A Criminal's Life

A Criminal's Life is a GTA fan fiction story. It follows Tony Gambano joining his brother Vince Gambano, who works for the Venzcenco crime family.

Gambano Family

 * Tony Gambano - Returns to Miami City from Los Angeles to work with Vince to gain some money and a living.
 * Vince Gambano - A soldier of the Venzcenco Family and later on, the boss of the Gambano Family.
 * Joe "Joey" Sprattio - The consigliore of the Gambanos. Vince's right hand man.
 * Ray "Beast" Ozarat - A key soldier in the Gambanos. Survives many battles and is trusted by Tony.
 * John "Johnny Boy" Lezona - Friends with the Miami Sharks motorcycle club.
 * Marco Triscaro - Another soldier for the Venzcencos but turns to the Gambanos.

Venzcenco Family

 * Mickey Venzcenco - The boss of the family. Mickey is known for many illegal activities including weapon laundering, racketeering, counterfeiting and burglary.
 * James "Big Jimmy" Venzcenco - Mickey's son and sergeant in the family. Big Jimmy has a good reputation in the family.
 * Tommy Garotti - The Venzcenco's most trusted soldier.
 * Frank "Frankie" Gravano - Big Jimmy's nephew.
 * Mario Stottati - A fellow associate of the Venzcencos.

Reina Family

 * Fernando Reina - The boss of the Reinas.
 * Juan Reina - Fernando's son.
 * Jose Reina - Javier's stepdad.
 * Javier Reina - Fernando's grandson.

Spanish Drug Lords

 * Carlos Catroquizo - The leader of the Spanish Lords. Business partners with Fernando and Mickey.
 * Armando Fizzio - Carlos's right hand man.

Russian Mafia

 * Anatoly Shikrov - The boss of the Russian Mafia. Related to the Chinese Mob and co-operates with them in drug deals and counterfeiting operations.
 * Vladimir Shikrov - Anatoly's son. Owns the Miami 500 Nightclub. Brings in shipments of cocaine from the Miami Docks every day and stocks into a truck.
 * Andrei Dratgova - Anatoly's friend and business partner of Carlos.

Chinese Mob

 * Kim-Yun-Guk - The Chinese Mob boss. Organises most of the drug deals in Chinatown and the market.
 * Lee Wong - The leader of the drug faction in Chinatown. Owns a curry restaurant.
 * Chen Huang - Huang is Big Jimmy's business partner.

Jamaican Mob

 * D'Andre Powell - A running soldier in the mob. Does weapon robberies with Tony and Vince.
 * Malcom Anderson - Joey and Ray's friend. Works with the Gambanos.

Miami Sharks MC

 * Martin Daniels - The president of the Miami Sharks.
 * Jake Venzcenco - The vice president of the motorcycle club. Big Jimmy's son but refuses to work for the Italian Mafia.

The Yakuza

 * Cheng Wu Li - The boss of the Yakuza. Has an ongoing rivalry with the Venzcencos and is allied with the Russian Mafia.

Mexican Mafia

 * Franco Gonzalez - Boss of the Mexicans. Rivals with the Yakuza and the Reinas but allies with the Russians.
 * Manuel Garcia - Gonzalez's associate. Carries out hits on targets with permission by "El Bosso".
 * Angel Rodriguez - Angel is the most violent member of the mafia. Known to have a tremendous killcount, he is hunted continuously by the Feds.

Prologue
"Ladies and Gentleman, we are approaching Miami City. We will touch down in five to ten minutes. Please put your seatbelts on and remain intact in your seat. We are nearly there" 

Tony Gambano relaxed in his seat and looked outside the window. A whole world of wonders awaited him in Miami City. Hotels, penthouses, money, casinos and businesses. It was all coming together. His brother, Vince, told him of what he did. He worked for an Italian-American crime family called the Venzcenco Family. Vince mailed him a start up money payment to get him going. It was $100, Vince had made stacks of cash doing whatever was nessecary.

