The Vindication of Marcus Narvaez

[jammi]

A fan rotated slowly overhead, blowing curls of smoke into spiralling patterns. A solitary figure reclined on a throne of wood, watching the door. A momentary amber coal lit his face, before the deep sigh of exhalation welcomed back the darkness. Ernest Narvaez was the patriarch of Narvas comune, and a number of the comunes surrounding it. His elder brother David Narvaez was Don of his cartel, hereditary Sindaco of Firenze and administrator of the Narvaez provincia - one of the richest plantation areas on Malta. Upon the surrender or acquisition of the Surel and Medichi famiglias, he would own most of Tuscany. This was fortunate for Ernest. Don David's sole heir and bastard son had recently perished at the hands of a Bounty Hunter in California.

Many whispered that the 'Hunter had known exactly where to find young Michael Alvarez, and had been waiting in advance. Don David sent raiders to extract revenge and assuage his grief, but of the assassin, no trace was ever found. Ernest purposefully paid no heed to such stories - all he knew was that he was now the primary inheritor of the Narvaez cartel and set to ascend to the state of Patriarch the moment Don David departed this mortal plain. With any luck, that would not be long. In the mean time, Ernest had contrived to protect himself and his immediate family from any would-be social climbers. This had been done by means both nefarious and cunning. He had also destroyed his expenditure logs. Thoroughly.

His thoughts invariably strayed to his son, Marcus. At the age of 21, Marcus presented Ernest with a painful paradox. As his first born son, there was nothing more beloved to him in the sector. Conversely, he was also the most likely to have motive and success in sliding a knife between his father's ribs, due to his place as Ernest's own prime inheritor. Ernest highly doubted Marcus would entertain such thoughts under his own initiative, but a sufficiently wily woman could probably persuade him to take action. Women had always been Marcus' Achilles heel. Fortunately, Don David also knew this, among a great number of Marcus' other vices. Deeply troubled by the softness of his nephew and unwilling to entrust the cartel's distant future to him, he had vowed to take immediate action.

Somewhat against his will, Marcus had been drafted into a raider wing, the then obscure and little-heard of 75th Mosquitos. Politically, it had been a shrewd choice. Close enough to the military to be seemly, but far enough away from the 101st to tweak the pride of his rivals. Isolated enough from the hierarchy of the famiglia to avoid in-fighting and assassination, but small enough to be easily manipulated by the Don if required. A good fit, if a risky one. The Mosquitos were deployed to flashpoints throughout Sirius on two week rotations, after which they returned home. Marcus had just finished his first tour, raiding the turbulent markets of Liberty. Interested in his son's progress, he had ordered a meeting; an evaluation. His brother would want news.

There was a knock at the door.

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