Archive of Our Own ^beta

Joseph Morelli married the love of his life on the 2nd of August, 1959. It had been a brisk Milanese day, and when they kissed he could have sworn that the sky fell down around them. When they kissed it felt like his sins melted away, and left only the man.

It was salvation.

Joseph Morelli lost the love of his life in a skiing accident on the 16th of January, 1965.

That’s really all there was to say.

——

Ice Pick Joe wasn’t born in Naples. Frankly, the South was too hot for his tastes, and had it not been for Ambrosini he wouldn’t have ever thrown his hat in with the gangs of Naples to begin with.

They were too omnipresent, too ingrained in the city. There was no business— no person— in Naples free of their influence. He was a killer, sure, but even he had his limits.

Joe was from farther north; Milan. He missed it on days like this, days when the heat settled on the city like a rolling fog. Days when it felt like he sweated whole buckets in a matter of hours.

But here he was anyway. Bouncing for a new club Ambrosini was working on; apparently a new family was sinking their hooks into Naples and Mario wanted on their good side.

Joe knew how this fucking went. A little ass kissing here, a threat or two there. If shit got real, he’d do a deed and hide the body and stand behind Ambrosini like a spectre of death. They’d charm the new family, and then when that family inevitability went down, they’d cut their losses and do it all over again.

Such was the life, or whatever.

Joe just wished Mario hadn’t gotten it in his head to base his operations in Naples. Christ; the city was a stereotype for how much it stank of corruption. No one family had ever ruled Naples, and there lay Mario’s genius, Joe supposed. He never tried to be at the top; he just greased the wheels. Indispensable for whoever was in charge.

And now Ambrosini was convinced that the new family was the start of a new and lucrative opportunity. He’d even pulled Joe aside in a bar a few weeks previous and espoused the strengths of the upstart family coming into power; how the head was as shrewd as he was rich, how his wife was sex on legs. Joe wasn’t convinced, but Ambrosini didn’t pay him to be convinced.

He crossed his arms and looked out over the club. Patrons were dancing to the music, completely unaware that they amounted to human meat shields should shit go south in negotiations tonight.

A knock came at the door, and Joe flipped the viewing latch. “Yes?”

A stern man was looking back at him. He had dark hair, eyes, and a trimmed mustache. He was also clearly packing heat. Joe’s eyes narrowed.

A different man cleared his throat. “Goncharov party. We are here to meet with signore Ambrosini.”

Joe felt himself stiffen at the way the man spoke. What the fuck?

He buried his curiosity and opened the door. He wasn’t paid to wonder why a bunch of fucking Russians were parlaying in Naples. Not his circus, not his monkeys.

“He’s expecting you. The club lounge is in the back, take the stairs down,” he instructed as the party passed by him. He got a polite nod from the scary looking guy leading the group, and then they were gone.

Joe watched as they left, and frowned.

——

The first person Joseph Morelli ever killed, he killed when he was seventeen.

A John was trying something with his mother, so he took a gun and shot him right though the head.

Most people would have recoiled after such an act, but not Joe. No, Joe leaned into the gun smoke.

He never went back.

——

There was a girl who frequented the club, and that wouldn’t have meant a damn thing to Joe if not for the fact that she was hiding something. Dark brown hair, eyes as sharp as knives: the whole nine yards. He had no proof that she was anything other than a frequent patron, but there was something in the way she moved that made his skin crawl.

He’d killed men on hunches less intense before, but when he asked to get it done, Mario wouldn’t hear it. Said that the girl paid to be there so she had a right to; said she was connected to the family somehow.

“The Family.” Right.

The Goncharovs. A pack of wolves, is what they were. Joe had no fucking clue as to why a family of Russian mobsters would set their sights on Naples, Italy, but he didn’t want to. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with those sleazy fucks, but Ambrosini was dead set on an alliance.

Joe wasn’t fucking happy about it.

And then one day, the girl came up and spoke to him.

