GHOST OF THE GODFATHER

Darkness. Not ordinary darkness, but absolute nothingness that crushed and suffocated.

Vittorio Valdieri tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as if they had been sealed shut with a sticky substance. His sense of smell reacted first, catching the sharp stench of polymer plastic mixed with the sour odor of dried blood and cold sweat. His lungs rebelled, sending flares of pain to his brain as the oxygen supply dwindled.

''Where am I?''

He tried to move his hands, but his range of motion was limited by elastic, airtight plastic walls. Something cold crept along his back. Ground. He was being dragged. The sound of plastic scraping against the rough forest floor played in a steady rhythm, punctuated by raindrops striking from outside.

“Damn it, this junkie is heavier than he looks. All skin and bones, too,” a deep voice grumbled from beyond the plastic.

“Stop whining, Vargas. Just toss him into the hole and we’re done. I’m soaked,” replied a second voice, colder and more methodical.

Vittorio stiffened. He recognized that tone, the tone of executioners. But something was wrong. The sound felt different in his own ears. The heartbeat pounding in his chest was erratic, too fast, too weak, accompanied by a constant fine tremor. This was not the heart of a man who had ruled a syndicate for five decades.

He tried to take a deep breath, but pain exploded instead. Withdrawal. This body was suffering from severe drug withdrawal.

“Wait,” the voice called Vargas spoke again. Their footsteps stopped. “Did you see the bag move just now?”

“Don’t be stupid. The dose I gave him could kill three horses. Leo Ravelli was dead before his back hit the ground.”

Vittorio froze. Leo Ravelli? Who was that?

His last memory was betrayal in the cigar room. An explosion. The sensation of heat obliterating his flesh. He should have turned to ash in 1974. Yet now, in the darkness of this plastic cocoon, he could feel real blood coursing through him, even if it felt filthy and toxic.

“I’m serious, Kalen. The plastic jerked a second ago,” Vargas insisted.

“That was just muscle spasms. Side effects of fentanyl. Now drag him to the edge of the pit. I’m not wasting a bullet just to make sure a corpse is dead.”

Vittorio closed his eyes, focusing every shred of consciousness he had left. He was Vittorio Valdieri. He had killed men with a house key in under three seconds. He had commanded thousands beneath the shadows of Rome. He would not allow himself to be buried as a nameless addict.

He began fumbling inside the thin jacket pocket worn by this new body. His trembling fingers brushed against something hard and cold in a small pocket near the waist. A small metal object.

A scalpel.

It seemed this “Leo” carried it to cut his drug doses, or perhaps as a failed means of self defense.

“One… two… lift!” Kalen ordered.

Vittorio felt his body being hoisted up. Gravity began to pull him downward. The oxygen inside the bag was almost completely gone. His consciousness blurred, but the predator instinct honed over decades took control. He was no longer an old man betrayed. He was a wraith borrowing flesh to exact revenge.

“Have a nice trip to hell, Leo. Say hello to your useless father for me,” Vargas said with a low laugh.

“You talk too much, Vargas. Drop him,” Kalen snapped.

“Got it, boss. On three. One… two…”

Vittorio clenched the scalpel handle, forcing strength from his last surge of adrenaline. He did not wait for three.

The razor sharp blade ripped through the airtight plastic straight down the center. Cold, damp forest air rushed in instantly, stabbing his lungs like a thousand needles of ice.

“What the hell?!” Vargas screamed, his voice shrill with shock.

The plastic tore fully just as Vittorio’s body slid toward the pit. With a precise snap of his hips, a leverage technique he once used to bring down larger opponents, Vittorio twisted his falling trajectory.

His pale, gaunt hand burst through the torn plastic and clamped onto Vargas’s ankle, the closest to him.

“He’s alive! Kalen, this bastard’s still alive!” Vargas thrashed, trying to break free from a grip that felt like iron pincers.

“Shoot him in the head, idiot!” Kalen shouted as he reached for his gun beneath his raincoat.

Vittorio gave him no chance. With one brutal yank, he used the weight of his falling body to drag Vargas down with him into the shallow grave.

Thud.

They hit the muddy ground. Vargas landed beneath him, serving as a living cushion. Without wasting a second, Vittorio, still half wrapped in the body bag, crawled onto the man’s chest.

“Who… who are you?” Vargas stammered, his eyes bulging as he stared into Leo’s face, now utterly changed. The eyes were no longer dull and hollow from drugs. They were sharp, cold, and radiated ancient, lethal authority.

Vittorio did not answer. He pressed the scalpel against Vargas’s Adam’s apple. “Breathe while you still can,” he whispered, his hoarse voice unfamiliar even to his own ears.

