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LOSE YOUR MIND

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ROMEO VALENTI

[attr="class","dropfrumbodytxt"]PERSONALITY:
Romeo has a well maintained veneer of almost unflappable confidence. With a devilish smile and a cocky charm, many find him quite pleasurable to swallow -- in small doses. He is incredibly sarcastic, and annoyingly relentless. A killer with a pretty face, but it was simply how he was raised. To be charming and political, to fool his enemies into thinking their demise was their own damn idea, but he was never quite as good as his father, and this fear of inferiority plagues him. Rather, this veneer of composure is easily fractured with the right words. He's emotional, protective and caring in the correct company; passionate in ways his mother would be proud of. A clever, cunning man who could talk you out of your own underwear (as he often has), and he means every word -- most the time. But, his more palatable traits are often overwhelmed by his darker proclivities. Nothing like the smell of gunpowder and blood to keep a man alive. A fresh kill and a crossed out name. He is a killer, and he is not as ashamed of this as he should be. But damn, don't I make it look good?

HISTORY:
On November 9th, 1990, under the blistering sun of Florence, Italy, a leader was born. Romeo Valenti was the apple of his mother’s eye. As the first born son, he represented to future of the Valenti empire, a baby with a noose of responsibility around its neck before it could walk. This being said, the Valenti’s doted on their boy, spoiled him in every way possible, he never wanted for a thing. Such extravagance turned him into a certain kind of infant. With big brown eyes and a crooked smile. The house staff often referring to him as ‘diavoletto’ as he run a muck throughout the grounds with a cherub like face.

However, the life Romeo had grown so accustomed to would crumble following the birth of his younger brother, Luca. Alessandra Valenti always wanted a daughter, she loved her son, but she had always pined for a baby with the same blue eyes and sunshine hair. And she would be gifted with such. Twins, in fact. A little boy and a little girl, conceived just shy of R omeo’s fourth birthday. But, Alessandra almost never made it through the birth of Romeo, and despite dire warning from a physician that further pregnancies were not prudent, she decided to carry her twins to term -- because Alessandra was a mother before she was a person. Living for her children.

It was of no surprise when Alessandra faced great complications during her home birth. And while she made it to see Rosalia be born, her beautiful mirror image daughter, she would not survive to see the birth of her second son, Luca; passing away before he took his first breath. At four years old, Romeo was just old enough to feel the full brunt of his mother’s death. Two new babies were suddenly present and his mama was not. This lead to an incredible feeling of resentment towards Luca, the second baby whose existence, in Romeo’s eyes, had been entirely too much for his mother to bear. Romeo recognized Luca’s presence and his mother’s absence, connecting the two as he grew and moulding his grief into anger which he would project unfairly upon the young boy. And while his little sister was just as present, Romeo realized quite hypocritically that he could not hate her they he hated his brother. She was planned. The girl to his boy, the perfect genetic duo. Romeo had their father’s looks, and Rosalia their mothers. Luca was a ‘fluke’, a mistake. In Romeo’s eyes, he was the stowaway that cost him his mother. And what a terrible thing to think of your own blood.

Time passed and resentments lessened as a new responsibility were revealed to Romeo. At ten years old Romeo’s father, Raphael, sat his oldest son down and told him of his real profession, of Romeo’s destiny as a Verum Venator hunter. Raphael was the leader of an ancient clan of killers, all with one objective, to bring justice and balance to the supernatural vermin that plagued the Earth. Romeo was to take Raphael’s place in time, and so years of rigorous training ensued. Romeo had a strong affinity for weapons, focusing his studies towards that field until he was a weaponry expert, a slew of deadly pieces under his belt.

Luca, his younger brother, joined him in training on his own tenth birthday. But Romeo would continue to go out of his way to shun the brother that killed his mother. The brother Romeo seen to be favoured by their father. For his sad, sweet disposition and sharp, cutting mind. He had his mother’s innocent blue eyes, and their fathers sweeping dark hair. He was the perfect amalgamation of husband and wife. Romeo simply saw this as another reason to hate the boy. And instead, Romeo trained with his childhood friend, Nico. The two were practically inseparable, and it didn’t help that he was cousin to Romeo’s deepest, most crippling crush; Lorenza Viera. He would adore her quietly as they grew, building up the courage to ask her out at 16, where they would quickly fall together. Much to their families combined delight. There was no better match in Raphael’s eyes, nor Romeo’s. He had grown with the Viera’s. Rosalia, too, toddled alongside him as they swiftly fell in with the young cousins. Their respective parents being high members of Verum Venator. This provided umpteen opportunities for Romeo to fall in love with both of them, along with his sister in her child-like delight. A pretty girl to look like and up to, and a sheepish, shaggy boy to pinch her cheeks and crush on. Luca, however, despite being much adored and doted by his father and twin, did nothing other than isolate himself. Perhaps due to the fact that he felt so entirely unwelcome in Romeo’s company.

Much of Romeo’s following years went as so. He trained often, and grew close to the people he was permitted to interact with. Raphael was a strict, unyielding man. Abusive, even. Home-schooling Romeo and pushing them to his physical and mental limits in an effort to create the perfect soldier, but not Luca and Rosalia. Rosalia was too delicate, a frail little girl with bird-like bones and a sick disposition from birth, even Raphael refused to initiate her into the fold, choosing instead to relegate her to learning the knowledge of species’. Luca was strong in body, but weak in mind. Anxious and skittish, he grew under Raphael’s wing, but in Romeo’s shadow. Alas, he was not given the same privilege as their sick sister, rather he was thrown into the fold, but gently. Romeo hated him for it, that he was given the gift of Raphael’s gentle hand where Romeo was crushed under a steel-toed boot. But, as his father would often remind him, a Leader could not be coddled. Then began Romeo’s hatred of leadership, conformity and his father. But, it never stopped him from being The Best in every way possible. If only to earn the same fond smile Luca was often offered, and a well earned since of vindication. He never quite got there. Rather, he lost them both before he could. But first, they lost Rosalia.

