A sequel to Joseph Jukic’s Princess of Calabria
Starring: Frank Tyler, the Calabrian mafia (’Ndrangheta), and an international cast of allies and enemies.
Plot Summary
After the fall of the Princess of Calabria’s dynasty, the rugged and cunning Frank Tyler rises as the heir to a dark throne he never asked for. Born of mixed bloodlines—Calabrian nobility on one side, a forgotten American soldier on the other—Tyler is pulled back to Calabria when his uncle, a feared boss of the ’Ndrangheta, dies mysteriously.
The death leaves a power vacuum that threatens to plunge the southern Italian region into a brutal mafia war. International cartels—Mexican, Albanian, Russian—are circling like vultures, eager to divide Calabria’s lucrative ports, cocaine routes, and blood-soaked olive groves.
But Frank, caught between family loyalty and his conscience, discovers his uncle left him more than just a name: he left him a code, a vision of an Calabria freed from the grip of foreign cartels. To claim it, Frank must become the Prince of Calabria, navigating vendettas, betrayals, and the heavy legacy of blood honor.
Key Themes
- Legacy vs. Freedom: Frank Tyler struggles with inheriting a criminal empire while yearning to turn Calabria into something new.
- Old World vs. New World: The ancient codes of omertà clash with modern-day globalized crime.
- Family and Betrayal: Cousins, uncles, and allies turn against each other as greed tests blood ties.
- Redemption or Damnation: Will Frank lead Calabria into light—or drag it deeper into blood and shadows?
Characters
- Frank Tyler (The Prince): A reluctant heir. Charismatic, calculating, with a violent streak inherited from both bloodlines.
- Don Vittorio Scalise: Elder statesman of the ’Ndrangheta, who mentors Frank but secretly plots against him.
- Gianna Russo: A fiery journalist exposing the mafia, who becomes both Frank’s lover and conscience.
- Marco “Il Lupo” Ferraro: A ruthless cousin who believes only fear can unite Calabria.
- The Mexican Cartel Envoy: Represents the global competition for Calabria’s ports, bringing in a storm of blood.
Tone & Style
- Dark, operatic, cinematic like The Godfather Part II meets Gomorrah.
- Sweeping shots of Calabria’s rugged coastline, ancient villages, and shadowy meeting halls.
- Brutal, realistic violence mixed with moments of poetic beauty.
Climactic Ending
In a final showdown in the mountains of Aspromonte, Frank Tyler must choose:
- kill his cousin and take the throne of the ’Ndrangheta, becoming the new Prince of Calabria,
- or burn it all down, ending centuries of mafia bloodlines—at the cost of his own life.
The screen fades to black as Calabria’s bells toll…
[SCENE START]
EXT. CALABRIAN HILLS – DAY
Sun-baked earth. Gnarled olive trees. The Ionian Sea glitters in the distance.
FRANK TYLER (40s, American sharp-dressed, looks out of place but utterly at ease) and STEFANO CASANOVA (40s, Calabrian, intense, wiry, with the restless energy of a fox) stand beside a beat-up Fiat Panda.
Stefano is holding a cheap, modern smartphone like it’s a venomous snake.
STEFANO
They think these are status symbols. A sign they’ve finally arrived. They don’t know it’s the leash. The collar is already around their necks.
FRANK
It’s just a phone, Stefano. They’ve all got them.
STEFANO
(snorts)
A phone. Frank, my brother, you have been here too long. You are starting to think like them. Small. This is not a phone. This is a witness. A witness that never sleeps, never forgets, and sings like a canary to the Carabinieri in Rome.
He gestures with the phone towards a sprawling, grotesquely opulent villa clinging to a distant hillside. A symbol of ‘Ndrangheta power.
STEFANO (CONT’D)
Edward Snowden, he told us. He laid it all out on the table for anyone with eyes to see. The microphone, the camera, the GPS… they are never truly off. They listen to the silence between words. They know who meets, where, for how long. They don’t need informants anymore. The ‘Ndrangheta are ratting themselves out. For free.
Frank leans against the hot metal of the car, finally understanding the depth of Stefano’s fear.