“You know, I’ve been warned by some people here to avoid you. They say you’re a killer,” she opened, Florentine accent thick.

Joe raised an eyebrow. “Then why don’t you take their advice, girl?”

“Sofia.”

“I didn’t ask.”

She raised a manicured brow at him and smirked. “Alright. You won’t play games, I see that.”

He just stared at her, and eventually she gave up on him replying and continued.

“Look. I’m new around here. I offered some advice to a Goncharov capo a few months ago, but I don’t know them, not really. I just want a good sense of the scene and I’ve been watching you,” she studied him carefully, “you’re someone who understands the game. The players.”

Joe looked away first, excusing the action in his head as a necessary part of his job. He scanned the crowd with a grim expression.

“I know the game, sure. Been on the block a long time. That don’t mean I’m willing to share with a girl packing heat under her skirts.”

Sofia jumped at that, and then smoothed out her face and watched him cautiously. “How did you know that?”

He rolled his eyes and looked at her. “Lady, I can spot a revolver at a hundred paces. Only reason I’m not taking it off you is that my boss has taken a shine to you.”

She frowned. “Signore Ambrosini?”

“The same.”

“I was not aware that I had caught his interest.”

Joe didn’t believe that for a single goddamn second.

He sighed. “You came here for my perspective, do you really want it?” he changed the subject.

Sofia nodded.

“Get out of here,” he said gruffly, “get out of this fucking life. Before it’s not up to you no more.”

Sofia didn’t respond, and Joe cast a wary eye over to her face. It was doing something… complicated. Something he couldn’t fully piece together.

“I think I’m already stuck,” she murmured, “I haven’t had a choice in this for a long time.”

That statement made him pause, and Joe turned to fully look at her. Sofia’s hands were clenched at her sides, and for the first time Joe saw the callouses on those fingers. Saw the light scuffs in her shoes and smelled the cheapness of her perfume.

He blinked and recoiled, analyzing her fully. Sofia looked the part of an heiress, but despite his careful observations of her character over the last month or so, he had missed several critical elements.

She wasn’t pulling the strings.

No, her strings were being pulled.

“Get out of here, girl,” he told her carefully, “you seem like the sort who holds as many cards as she can,” he looked away again, “so play them.”

Sofia nodded at him, and swept out of the club, her heels clicking on the cold stones outside. They didn’t speak another word, and he didn’t see her around the club anymore.

——

Ice Pick Joe got his name not from killing someone with an ice pick, but from stabbing himself with one.

It happened on the 18th of January, 1965. Two days after the worst day of his life; two days he spent unconscious.

When he woke up, he was in a medical area on a moving train. Everything hurt, and no one would tell him what happened. He didn’t even know to ask about his beloved, no, that came later.

It wasn’t until that night— that dreaded fucking night— when he heard whispers outside of the dining car. When he heard how they found him.

How they found—

He had been chipping off some ice for himself when they described first him, and then—

Joseph Morelli stabbed the pick clean through his own palm. It was still hard to control every finger on that hand to this day.

What else is there even to say?

——

Valery Michailov was the most terrifying man Joe had ever met.

Not like Sofia; Sofia was dangerous and hiding something, but she wasn’t scary. She couldn’t be trusted— fuck no— but Joe was certain he could ice her if ordered.

He wasn’t so certain about Michailov.

The man didn’t just move like a predator, he moved like a killer. He moved like he had something to prove, like he knew the world was out to get him so he’d get the world first.

And that sister of his…

Shit. Joe really fucking wished that Mario had taken his damn advice. They could have been back at Joe’s place in Milan eating ossobuco and watching the sun set right now.

Instead, they were embroiled in the petty politics of a Russian crime family who didn’t give a shit about them. Deadly petty politics.

Mario wasn’t… he wasn’t coming to his senses, but he seemed more aware these days of exactly what that meant. Hopefully.

“You’re the one they call ‘Ice Pick Joe’, da?”

