Stiletto Rose is a story I started immediately after finishing the first draft of Lake of Dragons. The concept actually began as a joke. I was teasing my wife because she and her sister were investigating something. I can't remember what the something is now, but it inspired me to take my wife's initials - S.R. - and use them to develop a "super detective" name. The name I came up with was Stiletto Rose. I thought that name was pretty spectacular so I started working on a story line to go with it. The tagline, "Don't let her beauty fool you, this flower is pure poison," popped into my head. That actually got me pretty excited about the concept. I decided to write a comic book about this assassin whose favorite weapon was a spring loaded blade in the stiletto heel of her leather boot. She was quite fond of delivering the death blow via that blade on the end of a reverse crescent kick across the throat. At this point, I was pretty stoked about the concept. As it turns out, I suck at writing comic books. Add that to the fact that my attempts at drawing look like a third grader's depiction of their family drawn in crayon and my dreams for a Stiletto Rose comic book were destroyed.
Stiletto Rose didn't die due to my inability to pen comic books though. I spent a little more time on her back story and she became the star of a novel. Stiletto was born to Jack Rose (formerly Rosatti) and Tasha (a prostitute who was hooked on heroin). Jack had to leave home when his father - Big John Rosatti, head of one of the most powerful mafia families in Chicago - discovered that his wife had been cheating on him for years and Jack wasn't actually his son. When Jack was fifteen, Big John had his mother killed. He would have had Jack killed too, but Christopher (Jack's uncle on his mother's side) managed to get Jack out of the house. Christopher took Jack to stay with an Irish fellow named, Miles Blaney who owned a bookstore and, unbeknownst to Jack, was his biological father. Miles is fascinated with several Asian cultures and histories. He is also a martial arts expert and trains Jack who ultimately becomes an assassin. On his way to becoming that, he takes odd jobs delivering drugs, collecting on debts, or doing small time hits.
Tasha becomes one of Jack's regular deliveries. At the time, Jack is nineteen and Tasha is twenty-five. Jack ends up falling in love with her and she becomes pregnant. Housing a child drastically changes Tasha's outlook on life and she gets herself off of the heroin. Jack starts working his way up in one of Rosatti family's rival organizations and he starts earning bigger payoffs. By the time Tasha is ready to deliver the baby, Jack has saved enough that this one last big hit will afford them the opportunity to get out of the city and try to begin a life together. It just isn't meant to be though.
After Jack gets his big payoff, he rushes to the hotel that he and Tasha have been living in and finds her hanging from the ceiling by a belt. He walks over to the bloody mess that is crying on the bed and meets his daughter. After Tasha delivered her on her own, she was overwhelmed with emotion and guilt. She feels unfit to be a mother, shoots up, and hangs herself. Jack is left with a child to raise. He names her Stiletto, cleans her up, and they move back in with Miles. Jack never gets out of the life. In fact, his new responsibility makes him feel like he has to continue to earn bigger pay days. Jack and Miles raise Stiletto and she eventually enters the "family business". By the time she is sixteen years old, she is an efficient killing machine.
Just after Stiletto turns eight years old, Jack gets a line on a bigger hit than he has ever managed in his life. A family in Miami that is having trouble with their Colombian supplier seeks him out to not only kill the head of the operation, but to completely destroy it. They pair him up with Rufus Walker, an ex-marine and explosives expert. Neither man likes the idea of teaming up with someone on a hit. They both work alone. However, the hit goes off with out a stitch. Jack does the killing and Rufus blows everything up. A partnership is born that will last until Jack dies in Rufus's arms on an airstrip after a hit. Rufus managed to kill the shooter, but can't save Jack. Jack's dying wish is that Rufus look after Stiletto.
Rufus takes on the responsibility of raising Stiletto and they become family. Stiletto continues to mature as an assassin and begins working for the Rosatti family. Of course, she has no idea that she is working for people that could have been her relatives, though they don't share any blood. She ends up falling in love with one of the men she works with, Danny. Danny would have been a cousin had Big John been Jack's biological father. Stiletto and Danny have a relationship that becomes very serious and at seventeen, she becomes pregnant with his child. Danny turns his back on her and breaks her heart. Her pain is more than Rufus can bear. He kidnaps Danny and tortures him to death. The horrifying things that Rufus does to Danny as he is killing him, affect him so deeply that he never kills again.
Once Danny is dead, Stiletto and Rufus have to go into hiding because the entire Rosatti family and their network are trying to kill them. Rufus moves near Beloit, Wisconsin where he has a farm that belonged to his grandmother and they move Stiletto to Milwaukee. Stiletto's identity is erased and she becomes Shelia Brody. It isn't long before she meets someone new, Mark Ramsey. They marry, he adopts Alyssa and a few years later, they have a son named Matt. The years go by and the memory of Stiletto Rose slowly fades. When her husband is killed and her children kidnapped, it all comes back. Stiletto Rose will have to return if Shelia hopes to save her children...
