Special Thanks To all of the people, actors, and characters who have helped inspire this story. Thank you.




She betrays me...

With her cold brand of love she betrays me. My heart. My love... My obsession.

She cuts me like a knife... I smile through the pain and tell her I love it... Because the truth, as sick as it is, is that I love her...

I can't live without her...


Michael Juliano lay in his average bed, in his average apartment in an average town in New Jersey. Everything about it was... Average, except for her.

Tatiana Rosenberg lay cuddled into his chest, sound asleep. His left arm was around her shoulders, caressing her blonde hair, back, and left arm. She was of Russian decent, but her lesser half (as her mother called it) was Jewish. Her mother, who had been born in America, married a wealthy Jewish lawyer. Tatiana's grandmother had come to America from Moscow in the early 20th century. She had nothing but her heritage, her pride, spirit, and work ethic. She survived, founding a family and home with a young Russian man. He was a heavy drinker, and Tatiana's mother had a somewhat difficult childhood. They were never wealthy, and so marrying a wealthy, hard working American man was important to Tatiana's mother. Marrying Solomon Rosenberg, a respected New York crime lawyer, often accused by the media of having ties to organized crime, was seen by her family as a bar setting achievement.

Tatiana was raised in a modern, wealthy home with strong Russian roots and influence. She was the youngest of three children, only twenty-three years old.

They were both naked, snuggled under soft blue sheets. A small lamp on a nightstand provided a soft light on Michael's side of the bed as he enjoyed a joint of marijuana, staring at the white, plastic phone on the nightstand next to the lamp. He flicked the ash off of the cherry and picked up the phone, punching in a seven digit number. He held the phone to his ear, glancing down at Tatiana.

A woman answered on the other end, "Hello?"

"Hey Lexi, my brother around?"

"No, he's still at work, Mikey, you wanna leave a message?"

"Yeah, tell that mutt to call me," Michael said with a smile, "it's really important Lexi, okay? I need to see him."

"... Okay," Alexa replied softly after a brief second of thought.

"Thanks, Lexi."

"No problem, Mikey."




*****




New Jersey, 1997


Alexa Juliano hung up, placing the black cordless phone down on her kitchen counter. She went back to work, cooking, and singing along with the radio. She had long brown hair, beautiful brown eyes, and a tanned completion to match. She wore a pair of tight blue jeans, and a tight green T-shirt that hugged her thin, athletic build perfectly. She wore her wedding band faithfully. Hardly ever taking it off, and never forgetting it when she did.

Her mother had told her all of her life, A good man is more precious than all the gold and diamond in the world, and it had turned out she was right all along. Alexa found her mister right in John Michael Juliano. The boy of her dreams. She had known him a great deal of her life, growing up together, knowing many of the same people, John began to fall in love with her as she grew up. When she was 17, he couldn't wait anymore, chasing boys off, breaking her heart when some other girl came along into his life, regardless of how little they meant to him. Boys will be boys, after all.

Her life changed when she met him. Things were tough, bad at times in the beginning. They were young, still trying to find themselves, find their own path, and still be together. But she loved him, deeply, and she knew he loved her too, and nothing can come between that.


John Juliano entered the front door of their home. He was a tall, hansom man with short brown hair, frosty blue eyes, and a strong, muscular jaw. He had a fit, muscular build and wore a nice grey suit with a white dress shirt.

He smiled wide. "I'm home, baby!"


He wrapped his arms around her stomach slowly, sensually, kissing the back of her head, holding her tight. She smiled, chopping some vegetables for dinner.

"Hey, baby," he said softly, resting his chin on her shoulder, "smells good."

"You're late, and thank you," Alexa replied with a smile, tilting her head up to meet him for a kiss.

"Did my brother call, sweet heart?" John asked, kissing her neck.

Alexa sighed gently, putting the cutting knife down, leaning against him. "Yes... But can it wait, baby?" she asked him, breaking his heart.

He moved to her side, turning her around in his arms and rested them across her lower back. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders looking up at him with those beautiful eyes. The most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.

He kissed her passionately, making intimate eye contact. "This is something really important, sweet heart. Somethin' that's gonna change our lives forever, baby, I promise. Okay?"

She nodded, smiled, and kissed him again. Then he kissed her forehead softly. "I'll be back soon, baby."



*****




John stuck the key to his outdated white Cadillac in the ignition, threw the old gal in reverse, and pulled out of his driveway in a nice middle class New Jersey neighborhood.

It was late, and the city was illuminated by street and traffic lights that drifted by his vehicle as he cruised down the streets past green lights he'd hit every so often.

The city was alive with prostitutes, drug dealers, cops, and mundane foot traffic. Jersey was his home, these were the streets he grew up on, and the streets the Giacomina family called their own.




The Money

A Tale of Greed and Betrayal





It was a glorious time in retrospect, but it didn't feel like it at the time, you know. There was no romantic magic at the time, only looking back on it now. Everyone was waiting for the world to end, the death of a princess had inspired us all, and a white kid from Detroit was about to tear down racial barriers... It was a strange time to say the least.

Growing up, adults always used to say that the only way a man could truly survive in this world, was to get a good education, and break his back doin' honest, 9-5 work. But that wasn't me. See, me and my brother, we wanted to be the con artists, the thieves, loan sharks, racketeers, the guys who were really in charge; they had the power. In the fall of '97 I was beginning to realize that power, respect, all of that meant shit where we're goin'. All we have while we're here, is the time we're given, and the choice of what to do with it. You can chase an honest living and die in vein, or you can chase power and respect and die alone full of regrets. Either way, you die, and waste a lot time pursuing something that ultimately means nothing. When we were young, all we wanted was money, power, and respect, I mean that's the American dream. The big home, the fast cars, the satellite TV, trips around the world, the young, sexy mistress, and the beautiful wife. That's the American dream folks; gross excess.

After the fall of '97, when my brother and me made a move that would go down in New Jersey history, all my material ambitions and values died in a one bedroom apartment in northern Jersey.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we had done the right thing with that money. Given Vincenzo his share, donated it to charity, or never stolen it in the first place. But instead, we tried to keep it all. Instead, it tore us all apart...