After the plane landed, Tony made his way out the airport to wait for a taxi with his luggage. A yellow taxi was hailed by Tony and he got inside it. "Yeah, man? Where ya headin'?" He spoke with a Northern accent. Tony looked at a little white card Vince gave him. It read "4 Bismark Avenue". "4 Bismark Avenue" Tony said. He handed the cab driver $10.

"Hey, what's ya name?" He said. Tony gave the driver his name. "Tony Gambano? I know another Gambano in this city. Vince, right?" Tony nodded. "My name is Jackson" He said. Jackson handed Tony his card. "Come meet me at Harris Cabs near Orlando Heights" Jackson said. The cab stopped at a two story apartment at Bismark Avenue. Tony got to Room 4 and knocked on the door. Then, a man in a greased vest, blue jeans and black greased hair answered the door. "Tony!" He shouted in joy. It was Vince.

Tony walked into the room. It looked small but maybe it was a one time temporary thing. Vince sat down at a purple couch in the middle of the room, turning on the TV. There was no stacks of cash. "Tony, glad you've come. I'm in trouble. I...may have said to you I'm rich, living the dream" Tony shook his head. "And you're not?" Vince nodded. "I'm in debt to the Russian Mafia, that's where the hundred bucks came from. I won a small poker game and decided to give it to you, since you're new" "But you still work in the mafia?" Vince nodded again. "I got a lot of money, bought the apartment, bought stuff here. I need your...help!"

Vince then walked to his drawer and took out a small pistol and threw it over to Tony. "You need this. I'm going to introduce you to a few friends of mine. But you're also gonna keep your protection too" Tony followed Vince out to the back door. An Albany was parked by a Presidente and a Lokus. Vince took out his car keys and started the ignition in the Albany. "This is your car?" Tony asked. "Not enough money to get another car. I want me one of those Turismo sport cars, ya know?" The Albany drove out the apartment car park and out in the streets. Tony looked out his window around him. Most buildings were businesses, shut down. Others were run down. Cars were rusty and parts were taken off them. It wasn't pretty. He guessed they were in the poor district of Miami City.

"Alright, Tony, first we're gonna get you a phone, you can't go anywhere without a phone. We're gonna get you a Badger phone, not a Whiz or a Tinkle. I have a Whiz Wireless" Tony didn't know what phones they all were, but went along with it. Tony picked out his Badger phone later and got back to the Albany. Vince then wrote something down on a notepad quickly. He gave it to Tony, still trying to adjust to his new phone. "Here's my new number, man" The Albany then drove through into Downtown. "Next, we're going to a friend of mine. He works for a cab company" Tony then looked up. "Oh yeah? Which one?" "Harris Cabs" Tony then knew straight off his head that it was Jackson. "Jackson, right?" Vince then raised his eyebrows. Telepathic powers? "How'd you know?" "He drove me to your apartment from the airport" Vince then chuckled to himself. "I guess we won't be goin' there then" The Albany then drove past Little Italy, where all the Italian restaurants and mafiosos hang out. "OK, now we're going to an apartment off Checkers Road. We're going to meet my friend, Ray" When the Albany stopped at a traffic light, Vince handed Tony a picture. It was a black Washington convertible, with two guys leaning on it. "This is the Russian hitmen after me. That's why I gave you that pistol. These guys are wanting money off of me" Tony then looked puzzled. If Vince killed them, the debt would go up, even harming them would. "Don't worry, I got it figured out. You take them out. Tommorow" The Albany then stopped in front of an apartment on Checkers Road. Vince buzzed for Ray as Tony looked around, keeping the pistol concealed in his pocket.

The door opened to reveal a man in a black leather jacket, tracksuit bottoms and smoking a cigar. Vince then shook the man's hand. "Ray, my boy" "Vince, my man" Ray replied, answering with a handshake. "Who's the stranger? He looks like a lemon squirted him in the eye!" Tony looked unamused but Vince backed him off. "This is my brother, Tony. He's came here for some work" Ray then took out a small piece of paper and a pen and wrote something down in a rush and handed it to Tony. "Meet me at this address soon. I can't talk now, Vince. I feel like someone is watchin' me, ya know?" "I have that feeling too, Ray. The Russians are watching me closely" Ray shut the door and the two brothers walked back to the Albany.

