The Red Book of Secrets: The Diary of a Mobster's Wife

By Suzy Valtsioti

Markella has been called pretentious, gullible, flighty and campy. She is also blunt, brutally honest and very sensitive. Some women consider her an icon of society and fashion, others brush her off as a brassy butterfly from the criminal world, one that has no place among the social and fashionable elite.
Markella knows that this comes with the territory. After all she is the wife of a notorious crime boss. Nick is a renowned card cheat, mobster and legendary boss.
They make quite the couple. Some love them, some hate them, while so many love to hate them.
An unexpected situation develops and push comes to shove.
This turn of events sparked her burning desire to share what she knows with the world. She has seen so much in her life and now feels like she is about to burst at the seams.
But she can't talk about these things to anyone. It isn’t permitted.
She decides to write it all out anyway, in her red book.
So Markella brings a chatty diary to life, filled with information about her husband, Nick.
Markella takes time to get her thoughts together, expressing half of what she is thinking in her diary. She writes in her slow burn style. Sometimes staccato and sometimes rambling, sometimes brash and often politically incorrect, she fills the pages of her journal with their unusual story.
Their life is drenched with crime, mystery, eccentricity, double-crossers, and dripping with the unique flavors of Greece, New York, and Osaka.
Her diary is soaked through and through with gossip, romance and a touch of the metaphysical.
But is what she writes in this diary true?
Are these pages filled with what she really feels and what she really knows to be true?
Something terribly wrong comes to light...but what really happened? You be the judge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Suzy Valtsioti
• Release date: Mar 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463014141

Suzy Valtsioti

Creating stories and art are 'my thing'. My family is my life. Life is a blessing, full of ups, downs and surprises. I live for it all, savoring every drop. I am insanely curious about everything, and absolutely intrigued by all things mysterious and unexplainable. It goes without saying that I am a foodie, a night owl and gravitate towards cocooning.

Book preview

The Red Book of Secrets

the diary of a mobster’s wife

Suzy Valtsioti

Couldn’t resist a personal moment here:

This book is for my husband…

He knows, and I know, that words just can’t express the story of a life time that continues to stir the heart like the most passionate romance novel and the story of a life time which has also provided us with more than its share of suspense, chase and the bizarre.

Life is truly a gift. And walking along life’s path together is truly our dream come true.

The Couples That Are Meant to Be,

Are the Ones Who Go Through Everything That Is Meant to Tear Them Apart,

and Come out Even Stronger.

The Red Book of Secrets

the diary of a mobster’s wife ©

by Suzy Valtsioti

It goes without saying that:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Credits:

artwork on front cover: Woman Exotic Vintage Painting by Karen Arnold. Public Domain. (publicdomainpictures.net).

Thank You.

"Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts.

But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately."

Niccolò Machiavelli

We women talk too much, but even then we don't tell half what we know.

Nancy Astor, the Viscountess Astor

Because even the smallest of words can be the ones to hurt you, or save you.

Natsuki Takaya

I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me. - Anais Nin

Now this Anais Nin said it right.

As if she knew me...there are many women in me, and one of them is chomping at the bits, ready to crumble all the barriers that prevent her from being heard.

All I want is to make our whole story known. The real story. Is that too much to wish for? In my world, I guess it is. For our own good.

I want to cry. I want to scream. I am confused. This is now too much. I can’t believe what is happening. A part of me is like a storm, out of control, contained deep in my heart. For how long though can my heart keep the tempest under control?

But another part of me is calm, and it speaks to me with a voice coming from my mind, urging me to avoid setting the heart storm free.

This voice is constantly reminding me to stop asking questions, to stop thinking about things outside of my control, to accept what is going on, and to do so without breaking.

Releasing all that is stored in my heart could be very dangerous – quite shattering, as a matter of fact. And it would expose tons of details not meant for everyone’s ears.

That calm voice inside my head is tormenting me. It is saying the same thing over and over again. Like recorded propaganda playing over and over and over in my head, trying to calm down, to silence and take over my heart.