Romeo was 17, Rosalia a mere 13. So pretty with round, cerulean eyes and spilling silvery blonde hair. She was gorgeous, their mothers imagine in every way. But, she was never healthy. Always too cold, or too hot, she caught sickness easily. So came Raphael’s obsession with keeping her hidden from sight, he could not bear to lose Alessandra twice. But, Rosalia was adventurous. She enjoyed sneaking out, and Romeo facilitated this, unable to refuse such a pretty and pleading smile. She caught pneumonia twice, and Romeo blamed himself both times; having been the accomplice to many of her forbidden excursions. The first time, she overcome it -- just. The second, it stole her away in a feverish sweep. And that was the first time Romeo felt like a murderer. Not just in mind, but in mouth. Proven only by the hard truth of Raphael’s curled fist, a split lip and the whispered knife of ‘this is your fault, you little bastard’. Something dark bloomed in Romeo’s belly when he lost Rosalia. Something snaking and frightening. He was never quite the same boy after that.

Much of the short time following Rosalia’s passing was a blur. Romeo had no energy to shun his brother, rather he drove himself into the ground trying to impress his father. To be the leader his father wished him to be. The killer his father needed him to be. And he was good at it. The only thing stopping him from falling completely into the dark being his friend, and lover; Nico and Lorenza. They offered an unspoken support, despite struggling with their own share of problems. The worst of all being Nico’s. An irreplaceable friend, the boy was everything Romeo could ask for in a partner in crime. He had no idea at the time the torture with which his friend was suffering through in an effort to fit in. Romeo wasn’t the only one weakened by Raphael’s influence. He simply had to watch from afar as the boy slowly disintegrated before his eyes, with only a vague suspicion of his father’s involvement. Sadly, Romeo would not save his best friend valiantly, rather his father would do them both a favour and die first.

It was supposed to be a routine business trip, but Romeo knew something was amiss. He wasn’t invited. Rather, much to his fury, Luca was the only child permitted to tag along. It was his ‘first look at real leadership’ according to their father, a cruel glint in his eye as he said it in Romeo’s company. The man often took pleasure in dragging his eldest son down a peg, throwing his future into question to simply watch him flounder for balance. Romeo seethed at the notion, watching Luca sit pretty at just 16, gangly but handsome. He was just coming into his shape, skinny but filled, his jaw sharpening and his eyes dimming; as any true son of Raphael’s tended to do under the weight of the man’s unreachable expectations. He shared few words with his elder brother, cornering him before he left to look down at his shoes and whisper an unneeded apology, and an undeserved ‘i love you’. The boy just wanted Romeo’s approval, no longer flattered by their father’s attention. And the last thought and words Romeo had of his young brother, was that he wished him dead. For simply filling his shoes a little too well.

Romeo isn’t sure how Luca died, simply that he had, and at Romeo’s word. The guilt gnawed away at his age old resentment and left a gaping hole inside him. He would never gain his father’s pride, or his brother’s affection because they were gone. Torn down by a rabid pack of alpha’s. With no mercy or remembrance. Nothing but a dirty, ancient legacy to his name. Romeo was groomed to be a leader, but he never imagined he’d take up the mantel so violently. But, a word was a word and as the only living Valenti, it was up to him to be a leader -- whether he liked it or not. Under his leadership, and in his brothers name, things changed. He might not have been the perfect replacement, a little too brash and cocky, but he had no choice. Just as it had always been in his life, because even in death Raphael controlled Romeo’s destiny.

In the months following their death, Romeo made a lot of changes. He was not a leader in those months, but a man with no family, killing wolves left, right and center and stringing their sharp teeth onto a necklace that he kept on his person at all times. When the time came to take his leadership seriously, he lost a precious part of himself. Namely, his first love, Lorenza. The grief had consumed both of them, having lost her own father in the attack, and Romeo needed to be a different person. He needed to devote himself to the Verum Venator. This left no room for Lorenza, and she no room for him. He lost Nico in a different way, as a leader Romeo was allowed access to the most private of documents, and in them lay the truth of Nico’s torture. What he had become. The reality was almost too much to bear, and Romeo felt partly responsible. Unable to stop his friend from agreeing to such savagery upon his person.

The Verum Venatores were different under Romeo’s leadership. Their ranks decimated by the alpha pack, they were weak, but in other ways, they were strong. The most small minded of their people lost, it left those willing to adapt to a better cause. A less violent one. Of course, old habits die hard, and Romeo was probably the hardest to break. But he found, without the oppression of his father’s rigid regime, that change wasn’t totally impossible. New faces joined their ranks, and Romeo built a new legacy on the back of their old one. While still unable to entirely accept wolves into his protection, he vowed that he would no longer kill senselessly. That his group would no longer kill senselessly. Rather, they became employable help, taking new jobs under wing and dealing with matters in a more... responsible manner. Most of the time.

That is, of course, until the call came in. The files listed him only as ‘D’. A faceless advisor rarely employed. It was a number that they always called, but never received a call from. Until that day. Beacon Hills and its teeming Nemeton, steeped in ancient blood. The town needed a control group, something ‘in the know’ that could curb disaster before it took control. It was a challenge Romeo didn’t hate taking. And so, to suburbia The Verum Venatores headed, with no real idea of what they were truly walking in to.