Joe clenched his fist and looked up from the coffee he was trying to enjoy. The very man he wished not to see had taken up the empty seat across from him at the cafe, a calculating look in his eyes and a charismatic smile on his face.

“Who’s asking?”

“Come now, signore Ice Pick. Lets not pretend.”

Joe sat back in his seat. “Michailov. What do you want? I don’t work for your fucking family.”

Michailov smiled. “But you do, don’t you? As long as you work for Mario Ambrosini, you work for me.”

Yeah, no. That wasn’t how that worked at all. But who was Joe to correct his assumption?

“What do you want?”

Michailov grabbed a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and passed it over. “This is a list of names. Goncharov wants you to ‘pick’ them, Ice Pick.”

Joe snatched the list out of his hand and quickly scanned it. The names of a few low level politicians and a couple people he didn’t know were scribbled on it. Only one stood out; one that Joe knew was a close ally of Ambrosini.

He didn’t know what Michailov’s game was, but he didn’t intend to find out.

“I kill on Ambrosini’s orders only. You want someone iced? Take it up with him.”

Michailov narrowed his eyes. “Denying me this denies the boss his orders. Is that a line you wish to cross?”

“He ain’t my boss!” Joe threw up his hands, “far as I’m concerned, none of this shit is my business.”

Bile rose in his throat and Joe stood up. He slapped down a set of coins. “Good day, Michailov.”

“It’s Valery, please.”

Yeah. No.

Joe left, but couldn’t help but feel the prickle of eyes on him long after he walked away.

——

The thing about killing is that once you do enough of it, something in your brain snaps.

That’s how Joe Morelli would describe it, anyway.

For him, it wasn’t the violence or the killing that was upsetting. It was the blood.

And it wasn’t some—

He wasn’t tortured by some antiquated idea of drowning in the blood of his victims, or blood staining some part of his soul. Frankly he didn’t give a fuck about that.

What he gave a fuck about was the goddamn mess!

If he was going to fuck up his clothes with blood no matter what, then he saw absolutely no point in looking boring. He tried for years to look inconspicuous, and it wasn’t worth it. People were going to stare no matter what, so he might as well give them something to stare at.

Ice Pick Joe’s calling card wasn’t just the ice. The bright coat was also a dead giveaway.

Ha.

‘Dead’.

——

So maybe Joe was trying to convince Ambrosini that treason was the right answer.

In fairness, is it really treason if you never swear loyalty to someone? Not in Joe Morelli’s book.

The problem was that Mario Ambrosini was no Joe Morelli. Mario Ambrosini fashioned himself to be a man of integrity and honor. It was a level of cognitive dissonance Joe could hardly fathom (considering the man was literally a gangster!), but usually that was no problem between them.

The issue was that it was a problem now.

Joe didn’t consider himself a good man. He hadn’t been a good man since that godforsaken day in the Alps, but he was a loyal man.

He knew he’d one day die for Ambrosini, even if Mario wasn’t aware of it himself. The man was a shrewd negotiator and he kept his group alive across the shifting Napoli mob situation, but he wasn’t—

He wasn’t naïve. He wasn’t. But he didn’t always understand how much Joe did behind the scenes to keep him safe.

Joe was a creature bathed in violence, and it would be in violence that his life would eventually be taken. Everyone knew it, Joe most of all.

And Joe also knew that the Goncharovs were bad fucking news. They were playing Mario, using his contacts and his knowhow while locking him out of the room where decisions were made.

If the increasing demands from Valery weren’t proof enough, Goncharov’s right hand was. Andrey Daddano had something seriously wrong with him, and beyond that he had a clear bone to pick with Ambrosini.

Joe wouldn’t fucking stand for it.

Mario told him to back off and let him handle the business, but Mario was sucked into the web. He was blinded by that Katya woman; by Goncharov himself. He wasn’t treating negotiations the same way he would any other family, and their whole gang was being dragged in as a result.

Joe was loyal.

That didn’t mean that Joe followed every order his boss gave him.