It tells me to Stand up straight, smile, put on something nice and don’t let on what you’re feeling. Don’t let yourself feel. The less the better. You have a duty. You have a job. You are the wife of the boss. Stand up to the task. It is the rule.

And again, it plays and it says, Stand up straight, smile, put on something nice and don’t let on what you’re feeling. Don’t let yourself feel. The less the better. You have a duty. You have a job. You are the wife of the boss. Stand up to the task. It is the rule.

The rule.

Rules. Rules dictate our lives.

Rules, rules, rules.

Some of them don't work.

Rules that don't work are like nasty weeds. They need to be eradicated.

And I am referring to that one rule that is bothering me so painfully right now. The rule of silence.

It was this rule that stifled us the most – causing a trove of untold stories, true stories, to be kept locked away in our minds and hearts. Forbidden to be revealed. Because that was the rule. And now once again silence is the rule.

Things happened. Treacherous things. And we are supposed to remain still. We need to remain quiet. For our own good. But how can we, when we know so well that we were set up?

And this time, the set up was unforeseeable and unexplainable. Too well done. How can we not panic? How can I not want to scream?

My husband is my whole life and I am watching him being set up and victimised in the cruelest fashion. And he can’t fight back. He can’t make a move. At least for now.

It’s watch and wait. I don’t know why, he knows, but I trust Nick with my life. He knows what he is doing.

If only we didn’t need to be silent about ‘things’. If only we could talk about this new situation freely. If only we could talk about our lives, what we did, who we really are, freely – with nothing to fear, like the rest of the world. Then I wouldn’t be panicking like this, wanting to talk about all of these events that seemed to send me reeling into a panic.

I am one big panic attack since this new scandal broke out. And I am scared shitless of talking about it, God forbid we break the code of silence.

A whole new world would begin for us without that rule. Yes, Nick and I could live so differently, so freely, without that rule of Silence over our heads. After all, we really don’t have anything to hide.

Freeing us from that rule is like having a chance for us to feel Reborn.

Like a phoenix.

Rules are black and white, and I do not want to be silenced by rules. No more stifling rules. I want to go gray, that is the only ‘place’ I can think of where black and white simply melt down into the background. Gray is neutral. And gray is free. That is how I imagine freedom – gray.

I feel that I can help my husband and his reputation if I let people know the truth – the real story behind him, behind us, behind our life and most importantly behind this latest scandal.

And I want to start right here, where I am right now. A place where I can tell our whole story, starting from what we are experiencing in our lives right now, as I write.

Is this too much to ask? Is this too much to hope for?

I want to write the story.

The one that we were never allowed to tell.

Nick's story, my story and our story. Written down right here.

A place with no boundaries, no limits.

Where anything and everything can be written. Any way I please.

Where I can say it all, with no fear of offending anyone. Or fear of anyone's retaliation.

With no more rule of silence hanging over our heads.

Because here, in my new red journal, there are no rules allowed.

My red journal only contains my gray zone – gray – not black nor white, neither good nor bad, neither here no there...just the truth as I see it.

It's gray in the red. In the beautiful red leather bound journal.

But I want blood.

So it's Red on the Gray.

And so it is.

It officially begins.

I tell it all.

Now.

My Red Book.

Truth and Consequences

Out on the streets, he is known as Mallias. His real name is Nick. Nikolaos. Nikolaos Voliotis. I call him Nick. From a very young age, just a little boy, he knew what he wanted to become. He carved out his destiny. He knew where his fortune would come from and he knew just what he could do. Yes, from just a kid, my husband knew what he wanted and into what world he was headed.

His fortune and fame were going to come from the cards. He decided this from a very young age, a child still. Nick was going to become the card cheat and the card player that will make history. And he did. Nick became notorious – a force to be reckoned with.

