Salvatore "Il Lupo" Conti, once the most feared mafia boss of 1960s Sicily, lay on a threadbare hospital bed. Tubes snaked from his body, monitors beeped erratically, and a faint smell of antiseptic mingled with the pungent odor of death. He had ruled with an iron fist for decades, his name whispered in the alleys of Palermo, his deeds a legend of brutality and cunning.
But even the fiercest wolves succumb to time.
Cancer. It wasn't a bullet, a knife, or betrayal that claimed him. It was an unseen, unrelenting foe eating him from the inside. He could feel it now, the cold tendrils wrapping around his chest, squeezing tighter with each labored breath. The doctors said it was only a matter of time.
"Don't let them forget," Salvatore rasped, his voice barely audible. His trusted consigliere, Marcello, leaned closer.
"They won't, Don Conti. Your name is eternal."
Salvatore's lips twitched in what could have been a smile or a grimace. He doubted it. Time erases everything—names, legacies, even empires. He had fought to leave a mark on the world, yet now, as darkness encroached, all he could think of was the emptiness awaiting him.
His vision blurred, and a strange warmth overtook him. It wasn't the warmth of the Sicilian sun or the embrace of a lover. It was deeper, almost liquid, pulling him into its depths. His final breath left his lungs, and the beeping of the monitors turned into a steady, mournful tone.
Then silence.
Pain. Sharp, burning pain shot through his body. Salvatore's eyes snapped open, and his first sensation was cold—a biting, unforgiving chill that seeped into his bones. The acrid stench of alcohol and sweat assaulted his senses, and his vision focused on the dim interior of a cramped room. He was on the floor, sprawled on stained linoleum, his hands sticky with blood.
"What the—" His voice was hoarse, unfamiliar. His hands flew to his throat. The voice was rough, guttural, and laced with a foreign accent. He scrambled to his knees, catching sight of his reflection in a cracked mirror propped against the wall.
The face staring back wasn't his. Gone were the sharp, aristocratic features of Salvatore Conti. Instead, he saw a bruised, battered man in his twenties, with a shaved head, a jagged scar running from his temple to his cheek, and eyes that burned with a mix of fury and desperation.
"Who… what is this?" he muttered, his heart pounding. He staggered to his feet, his head spinning with disorientation. His body felt stronger, leaner, but riddled with aches and old injuries.
Memories began to flood in—memories that weren't his.
Viktor Sokolov. That was the name. A small-time thug in a sprawling Moscow neighborhood ruled by gangsters and corruption. A man who lived by fists and knives, scraping by in the chaos of post-Soviet Russia. Salvatore clutched his head as fragments of Viktor's life forced their way into his consciousness: bar fights, prison cells, and a trail of broken lives.
He stumbled toward a desk littered with empty vodka bottles and cigarette butts, his hands shaking. Among the mess was a pistol, a menacing hunk of black steel, and a crumpled wad of rubles. Salvatore—or Viktor—grabbed the pistol instinctively, its weight comforting in his palm. His mind raced. How had this happened? Was this hell? Some purgatory for his sins?
The door burst open. A hulking man with a shaved head and a crooked nose stormed in, a sneer plastered across his face.
"You've got some nerve, Viktor, skipping out on Anatoly's cut," the man growled in Russian.
Salvatore's lips curled into a smirk—a smirk that hadn't graced this new face before. The instincts of a lifetime as a mafia boss surged to the surface. He raised the pistol without hesitation, aiming it at the man's chest.
"You don't know who you're dealing with," Salvatore said, his voice cold and steady. The man hesitated, confusion flickering across his features.
Salvatore didn't give him time to recover. One shot. The thug crumpled to the floor, lifeless. Salvatore exhaled, the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
He stood there, breathing heavily, staring at the body. This was no accident. No coincidence. Somehow, fate—or something darker—had given him a second chance, a new identity, and a new battlefield.
And Salvatore "Il Lupo" Conti wasn't going to waste it.