"Here's Ray number, Jackson's, and mine" Vince said, driving the Albany back to the apartment. "That little job of yours, meet me at the Old Times diner at Southwood. We'll talk more" The Albany got back to the apartment. "Now, Tony, you'll be using this apartment for now. Since you're new" Tony and Vince got back into the apartment. Tony turned on the radio and crashed on the couch, smoothly sounding to the beats of hip hop.

Chapter 1
Tony put on his same clothes from his arrival: a pair of jeans, blue and red sneakers and a black t-shirt. He collected his wallet and savings and walked out the apartment front. The Old Times was a diner just down the street. Tony walked down there, still looking around the place since he was new. Vince wasn't out front but he guessed he was in the diner. He walked in and sat down, looking across the menu. He picked a can of Diet Coke and a bacon sandwich and awaited the order. Then, he took out the picture of the Washington from the other day. The two guys were with the mafia, but were they in it or just working for them as an associate like Tony was with the Venzcencos.

Once the drink and meal arrived to the table, Vince stumbled in with his pistol held to his chest. Tony took a bite out his bacon sandwich and opened his Coke before noticing Vince. "Hey, man, what's up?" Tony said, swallowing his part of the sandwich. "The Russians are here! They followed me here!" Tony stood up and took his pistol out his jeans pocket. "Where've ya been, Vince?" Vince then shifted the blinds on a window. He saw the Washington parked outside, with three guys, two holding pistols, one with a shotgun. "Oh, god! Tony, this is the plan. We're gonna go 'round the back and get these guys unsuspected, got it?" Tony nodded and followed Vince. He held the pistol close to his leather jacket he put on when he was going out and crouched beneath the glass windows.

Outside, Vince dived to cover at a black Esperanto a few steps away from the attackers. Tony took cover by a brick wall near the diner. He reloaded his pistol and gave a hand signal to Vince, meaning to move nearer. They both crouched down, carefully taking gentle, quiet steps to the Washington. "Ready?" Vince said to Tony. Tony nodded and Vince then looked through the passenger window of the Esperanto. The three shooters were getting ready to go into the diner. Vince then got up and shot three bullets to the shotgunner. He fell quickly as the others turned around and shot fire. Tony leaped over the brick wall and began shooting to the first man. He clutched his stomach and fell to the floor, bleeding to death. People quickly ran out of the diner, one man on the phone to the police reporting the incident. The other shooter ran to a Cavalcade that was parked outside of the diner. Tony shot the car's wheels and then shot through the window. Blood poured out onto the window and window cracks began to show.

Vince wiped some dirt from his face and ran to the Albany with Tony. An ambulance turned up and doctors were already there. The Albany began to drive back to the apartment while the murder scene was getting cleaned up. Vince turned on the radio and switched over to some talk show radio. "There's something done for you, Tony. Here's twenty bucks. Not much, but it's still something" Tony took the money and squeezed it into his wallet. Later, Tony parked the Albany in the apartment car park. "See ya later, Tony" Tony waved him out and got out the car. He went to a taxi and signalled for it, climbing inside and giving the man a couple of dollars. Then, his Badger phone started ringing. He had to change his ringtone soon. Tony answered the call by simply saying "Hello?". A voice on the end of it spoke with a calm voice. "Hey, Tony Gambano, it's me Jackson. Remember from the airport?" Tony breathed a sigh of relief. It could have been a cop or a Fed hacking into his phone to gain details. "Hi, Jackson, what do you want?" "I don't want anything, Tony, but I could need some help from a man of your calibre. Come to Harris Cabs, you remember the place, right?" Tony couldn't. His first full day in Miami City and he couldn't even remember an address. He lied instead, saying he did. He hung up the phone and began to walk around the streets. But then, he remembered again. The card. The card Jackson gave to him at the end of their destination. He pulled it out of his wallet. "Orlando Heights".

