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sat helplessly in an American prison, and their deaths cried out for revenge. His myriad businesses—both criminal and outwardly legitimate—were under siege. A stampede of gangsters, politicians, crooked cops and business people were deserting or exposing him. A lifetime of schooling in the Mafia hardly seemed enough training for the challenges awaiting Vito when he finally walked free in October 2012.
    By telling the story of this crucial time at the end of one man’s life, we aim to give an account of the Mafia that goes beyond just one corner of one country. During the writing of this book, central characters kept falling dead. There were gangland hits in Acapulco, Mexico, and Casteldaccia, Sicily, as well as several assassinations in and around Montreal and Toronto, some with serious repercussions for the old Mafia families of New York City.
    The violence isn’t surprising. It was thanks to their refinement of violence and intimidation that Mafia groups first became wealthy in southern Italy and then moved on to the rich economies of North America; we will tell a few stories from this era in the chapters tocome. And regardless of where people are, when they stand in the way of the Mafia’s profit-taking, there’s a good chance murder will follow—much is shadowy in the Mafia’s world, but that can be stated as an absolute truth. Another bankable truth is that the ultimate goal of the Mafia is not money but power. Money is simply a tried-and-true way of attaining the power and influence that makes a family respected for generations.
    Not only do members of our cast die in several corners of the world, they come from many corners of it as well. In fact, the diversity of characters in the pages that follow offers proof that the Mafia is not a backward-minded, genetic or racial problem strictly related to Italians. Characters in this book who are equally powerful within the global and Canadian underworld of organized crime—in a few cases, even within the traditional Italian Mafia itself—speak half a dozen languages and come from even more cultures. Defining this criminal world as simply an Italian problem isn’t just bigoted, it’s also inadequate. That kind of narrow thinking is largely responsible for the delay with which Canada and other countries have come to understand the essence of the Mafia and its relationship with power.
    Vito Rizzuto was made to order for his role as a paragon of Mafia values. In a time of financial globalization, he personified the character of the global criminal, possessing an innate understanding of the nexus between the underworld and the world of state and mainstream economic power. He had only completed the ninth grade when he left school to work for his father, but Vito carried himself like an Ivy League–schooled CEO (although his expensive tailored suits were sometimes a little shinier than might be found on Toronto’s Bay Street). He could be polite and affable and speak knowledgeably and calmly about law, business or politics, in English, Italian, Spanish and French. This impressive ability to communicate helps explain why his story is at the heart of Mafia expansion at the turn of this century.
    Vito’s preferred out-of-office activity was golf, the international pastime of business. Mafiosi like Vito may be specialists in violence, butthey are also experts in social and economic relationships. There’s a joke that when the economy got tough for Vito and his father, they laid off judges, politicians and CEOs. He enjoyed reading about great civilizations such as ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Of particular interest was the life of Julius Caesar, who, like Vito, was born into power, expanded his territory beyond the shores of his homeland, and endured a time of exile, banishment and, ultimately, betrayal. When Caesar was gone, the republic collapsed. Well steeped in the lessons of history, Vito had no plans to step