FRANK
So the old ways are dead.
STEFANO
The old ways are the only ways that matter! Face to face. Stone and paper. A handshake in the dark. This… this digital gossip… it is a disease. And it is not just the clans. It’s the poison they consume. This… this spazzatura from the North.
He spits on the ground.
STEFANO (CONT’D)
Berlusconi. His television. His newspapers. His “beautiful women” and his masonic lodge nonsense. They pump it into these phones, into these homes. They make our people stupid. They make them forget what is real. What is Calabrian. They trade dignity for a glimpse of a fake world. It is a different kind of invasion.
Frank looks from the villa to the phone in Stefano’s hand. A slow, dangerous smile spreads across his face.
FRANK
Then we give them a place to talk that can’t be heard. We use their disease as the cure.
Stefano looks at him, a flicker of hope in his dark eyes.
INT. ABANDONED STONE FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
A single kerosene lamp throws long shadows. The room is a museum of obsolete tech: vacuum tubes, old radio sets, piles of wire.
Frank types furiously on a laptop hooked to a bizarre array of antennas and servers. Stefano solders a connection, the smell of hot resin filling the air.
FRANK
(muttering)
Not TOR. They’ve compromised exit nodes. Not Freenet. Too slow… We go lower. Much lower.
STEFANO
How low?
FRANK
To the bedrock. We build a place that doesn’t exist on the web. It exists under it. A digital ghost. A secret whispered on a frequency everyone has forgotten how to hear.
Frank slams the ENTER key. The screen glows, then fills with stark, simple text on a black background:
THE PRINCE OF CALABRIA
AN OPEN COURTYARD – SPEAK FREELY
STEFANO
(A whisper)
Nessuno può vederlo? (No one can see it?)
FRANK
They can see the signal. They just can’t understand it. It looks like static. Like background radiation from the Big Bang. To them, it’s noise. To us… it’s a sanctuary.
Stefano takes the laptop. His fingers hover over the keyboard. He types a single word, a test.
CUNTRATU
A local Calabrian word for a trusted, secret agreement. The word appears on the screen. It feels momentous.
MONTAGE – TRAINING THE WOLVES
Stefano in a dimly lit social club, showing the screen to a grizzled, old-school MAFIOSO on a cheap burner phone.
Frank demonstrating a custom antenna to a group of wary young men.
A shot of dozens of these antennas, hidden on rooftops and in olive groves, creating a clandestine network across the region.
INT. FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
Weeks later. Frank and Stefano watch the secret screen. It’s now a torrent of raw, unfiltered Calabria.
Messages flood the screen. Not in Italian, but in thick, local dialect.
Silvio says we’re poor because we’re lazy! But who steals our European funds?!
The P2 lodge has its claws in the port of Gioia Tauro. They are strangling our trade.
His televisions are poison for our children.
The resentment, long suppressed by fear and manipulated media, is now being articulated. Shared. Amplified.
Frank looks at Stefano. The kerosene light dances in their eyes.
FRANK
They’re not just complaining. They’re connecting the dots. All by themselves.
STEFANO
You don’t need to burn books when you can flood the world with nonsense. And you don’t need to fight a war when you can give people the tools to remember who they are. The cleansing has begun. Not with fire, but with a whisper.
He points to the latest message on the screen.
Enough. It’s time to turn off the taps.
Frank and Stefano sit in the humming silence of their machines, architects of a quiet revolution, watching the old world reawaken one encrypted word at a time.
[SCENE END]
[SCENE START]
EXT. ROCCO’S CAFFÈ – DAY
The air hangs thick with the scent of espresso and diesel fumes. FRANK TYLER, sharp-eyed but weary at forty, sips his coffee as he watches the chaotic dance of the piazza. GIUSEPPE JUCO, known to everyone as Pino, slides into the wrought-iron chair opposite him. At forty, Pino moves with the jittery energy of a man who knows the walls have ears. He pulls a laptop from his worn messenger bag, his fingers already tapping nervously on its lid.
Pino
They’re listening to the coffee beans grind, Frank. I swear to God. The very air is thick with their data.