He told the cab driver to change his destination to Orlando Heights and he did as he obliged. Ten minutes later, after a bit of traffic, Tony got there. It looked run down but still operational. He walked inside and towards the appointment desk. A man in his late '30s sat there, typing away while smoking on a cigarette. Tony leaned over the desk and coughed to get his attention. "Excuse me, I'm here to see Jackson?" The man took his cigarette out his mouth and into a trash can. "Jackson? Oh, yeah, he's in that office around the corner. Follow me" Tony followed the man to a room just by the desk. He knocked on the door. "Mr. Jackson, someone here to see ya" "Oh yeah, let him in" The man opened the door and Tony followed in. Jackson sat in a ludicrous office, a big wooden desk with letters and telephones scattered around, walls filled with pictures in black and white and a big red chair that he sat in.

"Ah, Tony, good to see ya, man" Jackson said, puffing on a cigar. He then stubbed the cigar and snorted a bit of cocaine from the side. He shaked his head and continued to smoke on the cigar. "I heard ya need a bit of green bags, so I decided that ya can have a job here" Tony nodded and then refused a bit of cocaine from Jackson. He snorted some more and continued to talk. "You get ten bucks a job, you get two hundred bucks for your weekly payment" "Alright, Jackson, I'll do it" Jackson nodded and picked up a telephone ringing. "Hey, Chad...What?...A-Alright-alright...Don't worry...I got a new guy...he'll do it...Alright, bye. My best worker, Chad is "sick" so I need someone to do this job. One willing to do anything" "I can do that" Jackson snorted more cocaine and then continued. "You need to pick up this guy, Jimmy, he's a regular. He's waiting at the Crimson bar at Miami Beach. Take the first cab outside to the left" Tony left and went to the cab, starting the ignition. He put on the GPS coordinator and marked Miami Beach. Only a few minutes away. He started driving to the place and noticed the changes from the area he lived in. Miami Beach was full of young people, teenagers and college co-eds. Bars were packed and nightclubs were pumping. It wasn't even night and it was great. The beach was full too. At the Crimson bar, a man in his mid '20s was waiting outside, pacing the floor quickly.

Tony honked the horn and the man came to his window. "Hey, where's Chad? Never mind, here's your money" He said as he gave eight dollars to Tony. "Drive us to the old scrapyard off Rock Street" Tony set the marker on his GPS and set off. "Alright, lemme introduce myself, I'm James, but ya can call me Jimmy" "Sure thing, Jimmy" The cab drove past Miami Beach and reached the scrapyard in three minutes. Jimmy then took out a briefcase and a shotgun, getting both of them in each hand. Tony got his pistol out too and kept it to his side. "So, uh, Jimmy, what are we doing out here?" Jimmy gave him a look which meant Tony wasn't into that type of work. "We're dealing with some Russian scumbags that haven't paid me any money. They're givin' me a bite of the proportion by handing me 5000 bucks and I hand them a crap load of heroin worth 5000 bucks in return" "Alright, don't worry Jimmy, I've done crime and murder before. I killed these Russian loan sharks with my brother, Vince" Jimmy then stopped and looked at him like he realised something. "Vince? As in Vince Gambano?" "Yeah, why?" "I work for the Italian Mafia. Vince works for our family. He's a good one, a soldier and everything. You're Tony, right?" "Yeah" Jimmy kept walking into the scrapyard with Tony, walking and talking. "Vince was in debt to some Russians, right? Then you and him killed them?" "That's right"

Tony and Jimmy stopped at the scrapyard and looked ahead of them. Two black Presidentes were parked with five Russians leaning against them. One had a briefcase in his right hand and an AK-47 in his left. Jimmy took out a shotgun out his briefcase and held it at his side. The Russian with the briefcase came forward together. "Hey, guys, where's my money?" Jimmy asked. The Russian opened the briefcase up. Clean, cut US dollar bills were all there. In stacks. After a minute of checking, Jimmy accepted it was worth the amount. But instead of handing over the other briefcase of heroin, Jimmy pulled out his shotgun and blasted the Russian off his feet. Tony and Jimmy took cover behind a scrapload of car parts while the Russians kept shooting behind the Presidentes. Tony took his 9MM pistol and began shooting towards the engines of the Presidentes. The first one exploded, sending Russians flying through the air. The second one exploded after while the two raced back to the cab. "Tony, take me to North Exeter near X Avenue" Jimmy said. The cab accelerated out of the smoking debris while two police cars turned up.