If Mario Ambrosini wouldn’t cut ties voluntarily, then Joe was going to have to force his hand. He was going to have to do something obscene; something that would anger the Goncharovs beyond all compare.

He wasn’t happy about it, fuck no. But dammit… Sometimes a man had to start a war to save a friend.

He had been a weapon his whole life, what was one more war?

So he talked with Mario’s men, and they hatched a plan. They were going to have to kill a Goncharov man: someone high enough up the ladder that Mario wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of it.

So Andrey Daddano had to die.

——

Ice Pick Joe got his name as a joke. A cruel joke, but a joke nonetheless.

So could anyone really blame him when he fulfilled the prophecy that came of the name? Could he really be blamed for making his calling card his weapon of choice?

On the 25th of July, 1971, Ice Pick Joe and a select group of high ranking Ambrosini men cornered, beat the shit out of, and stabbed Andrey Daddano.

Joe used his famous ice pick and took the man’s eye.

The men then left Daddano there to die in a back alley, the ice pick still in his skull. It was supposed to be clean and easy. It was supposed to be a message.

When interrogated later by Ambrosini himself, Ice Pick Joe confessed that the assault was done in Ambrosini’s name for his own protection.

Ambrosini almost offed Joe that night, and maybe it would have been better if he had.

But Ambrosini had known Joe when he was still Joseph Morelli— and despite what Joe assumed— he knew how stained Joe’s hands were for him.

He kept the man on; still as his right hand. But it was never the same again.

Daddano survived, against all odds.

The Goncharovs retaliated the next day; burning down the printing press Ambrosini owned.

It was war.

——

Joe encountered Sofia again at the train station. She was looking at a pocket watch with a nervous expression on her face.

“What’s that look for?” he opened, approaching her.

Sofia’s back stiffened and she put the watch away. “My train. It’s late.”

He looked at her, and then at the train times. 13:20 arrival.

It was 13:29.

“Are you in a hurry somewhere?”

Sofia glanced at him with hooded brown eyes. “I’m taking your advice. I’m leaving.”

A pang of something echoed through him. “Good.”

She looked uncomfortable. “Why are you here?”

“Picking up a friend of Ambrosini’s. His train arrives here at 13:40.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

The conversation petered off, leaving an awkward silence. Joe looked straight ahead at the tracks.

“Why did you stab Andrey Daddano?” Sofia broke the silence.

He turned his eyes to her. “Better the blood be on my hands than on Mario’s.”

She raised an eyebrow at the use of Ambrosini’s given name, but didn’t comment. He liked that about her, she didn’t snoop beyond the expected amount.

Sofia started again. “Ambrosini was working for the Goncharovs. Daddano is one of their top men. It just doesn’t make sense.”

He was quiet at that.

Then, he swallowed and turned to her. “Someone I loved was decapitated by a tree branch. Avalanche in the Alps brought down the whole goddamn forest.”

Sofia’s eyes were wide. She clearly didn’t expect him to talk, let alone spill any of this.

Frankly, Joe was just as shocked. His mouth kept moving though, and he was committed now.

“I was in the accident too; not a scratch on me. The cold almost killed me, but I made it out,” his eyelids dropped and his fists clenched.

“No one gave a fuck. Not one single shit. I overheard a couple schmucks laugh about it, even. The absurdity of it all. No one cared but Mario Ambrosini.”

Sofia’s face turned to one of understanding.

“He was there for me when no one else was, and I’ll be there for him till they put me in the ground. Even when he can’t see past his own nose, I’m there. The Goncharovs are bad fucking news, so I cut the ties. I’ll always protect Mario, even when he hates me for it.”

Sofia looked away contemplatively. “This is what you meant.”

Joe looked up. “Excuse me?”

She gestured vaguely. “At the club. When you said your life wasn’t yours ‘no more’. You meant that you were Ambrosini’s.”

He shrugged and lit up a cigarette. “That’s one way to put it,” he admitted, “take some more advice, girl: stay away from all this; and that includes the people.”