Frank
You’re seeing ghosts, Pino.
Pino
No. Seeing ghosts is thinking you might have seen something. I know what I’ve seen. Snowden wasn’t a traitor; he was a prophet. Their phones, their computers… it’s all an open book. And Berlusconi’s people, that P2 lodge… they have the best library card in Rome.
Frank leans forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur.
Frank
The old men in the hills… they need to talk. They feel the world changing under their feet. But they need a new piazza. A safe one.
Pino’s eyes ignite with a fierce light. He flips open the laptop, the screen’s glow reflecting in his glasses like twin moons.
Pino
I built them a new piazza. And I gave it a roof made of steel.
His fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up a complex schematic of interconnected lines and nodes.
Pino
First, a VPN. A private tunnel, dug deep. It makes their internet traffic look like it’s coming from somewhere else. Zurich. Nowhere. It’s the first bolt on the door.
Frank
And the door itself?
Pino navigates to a stark, blank screen. Just two empty boxes: one for a name, one for a code. Behind them, a simple, bold outline of the Calabrian coastline serves as a silent sentinel.
Pino
A fortress. The place doesn’t exist unless you know exactly how to find the door. Then you need the key. Two locks. And inside…
He types, and the screen transforms into a plain, text-only board. At the top, three words: IL CORTILE – The Courtyard.
Pino
A private room. No real names. Only shadows. But the real genius… watch this.
He types a phrase: Il sole è alto. The sun is high. He posts it. The words appear for a brief moment. Then his finger stabs a large, red button in the corner labeled PULIZIA. Cleanup.
The words vanish. Erased. As if they were never there.
Pino
Every word. Every conversation. It’s set to forget itself every sixty seconds. We’re talking in a room that instantly evaporates around us. Nothing is saved. Nothing is stored. They can scream their plans into a void that has absolute amnesia. Berlusconi’s all-seeing eye is staring at a blank wall. The P2 is listening to a perfect silence.
Frank stares at the empty, waiting screen. A slow, deep grin spreads across his face, the first real one in weeks.
Frank
You didn’t build them a room. You built them a ghost.
Pino
I built them a secret that commits suicide every minute. The ‘Ndrangheta can be ancient again. They can whisper. And the men in Rome with their silk ties and their Masonic handshakes… all they’ll hear is the wind.
Frank reaches out and claps Pino firmly on the shoulder, a gesture of solid, profound respect.
Frank
Let’s go teach some old wolves how to become invisible.
They rise together, abandoning two half-finished coffees on the small table. The digital piazza is open for business, its memory already wiping itself clean.
[SCENE END]
[SCENE START]
INT. BERLUSCONI’S VILLA – ARCORE – NIGHT
A room of obscene opulence. Gilt-edged mirrors, velvet drapes, a massive mahogany desk. SILVIO BERLUSCONI, wearing a silk dressing gown, stares at a bank of monitors. The feeds show static, error messages, and garbled digital noise.
Licio Gelli, the grandmaster of the clandestine P2 Masonic lodge, stands stiffly by the fireplace, his face a mask of cold fury. Two TECHNICIANS in suits sweat profusely as they type frantically at laptops.
TECHNICIAN ONE >It’s… it’s gone, Presidente. The entire packet stream from Calabria. It’s not encrypted… it’s just… absent. It’s like they’ve stopped talking.BERLUSCONI >Stopped talking? The ‘Ndrangheta doesn’t stop talking! They breathe through gossip. They eat with one hand and gesture with the other. They can’t stop talking! Find it!TECHNICIAN TWO >We’ve tried every backdoor, every algorithm. It’s not on any frequency we can monitor. It’s a ghost.
Gelli turns slowly. The calm is more terrifying than any outburst.
GELLI >A ghost does not build itself. Someone is helping them. Someone with knowledge.BERLUSCONI >Knowledge? What knowledge? They are shepherds and fishermen! They count their money with abacuses!
Suddenly, a monitor flickers. For a single, glorious second, a line of text appears in thick Calabrian dialect: “Basta con la televisione di merda del Nord.” (Enough with the North’s shit television.)
