Quick Nic Vastola
Aliases: The Lake-Man; The Cement Saint; The Outfit’s Shade
Real Name: Nicarete “Nic” Vastola
Home: Chicago, Illinois, USA (rises where he’s summoned or where the Family bleeds)
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Gender: Male
Height: 5’11” (180 cm)
Weight: 190 lbs in life; “heavy” in death (waterlogged mass varies)
Build: Broad-shouldered brawler; undertaker-hard
Hair/Style: Black in life; now slicked, river-silt matte; wears a fedora that never quite dries
Eyes: Steel grey, milked at the edges like drowned glass
Skin: Sallow, cold; lake-silt stains along wrists and ankles; rope-and-chain bruising that never fades
Occupation: Outfit enforcer, soldier, triggerman—now revenant executor
Affiliation: The Ten Families (through their streghe and capos answers strongest to old-line Chicago and East Coast dons
Current Status: At large; manifests for “work” then sinks back to the water or the grave until called again
Birth date: 17/10 (Libra), 1908
MBTI: ISTJ-A (duty locked in bone)
Blood Type: O+ in life; n/a (post-mortem)
Background
Nicarete Vastola came up on Maxwell Street when Chicago’s Outfit was still finding its shoes. He learned the rules the old way: you look a man in the eye, you don’t raise a hand to a lady unless she’s raising steel, you keep your word to the Don even when it tastes like blood. He was the soldier every crew wanted—kept his mouth shut, worked a bat or a Thompson with equal piety, and could talk a debt man down before he had to lay him down.
An old-country matriarch—rumored strega—took his chin in her fingers at a wake and “blessed” him: “So long as the Family has enemies, you won’t know a grave.” Nic wore the line like a joke until a pack of disrespectful upstarts chained him, poured concrete over his feet, and laughed as Lake Michigan closed. He drowned listening to their laughter. A week later, he walked out of the water with weeds on his lapels and vengeance in both hands. The jokers died by every classic in the book—Sicilian necktie, Chicago overcoat, sunroof, cellar floor—and the Outfit learned a truth: the blessing took.
Since then, “Quick Nic” is the whisper that follows disrespect. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, and he doesn’t spend. He works. Streghe of the Ten Families can call him with rites; otherwise his own nose for enemies of the Family—rival syndicates, loud prosecutors, bent cops who won’t stay bought, vigilantes who draw blood on made men—pulls him from the dark like a hook in the jaw. He wears a bespoke corpse’s elegance, smells of cigar smoke and lake mud, and favors the tools that built his legend: a Thompson, an Ithaca, a snub-nose… or wire, bat, and knife when quiet’s the point.
He’s no mindless slasher; he’s the Outfit’s memory with hands. The new dons think he’s a rumor. The old ones keep a Mass card ready and mind their manners.
Personality
Nic is the Outfit’s conscience shaped like a man. Taciturn. Courteous to elders and women. Brutal and exact to anyone else. He keeps the old etiquette alive: tips his hat to a grieving mother, lights a priest’s cigarette on the steps, and apologizes—softly—before he breaks your wrists. He despises peacocks, cowboys, and anyone who calls the old ways “corny.” The living confuse him; the rules don’t. Give him a list, a map, and a name you mean, and he’ll deliver silence.
He doesn’t hate the law; he hates hypocrisy. He doesn’t savor pain; he savors finality. If you cross the Family and breathe easy afterward, he considers that a clerical error. He is the correction.
When a rival crew turns up artistically ruined and the air smells of old cigars and cold river, the cops call it folklore. The Families light a candle and mind their tongues. Quick Nic is working.
Real Name: Nicarete “Nic” Vastola
Home: Chicago, Illinois, USA (rises where he’s summoned or where the Family bleeds)
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Gender: Male
Height: 5’11” (180 cm)
Weight: 190 lbs in life; “heavy” in death (waterlogged mass varies)
Build: Broad-shouldered brawler; undertaker-hard
Hair/Style: Black in life; now slicked, river-silt matte; wears a fedora that never quite dries
Eyes: Steel grey, milked at the edges like drowned glass
Skin: Sallow, cold; lake-silt stains along wrists and ankles; rope-and-chain bruising that never fades
Occupation: Outfit enforcer, soldier, triggerman—now revenant executor
Affiliation: The Ten Families (through their streghe and capos answers strongest to old-line Chicago and East Coast dons
Current Status: At large; manifests for “work” then sinks back to the water or the grave until called again
Birth date: 17/10 (Libra), 1908
MBTI: ISTJ-A (duty locked in bone)
Blood Type: O+ in life; n/a (post-mortem)
Background
Nicarete Vastola came up on Maxwell Street when Chicago’s Outfit was still finding its shoes. He learned the rules the old way: you look a man in the eye, you don’t raise a hand to a lady unless she’s raising steel, you keep your word to the Don even when it tastes like blood. He was the soldier every crew wanted—kept his mouth shut, worked a bat or a Thompson with equal piety, and could talk a debt man down before he had to lay him down.
An old-country matriarch—rumored strega—took his chin in her fingers at a wake and “blessed” him: “So long as the Family has enemies, you won’t know a grave.” Nic wore the line like a joke until a pack of disrespectful upstarts chained him, poured concrete over his feet, and laughed as Lake Michigan closed. He drowned listening to their laughter. A week later, he walked out of the water with weeds on his lapels and vengeance in both hands. The jokers died by every classic in the book—Sicilian necktie, Chicago overcoat, sunroof, cellar floor—and the Outfit learned a truth: the blessing took.
Since then, “Quick Nic” is the whisper that follows disrespect. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, and he doesn’t spend. He works. Streghe of the Ten Families can call him with rites; otherwise his own nose for enemies of the Family—rival syndicates, loud prosecutors, bent cops who won’t stay bought, vigilantes who draw blood on made men—pulls him from the dark like a hook in the jaw. He wears a bespoke corpse’s elegance, smells of cigar smoke and lake mud, and favors the tools that built his legend: a Thompson, an Ithaca, a snub-nose… or wire, bat, and knife when quiet’s the point.
He’s no mindless slasher; he’s the Outfit’s memory with hands. The new dons think he’s a rumor. The old ones keep a Mass card ready and mind their manners.
Personality
Nic is the Outfit’s conscience shaped like a man. Taciturn. Courteous to elders and women. Brutal and exact to anyone else. He keeps the old etiquette alive: tips his hat to a grieving mother, lights a priest’s cigarette on the steps, and apologizes—softly—before he breaks your wrists. He despises peacocks, cowboys, and anyone who calls the old ways “corny.” The living confuse him; the rules don’t. Give him a list, a map, and a name you mean, and he’ll deliver silence.
He doesn’t hate the law; he hates hypocrisy. He doesn’t savor pain; he savors finality. If you cross the Family and breathe easy afterward, he considers that a clerical error. He is the correction.
When a rival crew turns up artistically ruined and the air smells of old cigars and cold river, the cops call it folklore. The Families light a candle and mind their tongues. Quick Nic is working.
Comments