His reputation from young was colorful to say the least. People would say that he was the scoundrel that charmed everyone. But it is not quite like that. He was so clever and quick, so gifted with the deck and he was graced with the talent of reading people. What most people don’t understand is that his greatest wish was to help the poor and those who were victims. He also had a bone to pick with heartless authority and unjust systems. Yet he was able to have friends and circulate among all walks of life – from a young age. He saw the good in everything and always explored every opportunity in his way.

He invested his skills in the cards and the cards paid off in rewards unimaginable for Nick. The deck of cards were his tool, and he was a master craftsman. He started young at the craft, so by the time he entered the mob scene in his twenties, he was already a professional poker player, a professional card cheat, a professional gambler and he could read people from a mile away. His senses and intuition were blades. Since then he grew as a mobster and his life has been one huge adventure. A very unusual one, quite unbelievable at times.

And now with this new scandal that just burst, a new chapter in the adventure has begun. A chapter that has started off with a bang, and with great uncertainty. And fear. I am afraid. But the one thing that keeps me sane right now is that I can trust Nick and believe in him. He will get us through this. I know it.

But no one could possibly understand where we are now and what we face if they don’t know how it all started…I need to explain everything from the beginning, from how it started to where we are right now because for the first time I am very afraid and very bewildered.

No one knows the real Nick, what he lived through, what he is going through, what that man has seen and done. His life was always filled with risk, danger, crime, and passion. If one don’t know Nick’s story, there is no way one can understand what just took place and has driven me to desperation...desperate to be heard.

Nick’s story began to take twists and turns after the raven flew out of his mouth. Sounds crazy. Sounds unbelievable. But it's true. How can I even begin to explain that a raven actually flew out of his mouth, when I can't understand it myself? I will perhaps get to that and explain the details…now there is no time...I need to let out so much from way back then to what happened just a short while ago. I can’t believe I actually wrote that. No one knows about that. We never told a soul. And here I am writing it.

But, that statement I just wrote about the raven, I know that it is true. Because there was an element of black magic around us. It surrounded us and made itself known many times, even from when we were young...even from before we met.

It has been an endless barrage of hits on us, a lifelong attack. As if the danger factor from the enemies surrounding our organization wasn't enough, they have always been coming at us from all ends – attacking our work, and our personal lives.

There seemed to also be a thread of black magic and evil trying to weave itself in to our lives as well as the lies, rumors and intrigue constantly weighing down everything. Lies...about Nick, about me, about work, about play.

How much can anyone handle without breaking? And then I am supposed to be strong and handle what just happened to us? I don’t even know from where to begin...I want to write about that and let it out, but I can’t stop thinking about how endless this attack on our lives has been...I am so angry...

But these attacks were always there, beating down on both of us from our childhood. Both Nick and I grew up in hostile worlds, and when we merged, we merged our hostile worlds. We were always surrounded by people who wanted to harm us, even those who should have been above suspicion were terribly evil.

Did magic have anything to do with creating this hostility around us? Maybe yes. Maybe no. I don't know. All I know is that we were constantly being hit with malice and hate.

Hate is a powerful force. It makes some people do unforgivable things. I never even believed in this black magic, neither did Nick. We still don't like it. We despise it. In a perfect world, it would never exist. But we definitely know that it's real. Anyway.

My journal certainly isn't about the black magic, although I have to write that we were hit beyond belief by this disgusting thing. We couldn’t imagine what kind of evil lurked in the hearts and minds of some people.

There is so much from the past that I would need to write about in order to write about the present. I need to. I have to. If I write out the past, it will help me to understand the present. And I need help to understand what is happening right now because things just don’t add up. So it makes sense to start from the beginning. My heart tells me so.

Nick started out as a small time gangster. He went to hell and back on that path. He was so lucky, surviving near brushes with death so many times. Nick started slowly but surely making his way into the underground. And he was good. The best. The best card cheat. The best poker player. A skilled gambler. He was a renegade at first.

Nick's business grew. His own small gang that he created became a small mob. His little mob became a family. A group, a family, an organization. Small, tight knit and eventually nestled within the umbrella of a large family, a huge organized crime family. A good one.

