Author’s Note: Oh wow, I’m finally putting something up on here! And I might have another story in the works... but I don’t think quite yet. Enjoy!

Mafia Ghost: Chapter One

Alright, I’ll admit that I’d always been able to see ghosts. Usually they’d come find me, tell me the problems they’d left behind when they’d died, and they would just sort of fade away while they were talking. There wasn’t usually that much that I had to do.

And having that special ability - and expectation - I was always a very good listener. Most of my friends could confirm this from personal experience.

Nevertheless, the whole ghost thing never got in my way, really. Just a few minutes out of my life almost ever day wasn’t much to cry over. And I was used to it. So I just went about my life as usual, and I seemed like any normal person, going to school, having friends, everything.

That was up until the day Lucio Alessandro Salvatore showed up.

Everything had been going perfectly normal. The previous night I’d watched an old grandmother disappear off into the Unknown as she told me about all her 21 grandchildren. It was one of those touching ones that made the whole ghost thing seem like it was better to have it than to not. You know, that give you that warm feeling inside as you come to the understanding that they’ve made peace with their lives.

Then the next day was peaceful, which I was grateful for, because, well, I had a chem test the next day and had to study.

And while I was trying to get a good night’s sleep so I’d be ready for that test, I suddenly found myself waking up. I had that strange feeling that someone was staring at me. I blinked a little, then sat up and looked around. When my eyes fell on the window seat next to my bed, I saw a boy around my own age sitting there, staring straight at me. He was pretty transparent, and glowing a little, which was how I knew instantly that he was another ghost.

“Hello, Gemma,” he said.

“Hello,” I said, sitting up even more to see what time it was. I looked at the clock and seriously hoped I had vision problems when I saw 4:08am. “Who are you?”

“Lucio,” he said simply, as if he shouldn’t be expected to say anymore.

I watched him for a second, to see if he was considering maybe how to explain how he’d died, or why he was sitting in my bedroom staring at me an hour and a half before I had to get up. “Why are you sitting in my bedroom?” I asked, hoping to break ground.

“You think I have somewhere better to go? It’s not like anyone else can see me. I’m not going to sit there for hours watching my family go about their lives without me.” I noticed a twinge of an Italian-from-New-Jersey accent. The kind you think is only in mafia movies.

“Are you going to tell me your story now?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then do you mind if I go back to sleep?”

“Not at all, be my guest,” he said, as if there were no need for me to ask.

I, however, knew I would never be able to sleep knowing he was sitting there, not even trying to cross over or whatever. Not to mention it’s hard to sleep when someone else is in the room with you and they have nothing better to do than stare at you.

I figured I should humor Lucio anyways, though. I didn’t want him to think I was angry at him for being there, especially since it wasn’t really his choice. But I did just get up a few minutes later.

“Up so soon?” he asked.

“I know from experience that sleeping with a ghost in your bedroom isn’t all that easy. But it’s not like this hasn’t happened before.”

“Though usually your ghost pals come visit at a somewhat more convenient time, right?”

“Well, yeah, but whatever. I’ll be getting up in an hour anyways. Getting up earlier when I’m already awake won’t kill me, I’d think.”

“No, you wouldn’t think it would,” he said, giving me an odd, thoughtful look. I grabbed my clothes, then walked to my bathroom, where I got ready for the oncoming school day.

“So you don’t want to talk about anything?” I asked Lucio as I killed time until I had to leave for the bus. “There’s nothing on your mind?”

“No, not really.”

“Alright....” I was pretty stuck. I’d never had a ghost that had nothing to say. Most saw me as a post-life therapist, and I just turned out to be patient enough for the job. “When did you die?”

“A few days ago.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

So he was two years older than I was. “Were you a senior in high school?”

“Yeah, I was going to your school.”

“You were?” This was more coming from me wondering at how he knew who I was. “I guess I never saw you.... Sorry about that.”

“Can’t expect the sophomores to know all the seniors, can you?”

“Guess not.” He was right. My class was almost painfully reclusive. Most of the upperclassmen were pretty nice to us, but you saw way fewer inter-class friendships in our class than with others. I wasn’t sure quite why that was, but it was just one of those things that happen, I guess. “But wait. If you died a few days ago, how come they haven’t mentioned anything?” When a girl had died when I was in middle school, it was announced shortly afterwards.

“You want me to say what will make you feel better, or tell you the truth?”

“The truth would be nice.”

“I really died just a few hours before I showed up here. No one has any idea.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

He didn’t answer at first. He sat there staring at the floor.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It would help you if you knew,” he said, but still did not elaborate.

“How would that help me?”

“Because then you’d know who to watch out for.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, trying to figure out what happened through what he was saying.

“I was murdered.”

I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth. Why would someone murder a seventeen-year-old boy in the prime, or at least near it, of his life?

“You see, in our town, there’s a crazy battle going on... it’s just underground, sort of.”

“You mean....” I tried to find what he meant, but it wouldn’t come to me.

“Organized crime.”

“Mafia?”

He nodded slowly. “My dad was in a mafia. Not a Boss, and not in the family line to be the Boss, but he was very close with our Boss, and very much a Made Man.”

“And you were expected to just follow him into that?” I’ll admit, it was off track, but I knew how that sort of thing went.

“Well, yeah, he was my father.”

“But you’re only seventeen!”

“Well I wouldn’t get involved at all until I was older.”

“So you let your father’s life make the choices for your future before you graduate?”

“It’s just a traditional thing, alright? It’s really not that hard to believe. Every single person in the mafia was once a seventeen-year-old kid aspiring to follow in their father’s footsteps. It’s about honor, and dignity, and not shaming your family.”

I’d never thought of it like that. Not the whole honor bit, but that at one point, all those men that killed, lied, conned, cheated, stole, and womanized on a daily basis were once in Lucio’s position. Expected to do something, and willing to do it.

“So another family killed you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“But you said your dad isn’t the Boss. Why would they want to kill you?”

“Yeah, my dad’s not the Boss, but he’s really tight with him. It’s been said time and time again that if the Boss’s son were to die, my dad would take over. They’re like brothers. And it’s not the mafia way to go straight to your target. You drop warnings that you’re coming for them.”

“How is that supposed to help?”

“Because the Bosses know that if they were to die, everything would come crashing down around them. They have to stay alive, for the sake of everyone. So when they realize that someone wants to kill them, they start offering things. Valuable buildings and businesses. That’s what a lot of these wars are about. Territory. Ugly things happen, but it’s part of life.”

“So you’re saying that it doesn’t really matter that you got killed, because it’s part of a mafia life?”

“Well, it actually is, but since I wasn’t part of the mafia yet, it is a little unfair, I suppose.”

“A little? They ended your life before you got a real chance to live it! That’s probably what’s holding you back here on earth. How are you supposed to be expected to cross over when you pretty much missed life completely, and you don’t even know it?”

“I don’t think that’s quite why I’m still here.”

“Then why are you?”

“Well, my dad’s an angry man. So when he finds out his son got killed by an enemy mafia, this entire city will need to be on lock down. You think killing a seventeen-year-old is bad, just wait. Once a real war gets started, I don’t think they’d think twice about killing babies.”

Author’s Note: Alas, I have finally posting something on here! Hope you liked this, another chapter should be up sometime soonish. Thanks for reading!