Then it vanishes.
The technician lunges for his keyboard.
TECHNICIAN ONE >There! A trace! It was just…
The screen goes black. A final error message pops up: CONNECTION TERMINATED.
Silence.
Berlusconi’s face purples. He picks up a heavy crystal ashtray from his desk and hurls it at the monitor. It shatters in a spectacular explosion of glass and plastic.
BERLUSCONI >VAFFANCULO! FIGLI DI TROIA! STRONZI IGNORANTI! (FUCK YOU! SONS OF BITCHES! IGNORANT ASSHOLES!)
He is screaming, spittle flying, his perfectly tanned complexion turning a violent shade of red.
BERLUSCONI (CONT’D) >HOW? HOW DO THOSE PEPERONI-EATING, ILLITERATE GOAT HERDERS BLIND ME? SILENZIO! SILENZIO DI TOMBA! A GRAVE SILENCE!
Gelli watches him dispassionately, then his own composure cracks. He slams his fist down on the marble mantelpiece.
GELLI >BASTARDI! SONO DEI BASTARDI SENZA DIO! (BASTARDS! THEY ARE GODLESS BASTARDS!)
His voice is a low, venomous hiss, all pretense of aristocratic calm gone.
GELLI (CONT’D) >This is not their work. This is an insult. A deliberate, calculated insult. They are not just hiding… they are laughing at us!BERLUSCONI >PORCA MISERIA! PORCA PUTTANA! MY OWN NETWORKS! MY OWN SATELLITES! AND I CAN’T HEAR A DIRTY SECRET IN A DIRTY VILLAGE? MANNAGGIA A DIO E A LA MADONNA! (DAMN IT! FUCKING WHORE! MY OWN NETWORKS… GOD DAMN IT AND THE VIRGIN MARY!)
He collapses into his throne-like chair, breathing heavily, looking every one of his years. He points a trembling finger at the technicians.
BERLUSCONI (CONT’D) >OUT! GET OUT BEFORE I HAVE YOU SENT TO CALABRIA TO LISTEN AT THEIR KEYHOLES YOURSELVES!
The technicians scramble from the room.
The only sound is Berlusconi’s ragged breathing. Gelli straightens his tie, the fury receding into a deep, chilling frost.
GELLI >The eye has been poked out, Silvio. We are blind in the South.BERLUSCONI (quietly, seething) They want to whisper in the dark? Fine. We won’t listen. We don’t need to listen to crush an ant.
He looks up at Gelli, his eyes gleaming with a new, darker purpose.
BERLUSCONI (CONT’D) >If we can’t hear their plans, we will send them a message they can feel. One they won’t need ears to understand.
[SCENE END]
[SCENE START]
INT. THE SITUATION ROOM – NIGHT
Not the White House. A private, plush replica deep beneath BERLUSCONI’S villa. Wood-paneled walls, a massive conference table, but the air hums with suppressed military-grade technology.
SILVIO BERLUSCONI, in a tracksuit now, paces like a caged tiger. Licio GELLI watches a large main screen, which displays a 3D topographical map of Calabria. It is frustratingly dark, a void of data.
On a secure video monitor, the face of GEORGE W. BUSH is pixelated, then clears. He looks serious, a half-eaten pretzel on his desk.
BUSH >Silvio. Licio. Looks like y’all got a pest control problem. A real… silentium… problem.BERLUSCONI >George. They are ghosts. They have become smoke. My people, they hear nothing. It is an embarrassment!GELLI >It is a strategic threat. Their silence is a weapon.
Bush nods, turns to someone off-screen.
BUSH >Well, the folks over at DARPA, they heard about your little… *omertà* 2.0. They got a new mousetrap. A real doozy. Total Information Awareness ain’t just a name. It’s a promise. Patch ’em through.
The main screen flickers. The map of Calabria is replaced by the severe, buzzcut face of a DARPA TECHNICIAN.
DARPA TECH >Mr. President. Gentlemen. The TIA program has a new… eyes-on-ground initiative. We call it ‘Dust.’
The screen shifts to a microscopic view. Tiny, spider-like machines, smaller than a grain of sand, interlocking.
