•FEBRUARY 10, 1970
Venice, alive with the energy of Carnival, masked its darker undercurrents with laughter and music. The streets glowed with the flicker of lamplight and the colors of costumes, but for Verohn Corazon, the celebration was a cruel facade. The weight of her son’s betrayal hung heavy on her, threatening to crush the carefully constructed life she had built over decades.
Her son, Vintamio Corazon, had been arrested the night before. The news had come in a frantic voicemail—a single damning sentence: “I killed Giovenco.” He hadn’t explained why, but she didn’t need to hear more to understand the depth of the tragedy.
•FEBRUARY 14, 1970
The events leading to Vintamio’s confession had unfolded under the cruel watch of Giovanna Ciricillo’s gang. The organization, long at odds with Italy’s Mafia, had fractured into factions. Some of Giovanna’s captains had taken their crews into the streets, engaging in violent acts against Venice’s closeted LGBTQ+ community.
Vintamio, a closeted gay man himself, had fallen prey to their cruelty. Forced into an impossible choice, he had been made to kill his lover, Giovenco Martire, during a Carnival night. The alternative had been his own execution at the hands of the gang. Desperate to save himself, Vintamio had stabbed Giovenco in the shadows of an alley, the laughter and music of Carnival masking the horror of his act.
When he turned himself in, Vintamio pleaded guilty without explaining the duress he had been under. His voicemail to Verohn was his only cry for help.
•FEBRUARY 15, 1970
The morning after her son’s confession, Verohn met with Vintamio in prison. Flanked by his lawyer, she questioned him with calculated precision, her sharp eyes searching his face for answers.
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Why? she signed, her movements deliberate.
“I… I had no choice,” Vintamio whispered, his voice trembling. “They would have killed us both. It was them or…”
Verohn’s heart ached, but she kept her expression cold. The truth was a double-edged sword, one that could cut both her son and the delicate balance of power she maintained as a senator, consigliere, and Vatican ally.
That afternoon, Verohn sought out Giovanna. Now in her sixties, Giovanna was still sharp, her presence commanding even in old age. The two women met in a dimly lit café, their conversation heavy with unspoken history.
Giovanna revealed the truth of the gang’s involvement and the SLIG operative who had orchestrated the murder. The operative, a shot-caller within Giovanna’s fractured organization, had been planting seeds of chaos, pitting factions against each other to weaken the gang from within.
“They used him,” Giovanna said, her voice low but firm. “Your son was their pawn. They forced his hand.”
Verohn’s hands trembled as she signed her response: And what will you do about it?
Giovanna’s lips tightened. “What I can. But know this—if you don’t act, I will. The Vatican, the media, the world—they’ll know what your son is, who he loved, and what the SLIG did.”
Verohn nodded slowly, her mind already calculating her next steps.
•FEBRUARY 17, 1970
Verohn stood before the press, her expression solemn as cameras flashed around her. She publicly outed her son, framing his relationship with Giovenco as a tragic love story and condemning the SLIG for its role in the murder. The move was calculated—by controlling the narrative, Verohn could shield Vintamio from further scrutiny while casting the SLIG as the true villains.
But this public stance came with a price. That night, alone in her grand home, Verohn consulted the relic of her childhood: a humanoid lobster dummy she affectionately called “Mamma.” Kneeling before it, she whispered prayers of rage and grief, her words spilling into the silence like venom.
In her heart, a transformation was brewing. The world had taken her voice, her innocence, and now her son’s future. She would not let it take anything more.
•FEBRUARY 20, 1970
Under the cover of Carnival’s chaos, Verohn donned a grotesque mask of a decayed clown and stepped into the night. Armed with her cane’s hidden blade, she hunted the SLIG operatives responsible for her son’s suffering.
The first was Arturo Moretti, a mid-level officer drunk on power and beer. Verohn followed him into a dark alley, her footsteps silent. When he turned, sneering at her mask, she struck without hesitation. The blade pierced his ribs, and as his body slumped to the ground, she placed a lobster claw in his hand—a silent signature.