CHAPTER 1: The Making of a Prince

The St. Maria's Orphanage stood like a prison against the Roman skyline, its Grey walls holding the stories of countless abandoned children. The building itself was a relic of another century, with narrow windows that let in too little light and thick stone walls that trapped the cold dampness of winter and the stifling heat of summer. For twelve-year-old Damien, it had been a hell he'd endured for as long as he could remember.

Dawn had barely broken over the city when the day's torment began, predictable as the rising sun itself.

"Get up, you worthless brat!" Sister Agnes's voice cut through his dreams like a knife, accompanied by the sharp yank of his thin blanket being torn away. Her face loomed over him, jowls quivering with perpetual disapproval. "The floors won't scrub themselves, and the Lord doesn't smile upon the lazy."

Damien bit back the retort that sprang to his lips – that if the Lord was watching this place, He had a strange way of showing it. Experience had taught him that clever words earned extra beatings, and today he couldn't afford to miss breakfast, meager as it would be. Another day of scrubbing floors, fighting for scraps, and trying to protect the younger kids from the older ones who had learned cruelty from their circumstances awaited him.

But Damien wasn't like the others. Where they broke, he hardened. Where they cried, he plotted. Every beating, every missed meal, every cold night spent huddled under thin blankets – all fed a fire inside him that refused to die. He had learned early that survival required more than just endurance; it required calculation, patience, and the willingness to seize the opportunity when it presented itself.

Watery porridge for breakfast, morning prayers where Sister Agnes watched for the slightest fidget to punish, then chores until their hands were raw and their knees bruised from the hard stone floors. The other children moved through the day with downcast eyes and slumped shoulders, broken to the rhythm of their confined existence.

Not Damien. His eyes caught everything – the loose brick in the garden wall, the moment when Sister Agnes slipped the orphanage's donation money into her personal Bible, the way the kitchen door hinges could be lifted to prevent them from squeaking. Each observation was filed away, and each weakness was noted for future use.

The day he finally ran away wasn't planned. It came after he watched Sister Agnes beat a six-year-old girl for spilling her bowl of soup. The child's crime had been having hands too small to properly grip the oversized bowl, and her punishment was swift and disproportionate. As the girl's sobs echoed through the dining hall, something in Damien snapped. A line had been crossed, a decision crystallized in his mind with sudden clarity.

That night, after lights out, he moved with purpose. He waited until the soft snores of exhausted children filled the dormitory, and then he slipped from his bed fully clothed. He retrieved his few possessions from their hiding place beneath a loose floorboard – a small jackknife he'd traded for three meals' worth of bread, a faded photograph of a woman who might have been his mother and a handful of coins painstakingly collected over months.

The lock to the kitchen – a skill he'd practised for months in the dark while others slept – yielded to his careful manipulation. He took what little food his tiny backpack could carry: two apples, half a loaf of bread, and a jar of preserved peaches he'd been saving for a special occasion. Not enough to be immediately noticed, but enough to keep him alive for a few days.

The garden wall, with its loosened brick forming a foothold, was his exit point. As he balanced on top of the wall, the sprawling city of Rome lay before him like an uncharted wilderness. Fear momentarily paralyzed him – what twelve-year-old wouldn't fear the unknown? But behind him lay certain misery, and ahead, at least the possibility of something better. He jumped, his worn shoes hitting the pavement with a soft thud, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him into the labyrinthine streets of the ancient city.

The streets of Rome were no kinder to him than the orphanage, but one thing the streets offered that the orphanage didn't, was freedom. The first night was the hardest, huddled in the recessed doorway of a closed bakery, jumping at every sound, convinced that Sister Agnes would materialize from the shadows to drag him back. By dawn, exhausted but resolute, he began to adapt to his new reality.

He learned quickly: which tourists to target for pickpocketing (Americans were easiest, their wallets often loosely stored and their attention captured by Rome's splendours), which alleys provided safe shelter (those near restaurants where discarded food might still be edible), and which shop owners might offer day work for a few euros or a meal.

For two weeks, he survived on wit and will alone. He slept in different locations each night, avoiding the territorial older street kids who viewed newcomers as competition. He washed in public fountains before dawn, keeping up an appearance just presentable enough not to attract police attention. He mastered the art of becoming invisible when necessary and carefully pitiable when advantage called for it.

Then came the night that changed his life forever – the night he tried to rob Duncan Toriela.

Hunger had made him reckless. Three days with barely a meal had dulled his usually sharp judgment. The well-dressed man emerging alone from the expensive hotel had seemed an easy target – likely carrying cash, no visible bodyguards, distracted by whatever business had brought a frown to his face. Damien had followed him for half a block, gathering his courage, before making his move with the sharpened piece of metal he'd fashioned into a crude weapon.