That is the back story...well, a condensed version of it anyway. I may actually dive deeper into it in prequels because I really like the back story of this one. For now, I'm going to release Stiletto Rose via this blog. Stay tuned. I will try to release a chapter per week. I hope you love the story.
Stiletto Rose didn't die due to my inability to pen comic books though. I spent a little more time on her back story and she became the star of a novel. Stiletto was born to Jack Rose (formerly Rosatti) and Tasha (a prostitute who was hooked on heroin). Jack had to leave home when his father - Big John Rosatti, head of one of the most powerful mafia families in Chicago - discovered that his wife had been cheating on him for years and Jack wasn't actually his son. When Jack was fifteen, Big John had his mother killed. He would have had Jack killed too, but Christopher (Jack's uncle on his mother's side) managed to get Jack out of the house. Christopher took Jack to stay with an Irish fellow named, Miles Blaney who owned a bookstore and, unbeknownst to Jack, was his biological father. Miles is fascinated with several Asian cultures and histories. He is also a martial arts expert and trains Jack who ultimately becomes an assassin. On his way to becoming that, he takes odd jobs delivering drugs, collecting on debts, or doing small time hits.
Tasha becomes one of Jack's regular deliveries. At the time, Jack is nineteen and Tasha is twenty-five. Jack ends up falling in love with her and she becomes pregnant. Housing a child drastically changes Tasha's outlook on life and she gets herself off of the heroin. Jack starts working his way up in one of Rosatti family's rival organizations and he starts earning bigger payoffs. By the time Tasha is ready to deliver the baby, Jack has saved enough that this one last big hit will afford them the opportunity to get out of the city and try to begin a life together. It just isn't meant to be though.
After Jack gets his big payoff, he rushes to the hotel that he and Tasha have been living in and finds her hanging from the ceiling by a belt. He walks over to the bloody mess that is crying on the bed and meets his daughter. After Tasha delivered her on her own, she was overwhelmed with emotion and guilt. She feels unfit to be a mother, shoots up, and hangs herself. Jack is left with a child to raise. He names her Stiletto, cleans her up, and they move back in with Miles. Jack never gets out of the life. In fact, his new responsibility makes him feel like he has to continue to earn bigger pay days. Jack and Miles raise Stiletto and she eventually enters the "family business". By the time she is sixteen years old, she is an efficient killing machine.
Just after Stiletto turns eight years old, Jack gets a line on a bigger hit than he has ever managed in his life. A family in Miami that is having trouble with their Colombian supplier seeks him out to not only kill the head of the operation, but to completely destroy it. They pair him up with Rufus Walker, an ex-marine and explosives expert. Neither man likes the idea of teaming up with someone on a hit. They both work alone. However, the hit goes off with out a stitch. Jack does the killing and Rufus blows everything up. A partnership is born that will last until Jack dies in Rufus's arms on an airstrip after a hit. Rufus managed to kill the shooter, but can't save Jack. Jack's dying wish is that Rufus look after Stiletto.
Rufus takes on the responsibility of raising Stiletto and they become family. Stiletto continues to mature as an assassin and begins working for the Rosatti family. Of course, she has no idea that she is working for people that could have been her relatives, though they don't share any blood. She ends up falling in love with one of the men she works with, Danny. Danny would have been a cousin had Big John been Jack's biological father. Stiletto and Danny have a relationship that becomes very serious and at seventeen, she becomes pregnant with his child. Danny turns his back on her and breaks her heart. Her pain is more than Rufus can bear. He kidnaps Danny and tortures him to death. The horrifying things that Rufus does to Danny as he is killing him, affect him so deeply that he never kills again.
Once Danny is dead, Stiletto and Rufus have to go into hiding because the entire Rosatti family and their network are trying to kill them. Rufus moves near Beloit, Wisconsin where he has a farm that belonged to his grandmother and they move Stiletto to Milwaukee. Stiletto's identity is erased and she becomes Shelia Brody. It isn't long before she meets someone new, Mark Ramsey. They marry, he adopts Alyssa and a few years later, they have a son named Matt. The years go by and the memory of Stiletto Rose slowly fades. When her husband is killed and her children kidnapped, it all comes back. Stiletto Rose will have to return if Shelia hopes to save her children...
That is the back story...well, a condensed version of it anyway. I may actually dive deeper into it in prequels because I really like the back story of this one. For now, I'm going to release Stiletto Rose via this blog. Stay tuned. I will try to release a chapter per week. I hope you love the story.
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