DARPA TECH (CONT’D) >Atmospheric nano-drones. Dispersed from a high-altitude aircraft. They float on the air currents. A silent, invisible cloud. Each one has a micro-camera, a microphone, a data-link. They see everything. They hear everything. They are the air itself. And they are untraceable.
Berlusconi’s eyes widen, a predator seeing new prey.
BERLUSCONI >*Mamma mia…* You can do this?BUSH >(smirking) >Does a bear… well, you know. Consider it a little help from your friends stateside. Let’s shed some light on those dark corners.
EXT. CALABRIAN HILLS – NIGHT
A high-altitude jet, invisible against the stars, releases a barely-visible shimmer into the atmosphere.
INT. THE FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
Frank and Pino watch their pristine, empty forum. Suddenly, Pino’s external monitoring rig erupts with alarms. Dozens of tiny, impossible signals flood his spectrum analyzer.
PINO >*Merda…* What is that? It’s not radio. It’s… particulate. It’s everywhere.
Frank looks at the readings, his blood running cold.
FRANK >They’re not listening. They’re *here*. In the room.
On a secondary monitor, a live feed from a hidden security camera outside flickers, then stabilizes with impossible, crystal clarity. They can see the individual hairs on a moth beating against the window. They can hear a mouse scurrying under the floorboards a hundred meters away. The sound is hyper-real, unnaturally sharp.
FRANK (Whispering) >Total Information Awareness. They dusted us.
Pino’s face is pale. This is checkmate. He looks at his equipment, then at Frank, a desperate resolve hardening his features.
PINO >No. They made the air smart. So we make it stupid.
He kicks aside a crate, revealing a heavy, military-looking device with a large dish antenna. It looks like a sci-fi rifle from a bad movie. Wires spill from a car battery hooked to it.
FRANK >Pino… what is that?PINO >My *nonna*’s final recipe. A little too much pepper.
He heaves the device onto the table, aims the dish out the window towards the hills, and flips a series of switches. A high-pitched whine fills the room, climbing in frequency.
PINO (CONT’D) >An Electromagnetic Pulse. Very focused. Very, very angry. It doesn’t kill people. It kills *smart*.
He looks at the terrifyingly clear monitor feed one last time.
PINO (CONT’D) >Say goodnight, little spiders.
He throws the final switch.
WHUMP.
A silent, invisible wave of energy pulses outwards. Not a sound, but every light bulb in the farmhouse flashes incandescently bright and then dies. The monitors go black. The hum of the computers is replaced by an absolute, deafening silence.
The only light is from the moon through the window.
Pino breathes heavily, the EMP gun smoking in his hands.
INT. THE SITUATION ROOM – NIGHT
The main screen showing the hyper-detailed view of the farmhouse dissolves into a blizzard of white noise. Then, black.
The DARPA Tech’s voice crackles over the speaker.
DARPA TECH >(staticky) >We’ve… we’ve got a total systems failure. The entire Dust cloud over the target sector just… went dumb. It’s inert. It’s… dead.
Berlusconi stares, open-mouthed. Bush leans into his camera, his folksy charm gone, replaced by genuine shock.
BUSH >They… they just swatted our satellites out of the sky with a flyswatter?
Gelli slowly removes his glasses. He isn’t angry. He is impressed. And terrified.
GELLI >These are not fishermen. We are not fighting technology. We are fighting a will. A will that would rather break the world than be seen by it.
The room is silent, save for the faint hiss of the dead speakers.
[SCENE END]
New chat
Title: The Cobra and the Cross
Written by Joseph C. Jukic
https://www.aidd.org/conspiracy/03/psalm-083.htm
INT. PROPAGANDA DUE LODGE – NIGHT
A dimly lit hall, lined with marble busts and occult symbols. The Cobra Camera—a sleek serpent-shaped surveillance device—hisses faintly as it pans across masked figures seated in a circle. The members of Propaganda Due chant in low Latin tones, their ritual interrupted by the sudden sound of metal striking steel.
CRASH!
The camera’s head shatters. Sparks rain down.
