The first shot was a whisper. The second, a silent death. By the age of nine, Antonio was no longer just a prodigy; he was a phantom, an extension of the firearm in his hands. His training with Vito had progressed from the technical to the almost supernatural. He had mastered the art of the long shot, but Capone demanded more. A sniper's greatest weapon wasn't just his rifle; it was his mind, his patience, and his absolute anonymity.
One day, Vito led Antonio to a bustling port town, a hive of activity where pirates, merchants, and sailors mingled in a chaotic tapestry of sound and smell. The target was a high-ranking officer of the local Marines, a man known for his brutal efficiency in capturing pirates. He was to be a message to the World Government—a message from Capone Bege.
"Your job," Vito said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, "is to kill him without anyone knowing we were here."
Antonio, wearing clothes that made him blend in with the local children, nodded silently. This wasn't a training exercise; this was his first mission. A real kill. His heart, which he had so painstakingly learned to control, thrummed with a nervous energy he couldn't entirely suppress. He was a scientist, not a killer, yet here he was, about to end a life for a man he didn't respect. He suppressed the thought. Survival, he reminded himself, was the only objective.
He chose his position with the detached logic of an architect. He found a high vantage point in a bell tower overlooking the town square, a place where he could see everything but remain unseen. He spent hours observing the square, mapping out the Marine's patrol route, the predictable rhythm of his guards, the way the wind shifted off the harbor. The world was a complex equation, and he was solving for X, where X was the precise moment the bullet would leave the barrel.
The Marine officer, a burly man with a thick mustache and a confident swagger, arrived on schedule. Antonio's hands, though small, were steady as he assembled his rifle, a custom-made firearm that Vito had been saving for this day. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, its cold steel and polished wood a testament to its lethal purpose.
He took a deep breath, his eye pressed against the scope. The world narrowed to a single, cross-hair-marked circle. He found his target, a man's face, his expression arrogant and self-assured. Antonio remembered Vito's lessons: control his breathing, anticipate the wind, and trust the numbers. His mind, the same mind that had once mapped the trajectories of comets, now charted the path of a bullet. He saw the shot before he even took it.
He squeezed the trigger.
The shot was so quiet in the vastness of the square that no one heard it. The Marine officer, in the middle of a sentence, simply dropped to the ground, a small, dark hole blossoming in the center of his forehead. Chaos erupted. Shouts, screams, and the frantic scramble of the Marine guards filled the air. Antonio, a ghost in the bell tower, watched it all unfold with a strange detachment. He was a physicist who had just proven a theory with a very practical, and very lethal, result.
He dismantled his rifle with practiced ease, packed it away, and slipped out of the bell tower, melting into the crowd. No one gave the small, quiet boy a second glance. He was just another face in the sea of humanity, a testament to Vito's lessons. By the time he reached the rendezvous point, the port town was in a state of lockdown. The local news was already reporting on the "untraceable assassination" of a Marine officer, a story that would send shivers through the ranks of the World Government.
Vito was waiting for him. He said nothing, simply looked at Antonio with a new kind of intensity. It was the look of a master who had seen his student surpass him. It was a cold, unspoken approval that meant more than any words. Antonio, the man who was once a boy, had just taken his first step into the abyss, and to his surprise, he didn't feel a thing. He was a professional. A ghost. A killer. He was Capone's son now, in every sense of the word.
The success of his first mission solidified Antonio's place within the Capone Family. He was no longer just the Captain's "son"; he was a valuable asset, a weapon in their arsenal. Capone, a man who measured worth in results, began to double down on Antonio's training, but with a new twist. He wanted Antonio to be more than just a sniper. He wanted him to be a tactical mastermind.
"A smart man with a gun is a king," Capone said one night, his voice a low rumble as he smoked a cigar in his study. "But a smart man with a mind… he's an emperor."
Antonio, now eleven years old, listened intently. The past two years had been a constant barrage of training, from marksmanship to close-quarters combat. He was lean, quick, and his eyes, though still young, held a chilling maturity that belied his age.
Capone's new curriculum was all about strategy. He had Vito teach Antonio not just how to kill a target, but how to plan a mission from start to finish. Antonio was now a student of logistics and intelligence. He was taught how to read a map of a town and pinpoint key locations, from escape routes to sniper nests. He learned to analyze a target's habits, their weaknesses, and their alliances. He spent hours in the family's "war room," a large chamber filled with maps, blueprints, and intelligence reports. He would sit for hours, poring over the data, piecing together the movements of rival gangs and Marine patrols.
Antonio's old physicist's mind was in its element. He began to see the world as a series of probabilities, a massive equation with thousands of variables. A raid on a rival gang's hideout wasn't a chaotic brawl; it was a carefully choreographed dance of forces. Antonio would lay out the plans, drawing lines of fire, marking potential enemy positions, and calculating the most efficient path for the hit crew. His plans were so meticulous and so devastatingly effective that even the most battle-hardened mobsters were left speechless.
But Capone also insisted on a different kind of training. He wanted his "son" to be a man of culture, a gentleman who could navigate the highest echelons of society. He hired new tutors, and Antonio's days were filled with lessons in etiquette, history, and economics. He learned to speak multiple languages, his mind easily adapting to the new grammar and vocabulary. He learned to play the piano, the complex chords and melodies a refreshing break from the cold, hard logic of his other life. He was a killer who could discuss the history of the West Blue or the economic flow of a bustling port town with the same quiet authority.
His new lifestyle was a bizarre contradiction. By day, he was a well-mannered young man, a prodigy of intellect and art. By night, he was a silent predator, a ghost who slipped into the shadows to plan or execute missions. He was both a scholar and an assassin, a scientist and a strategist.
One evening, while reading a book on the history of the West Blue, Capone walked into his study. He saw Antonio, a small figure hunched over a large tome, completely absorbed. He smiled, a rare, paternal expression on his scarred face.
"What are you reading, son?" Capone asked.
Antonio didn't flinch. He simply marked his page and looked up. "The rise and fall of the Kingdom of Goa, Captain. A fascinating study in the psychology of rebellion and the futility of brute force."
Capone chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound that shook his chest. "Brute force is all you need, kid, if you know where to apply it."
Antonio simply nodded. He knew that for all of Capone's power, there was an even greater power in the world—a power of numbers, of strategy, and of knowing your enemy better than they knew themselves. He was learning to wield that power, and he knew that when the time came, when Capone's biological son, Pez, entered the picture, it would be his only hope of survival. He was building his own kingdom, one bullet, and one book, at a time.