“Vargas! What’s going on down there?” Kalen stood at the edge of the pit, aiming his Glock downward, but lightning flashes and heavy rain obscured his view.

“Don’t shoot! I’m under him!” Vargas screamed hysterically.

Vittorio looked up at Kalen silhouetted against the rim of the pit. His heart thundered from the wrecked chemistry of Leo’s body, yet his mind remained as calm as a winter lake.

“You sent the wrong man to this grave,” Vittorio murmured.

“Leo? What are you talking about?” Kalen lowered his gun slightly, confusion creeping into his voice. “You should’ve died from the overdose, you piece of trash.”

“Leo is dead,” Vittorio said with a grin, a grin no addict had ever worn. “I’m just borrowing his bed.”

Kalen frowned. “You’re delirious from withdrawal. Vargas, get rid of him or I’ll shoot you both!”

Vittorio felt Vargas’s hand twitch as the man tried to reach for the knife at his belt. With speed dictated by years of combat experience, Vittorio pushed the scalpel slightly deeper into the skin of Vargas’s neck, just enough to warn him.

“One more move, and your friend here bleeds out,” Vittorio warned Kalen.

“You think I care about Vargas?” Kalen laughed coldly. “In our organization, failure means elimination. And you, Leo, are a failure that needs to be erased.”

Kalen raised his gun again. The barrel aligned with Vittorio’s forehead.

“Wait! Kalen, don’t! I can explain!” Vargas screamed, begging.

Vittorio knew the man above was not bluffing. He could see the muscles in Kalen’s trigger finger tightening. Leo’s weak body began to shake violently again. Cold sweat mixed with rain flooded his face. His vision blurred.

Damn it, this trash body is slowing me down, Vittorio thought.

“Good night, Leo,” Kalen said flatly.

Just as Kalen squeezed the trigger, lightning struck a massive tree behind them, unleashing a deafening crack. Vittorio used that fraction of a second to roll sideways, dragging Vargas up as a human shield.

The 9mm round slammed into Vargas’s left shoulder. A horrific scream tore through the storm.

“You bastard! You shot me!” Vargas howled.

“Shut up, you liability!” Kalen snapped, re-aiming his weapon.

Vittorio knew he could not win a firefight without a gun. He released the wounded Vargas and began crawling through the mud with near invisible movements, using the darkness and the piles of excavated dirt inside the pit.

“Come out, you little rat!” Kalen circled the rim of the pit, searching for a clear shot. “You’re not escaping this forest!”

Vittorio found a sharp stone the size of his fist at the bottom of the pit. He gripped it, feeling the rough texture give him a shred of certainty. Above him, he saw Kalen’s silhouette moving closer to the shallower side.

“Leo Ravelli, I know you’re scared,” Kalen’s voice came closer. “Come out now and I’ll give you a quick bullet to the head. Better than rotting slowly from infection in that hole.”

Vittorio steadied his breathing. One… two… three.

He hurled the plastic body bag toward the opposite side to create a loud distraction.

Kalen reflexively aimed at the sound and fired two quick shots. Bang. Bang.

That was the opening Vittorio needed.

With the last strength in his legs, he leapt from the darkness on the other side of the pit. He did not attack like a panicked man, but like a leopard that had measured the distance to its prey.

“What—” Kalen realized the deception too late.

Vittorio slammed into Kalen’s leg with his full weight, knocking the man off balance on the slick, muddy edge. Kalen fell backward, his hand still desperately trying to keep hold of the gun.

Vittorio landed on top of him as they rolled across the rain soaked forest floor. With minimal yet brutal motion, Vittorio brought the sharp stone down onto Kalen’s wrist holding the weapon.

Crack.

The sound of breaking bone rang sharp beneath the thunder. The Glock flew free and vanished into the bushes.

“Argh! My hand!” Kalen howled, but Vittorio silenced him immediately by driving a knee into his solar plexus.

Now straddling Kalen, Vittorio stared down at him with a gaze that froze blood. Heavy rain poured over their faces, soaking Leo’s long hair and plastering it across eyes that burned red with irritation and rage.

“Who… what are you really?” Kalen whispered with his last breath, his eyes trembling at the aura emanating from the young man who should have been dead.

Vittorio lifted the scalpel still clutched in his withdrawal shaking fingers. He pressed the blade’s tip against Kalen’s eyelid.

“I am the nightmare you forgot to bury,” Vittorio said in a voice of absolute cold.

In the distance, thunder roared again, but another sound followed. The whirring blades of a helicopter began sweeping across the forest, its searchlight cutting through the treetops. More Black Ops were closing in.

Vittorio glanced toward the light slicing through the canopy. He knew his true escape had only just begun. He was no longer a Don seated in a luxurious leather chair. He was a fugitive in the body of an addict, in a world that had left him behind for half a century.