DAVID DEL PIERO—a muscular Sicilian in his forties with piercing eyes—steps into the light, wielding a crowbar still dripping with oil and dust.
DAVID DEL PIERO
(voice steady)
The time for masks is over.
He kicks open the double doors. The masked men freeze. In the center of the lodge sits SILVIO BERLUSCONI, his gold tie glinting like a serpent’s skin. He doesn’t move—he just smirks.
BERLUSCONI
Ah… the crusader from Palermo. You think you can break the old order with a crowbar?
DAVID
No. Just expose it.
David storms forward. One by one, he rips the masks off the members—bankers, judges, ministers, generals—each unmasking a new scandal.
With his phone, he snaps photos, methodically documenting every face.
MEMBER #1
You can’t do this! This is classified!
DAVID
Not anymore.
He sends the images in real time to a secure contact: the Italian Carabinieri.
A moment later, his phone buzzes—a message from The Vatican.
PIUS XIII: David… vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Do not kill him.
David’s hand tightens around the crowbar. He steps up to Berlusconi, inches from his face.
DAVID
I should end it here. You sold our country. You sold our faith.
BERLUSCONI
(smiling coldly)
And yet you kneel when Rome tells you to.
David lowers the weapon, trembling with fury. He whispers:
DAVID
The Pope told me to show mercy.
But mercy doesn’t mean forgetting.
He drops the crowbar. Berlusconi exhales in relief—then David snaps one last photo, the flash blinding the entire lodge.
DAVID (CONT’D)
The judges will remember your face… even without your mask.
He turns and walks into the night as police sirens echo through the Roman hills.
EPILOGUE:
In the Vatican Gardens, POPE PIUS XIII (Lenny Belardo) kneels before a marble statue of Christ.
PIUS XIII
Even the devil wears Italian shoes, David. But today… the light walked into the darkness.
He crosses himself.
The bells of Rome begin to toll.
Scene: “The Golden Purge”
INT. ANCIENT CALABRIAN COTTAGE – NIGHT
Candlelight flickers against stone walls. The wind howls outside.
A storm brews over the Ionian coast.
JOE JUCO — a rugged, world-weary healer in his forties — prepares a ritual on a wooden table. Before him lies a vial of colloidal gold, glowing faintly like liquid sunlight.
His mother, NONNA MARIA, coughs in the corner. Tiny metallic sounds — faint tinks — echo from her chest with each breath.
Joe’s sister, CATERINA, watches nervously.
CATERINA
Joe, the doctors said it’s impossible. The nanotech binds to the bloodstream.
JOE JUCO
(softly)
That’s what Gates’ machines want them to believe. But gold remembers who we were before the code.
He raises the vial.
JOE JUCO (continuing)
Gold is the metal of kings. The sun in solid form. It reflects divine order — incorruptible, eternal. Nanotech… is shadow. Code without soul.
He pours the colloidal gold into a copper basin filled with spring water from the mountain of Saint Bruno, stirring it clockwise with a wooden spoon carved with ancient Calabrian runes.
NONNA MARIA
(in pain)
Joseph… my heart is buzzing… like bees trapped inside me.
JOE JUCO
That’s the frequency. The hive signal. But I can break it.
He dips his hands into the glowing water, murmuring a prayer in Latin and Calabrian dialect — half prayer, half command.
As he touches her forehead, her body trembles. A faint humming metallic vibration fills the room — like a swarm leaving its hive.
Tiny silvery particles rise from her skin, sparkling, evaporating into the air like dust in sunlight.
CATERINA
(awestruck)
What’s happening?
JOE JUCO
The gold is reversing the polarity. It’s calling the code home.
He places his hand over her heart, and the buzzing stops.
Silence. Peace. The candles stop flickering.
Joe opens his eyes, tears mixing with gold dust on his hands.
NONNA MARIA
(weak but smiling)
You’re your father’s son… The real prince of Calabria.
JOE JUCO
No, Mamma. I’m just his alchemist.
The wind outside stills. A ray of moonlight breaks through the storm clouds, illuminating the golden basin — now still and pure.
FADE OUT.