Sofia grinned lightly. “I have no problems there,” she confessed, “I don’t intend to ever get attached.”

Joe nodded and exhaled. “Good.”

She was lying, even if she didn’t know it. Joe’d been around long enough to know a girl like that wouldn’t be able to live alone forever. She was going to want something— someone— eventually, and he could only pray that who she wanted wouldn’t ruin her.

He didn’t have high hopes.

——

It hurt that conversation with Mario was stilted now.

It was strange; the paradoxical feeling of trust and assumed deceit that Mario treated him with. Like he knew Joe would always have his back, but didn’t think he could trust him with his plans.

It was nothing Joe didn’t deserve, but it was still painful.

It felt like losing someone; but instead of a quick tragedy where there was no chance to say anything— when saying something wasn’t even something you thought to consider— it was slow. It was the decay of it all. The unrelenting sense that something was dying and couldn’t be saved.

But Joe would die with it, he knew that. There was no life without Ambrosini, not anymore.

If there was one upside, it was that Ambrosini was taking the Goncharov threat seriously now. Begrudgingly, but seriously.

One thing about Mario Ambrosini: he took the cards he was dealt and he played them well. He finally listened to Joe when he explained that Goncharov was slowly having his men killed, that he was erasing his influence behind his back.

Mario retaliated in kind once the revelations came through, and some parody of the Cold War began to play out in Naples: the Russians and the Italians. Everyone had to pick a side, and it wasn’t as lopsided as a feud in Naples, Italy should have been.

It was a goddamn joke, and not a funny one.

Mario had never fronted a family like this, and part of Joe couldn’t forgive himself for pulling Mario deeper into something he had always carefully navigated before.

Mario Ambrosini was a middle man. He got rich by ass kissing and brown nosing. He could be cold when he needed to, and was no stranger to kill orders, but he was never the centerpiece. He was never supposed to be a centerpiece, and Joe forced that on him.

He kind of felt like shit for that.

But he didn’t regret it.

He just wished Mario would talk to him like he used too.

——

Katya Michailov was a ruthless woman. She was as gorgeous as advertised, and ten times as deadly. Joe knew a killer when he saw one, and she may never have pulled a trigger but there were dead men in her wake.

She would ruin the people close to her, someday.

Maybe she already had.

Joe kept his distance.

——

It all had to go to shit eventually, and dear god when it did it fucked up everybody.

At least Joe was in his favorite jacket when some dumb fuck got a lucky stab on his shoulder.

That man wouldn’t get lucky again.

A lot of men wouldn’t get lucky again.

——

Oh god.

Mario.

——

Ice Pick Joe would eventually die on the steps of the Cattedrale di San Gennaro, his body laid out on the steps where he would take his last breaths.

He would die drowning on a dry night, his own blood choking him from within, the multiple gunshots across his body passing through an artery near his lungs.

It was a fitting way to go out; the villain who started it all laying wasted in his own sin. Joe had no complaints, really.

He didn’t understand the ins and outs of the complex web of bullshit Goncharov had become caught in, and he was glad for it. He was just a weapon in the end, Ambrosini’s sword when the man was out of bullets.

Mario was alive, that’s what mattered.

Not even Goncharov was low enough to murder a man praying in a church.

If there was one thing he wished, it was that it hadn’t been that bastard Valery Michailov who shot him. That shit was embarrassing.

Joseph Morelli drew his last breath at midnight precisely; the clock tower ringing out as the light faded behind his eyes.

——

Six minutes later, after Michailov had fled the scene and Ambrosini had been dragged by priests he bought out into the church, a brunette woman in an expensive set of heels approached the body.

She was said to have bent down to examine Morelli, but her face was reported as being eerily blank during that examination.

Onlookers say she pulled something out of his hand; a watch with an image inside it. They say she looked at it for a long moment before carefully moving it to his coat pocket.

She then closed his eyes. Mumbled a quick prayer for mercy and salvation, and then walked away.

The body was still on the steps.