(//Okay, this is still a draft, but I'm mostly satisfied with it. I'd do something more detailed, but anyone familiar with any of my previous attempts would know that I'd forget about it. You get the summary version so you get the whole story, I'll look into expanding on certain details later.)
Emilio Santini was the only son of Don Cecilio and Esmeralda Santini. While many powerful families have their quirks, the Santinis stand out particularly; the majority of them have had lifelong ailments either physical or mental, and most people avoid dealing with them in person any more often than they have to. Consequently, the Santini fortune has come from unobtrusive matters that don't require their direct constant supervision.
Emilio was fascinated with death at an early age, possibly due to his father being killed when he was only ten years old. He and his mother were kept in a small villa the late Don owned when someone else took over the Santini business, told never to leave or they'd be killed too. Emilio's mother taught him about running a Cardamine plantation, Maltan politics, and the power games played by the Dons, not having much else to do over the next three years, but one part stood out like a beacon in his mind: that his father was killed for power.
This was not anger, though. This was opportunity that Emilio saw. If another Don could kill his father for land and prestige, what stopped him from doing the same? Only the threat of execution. The solution to that problem hit him one evening when he looked out the window at the Cardamine plantation that would soon be his own:
Slaves. None of the guards would know him; even Don Alejandro Ibanez, who had Emilio's father murdered and took over the plantation, had no idea what Emilio looked like. In the middle of the day, Emilio slipped out into the fields, blending in with the other slaves seamlessly. At night, after the slaves filed back to their quarters and the guards went to sleep, he slipped into the mansion; the security code was unchanged from when his father owned the plantation. The night watch was thin, since this plantation was so far from any population centers; their entire purpose was keeping slaves and the Santinis from escaping, and so they rarely left the single gate.
Night after night for almost two weeks, guards were found dead with slit throats or gaping stab wounds, and the young teenager was never caught. Don Ibanez let his guard down, however, when three nights passed without any deaths. Shortly after dinner, he took a walk through the Cardamine fields to observe the workers. Emilio and one of the regularly-abused slaves tackled and murdered Alejandro Ibanez. His body was dragged elsewhere, the tattered remains were found by the night watch when every one of the slaves was asleep... Emilio was home with his mother when the few remaining guards asked if they knew how to run a plantation. No one suspected them, the guards never saw Emilio leave... never saw Emilio at all.
Esmeralda took over running the plantations immediately. Emilio was only 13 when the Santini plantations were reclaimed, too young to understand how to run them yet. He had already learned one very important lesson about them, however - he learned to keep the slaves happy.
Emilio became Don on his 22nd birthday, after running the plantations for five years without incident. Over the next twenty-three years, he took over at least another four small Cardamine plantations and raised two daughters, Tiana and Mia. Now 45, he owns numerous small Cardamine plantations, following the Santini tradition of leaving someone else in charge of day-to-day matters. He also regularly sponsors young Outcasts, and their accomplishments have earned him considerable support among Outcast pirates and smugglers.
He has so far kept his plantations out of the hands and below the notice of the Blue Lotus Syndicate, as they are all small and scattered; few know even half of the true extent of the Santini holdings. Though married, his wife's identity is completely unknown; a hacker purged all records of the wedding, and was likely hired by Emilio to do so.