What he hadn't counted on was the man's calm assessment, the lack of fear in his eyes, or the question that would alter Damien's destiny: "How about dinner instead?"

The transition from street thief to the son of one of Italy's most powerful crime families wasn't smooth. The first night in the Toriela mansion, Damien had slept on the floor beside the luxurious bed, unable to trust such comfort. He'd hidden food in various spots around his room, a survival habit too ingrained to break immediately. He flinched at sudden movements and watched everyone with suspicious eyes, waiting for the trick, the trap, the inevitable moment when this strange dream would dissolve.

Duncan saw potential in Damien that the boy himself couldn't yet recognize. Where the orphanage had tried to break Damien's spirit, Duncan sought to forge it into something stronger. He oversaw the boys' education, bringing in tutors who quickly discovered their students' quick minds and voracious appetites for knowledge. He taught Damien to channel his rage into focus, his suspicion into strategic thinking, and his survival instincts into leadership qualities.

"Family," Duncan told him that first night, after bringing him home and watching him devour three plates of authentic Italian pasta, "is everything. Not the family you're born into, but the family you choose. The family that chooses you." Duncan's dark eyes had held Damien's with an intensity that demanded attention. 

Over the next few months, Damien's new family grew. First came Antonio, a quiet boy with haunted eyes, rescued from a human trafficking ring that Duncan's men had shut down. Antonio rarely spoke of what he'd endured, but his nightmares told enough of the story. He had a gift for mathematics and a photographic memory that Duncan immediately recognized as valuable.

Then Luca joined them, and found picking pockets in Venice with a skill that impressed even Damien. Luca was all charm and easy smiles, able to blend into any crowd and adopt any persona needed. His natural charisma masked a calculating mind that could see three moves ahead in any social interaction.

Isabella arrived next, her noble bearing intact despite being abandoned by aristocratic parents who had lost everything to gambling debts. Her refined manners and perfect diction a stark contrast to the boys' rougher edges. But beneath her polished exterior lay a will of iron and a talent for seeing through deception that made her invaluable.

Finally, Sofia, the youngest at only six years old, was saved from an abusive foster home where she'd been treated as little more than a servant. Tiny and timid at first, she blossomed under the protection of her new siblings, revealing a gentle nature and an unexpected talent for drawing that could capture a person's essence in a few deft strokes.

They were all broken in their own ways, but together, under Duncan's guidance, they began to heal. Damien, as the first, naturally fell into the role of protector. He taught Antonio how to fight, channelling the smaller boy's fear into disciplined movement.

He showed Luca better pick-pocketing techniques while explaining when such skills should and shouldn't be used. He helped Isabella maintain her dignity while adapting to their new life, standing up for her when others mistook her formality for weakness. And he spent countless nights comforting Sofia after her nightmares, sitting beside her bed until she fell back asleep, promising that no one would ever hurt her again.

Duncan watched it all with approval, gradually introducing them to both sides of the family business. The legitimate hotels and restaurants served as their public face, employing hundreds and generating millions in legal revenue. Behind this façade operated the underground weapons trade, a network spanning continents that provided the power they needed to protect what was theirs. Above all, he instilled in them the Toriela code: no harm to women or children, no innocent casualties, and family above all else.

"Our world isn't black and white," Duncan explained during one of their evening lessons in his study, the scent of aged leather books and fine whiskey filling the air. "We operate in the grey areas where official law fails, where protection comes at a price, where order must sometimes be maintained through strength. But even in the shadows, there must be principles. Without them, we're just thugs with guns."

For Damien, who had never known real family before, these principles became sacred. He threw himself into learning everything Duncan could teach him: business strategies that kept their legitimate enterprises thriving, combat techniques from ex-military trainers, and the delicate balance of power that kept their world turning without drawing unwanted attention from authorities. He studied languages, finance, psychology, any knowledge that might give him an edge, that might help him protect this newfound family he cherished more than his own life.

By sixteen, Damien had accompanied Duncan to meetings with other family heads, standing silently at his adoptive father's side, absorbing the nuances of negotiation and power projection. By seventeen, he was handling some of the smaller business operations himself, proving his ability to lead with the same firm but principled approach Duncan had modeled.

The scrappy orphan had transformed into something formidable – intelligent, controlled, and unflinchingly loyal to the family that had saved him. The streets had taught him survival, but Duncan had taught him power. Not just how to wield it, but when and why, the responsibility that came with it, and the price it sometimes demanded.

But fate wasn't finished with Damien Toriela. His true test would come years later, in the form of a fierce-eyed girl who would challenge everything he thought he knew about control, power, and love. A girl whose own family legacy would collide with his in ways neither of them could foresee, igniting a passion and conflict that would reshape the underworld of Italy forever.