Jimmy unbuttoned the top two buttons of his red Hawaiian flower shirt and wiped the blood from his face, realising a gash against it. "Damn" He muttered. Tony drove past the Crimson Bar again a couple of minutes later. "Why not here like last time?" Tony asked. "Ah, I've got a meeting with my father and some Mafia bosses" "Jimmy, what family is yours? And the one Vince works for? And Ray?" Jimmy sighed. "You just arrived, didn't you? I work for the Venzcencos, one of the five old families. Vince works for us" Tony rolled a window down to get some fresh air inside. "And Ray? As in Ray Ozarat?" Jimmy chuckled. "Ray is an idiot. He does these drug deals for our family but they never usually work. He comes back with the ice and not the cash" Ray didn't seem that slippery and dodgy when Tony first met up with him with Vince when he arrived. Finally, they ended at North Exeter and Jimmy got out, putting his 9MM in his pocket. Jimmy wrote something down quickly on a little piece of paper and gave it Tony. "My number and my address" Jimmy ran into a small apartment while the cab went back to Harris Cabs. Tony stuck the note on the side of his cab and looked at it. It said "Meet me at the Crimson Bar whenever, use this number" He took out his Badger phone and entered the phone number in. He now had Vince, Ray, Jackson and Jimmy's numbers and only in two days.

After two hours working as a cab driver, Tony got $60 from Jackson and left Harris Cabs at 7PM. He stopped at a bus station near Orlando Heights, waiting to go back home. He looked over his contacts though. He did some for Vince, he would need a bit of help later. He just did a day of work for Jackson and did an errand for Jimmy. That left Ray. Tony dialled up the number and let it ring. He walked away from the bus station and sat down on a bench. "Hello?" "Ray, it's me Tony. Vince's brother" "Ah, Tony, good to hear from ya. I need a bit of help here, come down to my apartment on Checkers Road" Tony sighed. He remembered now what apartment it was. "What's the problem? You sound worried" But the phone hung up for the question to be answered. Tony hailed a cab for Checkers Road and arrived there ten minutes later whilst listening to rap music. He went up to the apartment, knocking on the door. Ray answered the door and beckoned him in.

"Tony, my man, sit" Ray said as he sat down at a coffee table near the kitchen. The room seemed bigger than Vince's but time would tell where they would next go. "So, Tone, why are you here in Miami City?" Tony shrugged. "I needed the money, I'm not a cop or a fed and I'm good at it" "Good, so listen Tone, I'm in the drug business. I work for the Venzcencos. Jimmy might have told you that. I got a shipment coming into the Docks on South near Devon Drive" Tony knew all about these drug deals and shipments that happened. Usually big trucks packed with cocaine would be at the docks, waiting to be passed onto some guidos. "Why were you worried on the phone?" "The problem is these Spaniards who work with one of our rivals, the Reina family. They've been in with them for years. We're not at certain relations with them. In other words, not our allies" Ray then unzipped a gym bag that was sitting next to him and took something out. It was an AK-47. Ray also took out a SPAS-12 shotgun and tossed it over to Tony. "Let's bounce"

The two men got out of the apartment and climbed into a black PMP 600. They headed for the docks then, listening to some Italian opera. "So here's the plan. The Spaniards will be waiting for the trucks to come. We go in and blast them. Then, we steal the trucks and head to my lockup" Tony cocked the shotgun and smashed his window open. "Drive-by?" "Alright"