicated that his solitude would quickly be coming to a close.

When the interloper came into full view, Ciro was not able to fully suppress a chuckle. In his drunken state, he lacked the prudence to withhold any unnecessary remarks, and without even announcing his presence, he stepped forward and asked, “You really decided to wear that? For this?”

III. FREESTYLE/EXTRA

Headcanons:

pets — A handful of years ago, Ciro decided to adopt a pair of purebred Ragdoll cats from a newborn litter of kitten with little to no warning provided for his family. Part of him had been longing for a companion with a semblance of permanence in his life for a while, but he stubbornly refused to accept the attention of a man or woman outside of his many sordid affairs, preferring transience and solitude to the risk of vulnerability that comes with monogamy. Instead, he sought his companionship in a pet, and, through an unexpected twist of fate, ended up with two: a red female and a solid black male. In a clear nod to the ancient Roman pantheon, he gave them the names Bellona and Bacchus, the former the goddess of war and the latter the god of intoxication. His cats’ namesakes reflect his aptitude for violence and dissatisfaction with sobriety well and, at the same time, serve as a subtle homage to Italy, his precious patria. Bellona, with her orange-tinged fur, is largely independent, lounging lazily on chaises around Villa Capecchi and almost always rebuffing Ciro’s attempts at affection. She eagerly sinks her teeth into the flesh of strangers and is quick to pick fights with Bastian Castillo’s massive guard dogs, and Ciro adores her for that, but he is not able to stave off the envy that bubbles up within him when Bellona voluntarily approaches his friends (generally Hale or Evie), imbued with far more warmth than he ever receives from her. On the other hand, Bacchus is obsessed with Ciro, clinging to and following him constantly, desperate for the affection that Bellona rejects. His purr deafens, and at times, his clinginess gets tiresome, but Ciro treasures his large ball of black fluff. In fact, just over three years have passed since the cats’ adoption, and he dotes on and spoils them like it is still just their first day as Capecchis. From collars encrusted with diamonds to luxurious beds threaded in gold, no expense is spared on his gattini, and he would not have it any other way. Much to the amusement of his many colleagues, it seems as though the singular soft spot of the mafia’s principe oscurois one of fluff and fur.

religious affiliation — The Capecchis—the devils of Palermo, swathed in obsidian silk and permanently reeking of false divinity and unrepentant arrogance—have never been welcome guests in the Lord’s house. They hail from the motherland of Catholicism and claim proud Italian heritage, but lack any substantial footing in the faith whose tenets run so deeply into the essence of their beloved country. Lorenzo Capecchi has always fancied himself holy, and that belief alone appears to have prevented any of his gaggle of children from pursuing religious enlightenment, his third-born in particular. However, that is not to say that Ciro has led a life entirely devoid of worship. In his infancy, he was baptized into the Catholic church at the Palermo Cathedral, the dark hair lining his scalp sprinkled with holy water as dead kings lay entombed around him. The ceremony was held out of tradition rather than any real allegiance to Catholicism, as was his Confirmation, and he cannot recollect a moment in his life that he has spent within that cathedral outside of the two rites. There were times in his youth, though few and far between, when Ciro sought out confessionals in misguided attempts to cleanse himself of lingering guilt over actions and feelings that he had not entirely come to terms with, but the cathedral never served him in that purpose; he was always careful to pursue his penance elsewhere. However, in spite of all of this, Ciro would never attempt to lay claim to Catholicism. From his perspective, he is not Catholic, because, like his father before him, he is both blasphemous and arrogant, and he clings like a vice to the idea that he is holy.

weaponry — In addition to his beloved revolver, Ciro has a rather wide assortment of other weapons that he wields on a regular basis, ranging from his own marred knuckles to sharp blades kept hidden in discreet leather sheathes. For the most part, he favors his revolver; there is a certain thrill that comes with firing a gun that he believes simply cannot be replicated, and even after all this time, he still gets that rush. However, guns are often impractical, and even mulish Ciro is capable of admitting that. They can be far too obvious and far too loud, and as technological advances emerge in blatant attempts to keep pace with modern criminals, far too traceable. This dilemma sometimes forces the young principe oscuro to resort to blades: a much messier weapon, one that requires a degree of otherwise unwarranted personal contact with whoever is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of his blows. In spite of his preference for firearms, Ciro frequently keeps a pair of knives—antiquities, like his revolver, and exquisite in their design—concealed in wrist sheathes, hidden away from prying eyes, while his gun stays beneath his jacket in a leather shoulder holster. The purpose the blades serve most often is not the one they are intended for, but a rather unsavory one instead: to cut sharp lines of cocaine in the intimate back rooms of Il Coniglio Nero while lithe, glittering bodies drape themselves on velvet chaises around Ciro. Meanwhile, his fists tell an entirely different story. While he considers himself above the grimy barbarism of Cosa Nostra’s underground fighting rings, he still enjoys the feeling of skin splitting and bone splintering beneath his bloodied knuckles and frequently seeks out brawls, most often when he has been otherwise incensed by some immutable force. Ciro’s fighting is treated like a hobby, something to be done by bored youths under mutual consent by the laze of afternoon or the lull of late evening, and as such, he fights without the savagery that the rings’ fighters have adapted to. His punches lack real force, and he secretly fears what would happen to him if he were forced to brawl for his life. Beneath that fear, Ciro has a wolf’s heart, and like all other children of the moon, he, too, has grown accustomed to the taste of blood in his mouth.

Mock Blog:

I’ve been reblogging and posting things onto a mock blog for the past few weeks in an attempt to both inspire myself and showcase parts of Ciro that I felt I couldn’t effectively convey through writing. There are well over a hundred posts on the blog, so I entirely understand if neither of you are able to go through all of it. In the interest of time, here is a tag of posts that I’ve made. It’s rather short and primarily things like questionnaires and character development surveys.

Playlist:

This is sort of a playlist. I say ‘sort of’ because it just doesn’t really have much of a structure. Normally, when I make playlists, I try my best to stick to fewer than twenty songs and dedicate a couple of hours to ensuring that they flow, but that simply wasn’t happening with Ciro. I couldn’t stick to just one genre, nor could I limit myself to fewer than twenty songs, so instead, I ended up making a gigantic song dump. I pretty much went through my entire Spotify library (and then some), added every single song with lyrics that reminded me of him, regardless of whether or not they flowed with each other, and I ended up with this mess. Some songs are more on the serious side, but there are a lot of fun, silly ones, too, which I think is a nice break from his intensity. Again, I totally understand if you don’t have the time to listen to all it!