It was good. We were proud. That's how it works. They took his group in, helped them grow. Mutual benefits. Good co operation. And Nick’s mob became a nice, small family of its own, nestled in a very large and efficient organization that was like an overlord.

Work was good. It became serious. Nick’s mob became a powerful Greek mob that was given authority in certain places. In the beginning, Nick’s mob operated within the Greek communities in different areas of the US, mainly the eastern seaboard. And this gave the large family that his mob worked for a broader business base.

Nick’s mob in a larger syndicate expanded our lives, our income and our mind. With that came a more serious operation. And new rules came to life. Rules that prevented us from talking about things. We weren’t individuals anymore, but part of a collective within a collective. With rules. And with a need for discretion, secrecy and strict policy. After all, we had respect. That was our life back then. Now Nick is ‘retired’ from most things and has kept a few of his own pet operations going. But back then things were tough because our communities were tough.

Of course the Greek community where we lived in the greater New York area was constantly reacting strangely to Nick’s tightly run family. They were misfiring and chomping at the bits at the thought of a small Greek – run mob in their midst. A Greek mob that ruled over the area, controlling our interests with amazingly tight control. We never hurt the people in the community or touched them if they never crossed the mob. But by and large, the community resented the presence of a mob, made up of fellow Greeks, in their midst. They resented authority, fair or not. it’s a cultural thing. However, we were always just. And we were the authority.

Their resentment stemmed from their way of thinking, you see they hated anything that wasn’t theirs. And this family belonged to no one else but Nick. They could never be a part of this. Sometimes Greeks like to be ‘all chiefs’. But Nick’s family had only one chief. And Nick’s family ruled.

Our fellow Greeks in our area viewed us with jealousy and mistrust, after all we rose from within this Greek community. They wished they had made it to our position, but they didn’t. They showered us with negative attention, rumors, and attempts to trip us up, to sabotage. Just for sabotage’s sake. The lies and the malice from our Greek community continued. So we had to take our stabs from our community without being able to do much about it.

We couldn't talk back. After all, we were working with other people now as well, and getting involved in their sensitive issues. There was no talk about anything permitted. And Nick did not allow for any of his people in the mob to show any signs of aggression or retaliation to any ‘outside the organization ‘asshole from the Greek community mouthing off at us.

Because if any problems are created around us, the details of Nick's business could be exposed. But despite all the shit storms that rained on us, the business was successful.

And people remained jealous of Nick, especially those who remembered him when he first started out. None of them ever believed that he would ‘make it’. And they assumed that Nick must have road on other’s coat tails to achieve what he did because they never wanted to believe in him or to acknowledge his talent, intelligence and drive to succeed. We understood that. They saw Nick doing well, and they assumed whatever they assumed. They began to create stories and rumors about Nick and whatever it was they imagined he did.

Nick never let on what he did beyond opening the gambling dens that he had. The gambling dens. The first step in Nick’s career. And these dens were the heart of the Greek rumor mill.

So much happened in there, in the social clubs, the gambling dens. Some of his very own ‘good’ customers were the snakes in the grass that created hell outside on the streets for us. But it's a very Greek thing, jealousy. And so is sabotage and back stabbing.

Can you blame them though back then? They watched this young kid, young Nick, dressed to kill, with huge amounts of cash, operating his own gambling den. And they were envious. Nick was the 'local bank' of the Greeks. He used to lend, do favors, and rescue businesses for them. Money came his way in amounts that are hard to believe. And to think that it all started with a deck of cards and a community of gamblers that were ripe for the need of their own den, their own social club to belong to.

And so the obvious success of the business fed the creation of lies and rumors as did our forbidden romance at that time. We were young kids...very much alive, very much in love. That seemed to hit a nerve or two, with too many people.

No one knows the truth, about him or about us. No one knows what we endured over the years. Why should we have to sit back any more and let people believe lies and rumors about him, about us? We did that for years. And years.

We didn't want to sit back and take shit back then, but we had to. We were barraged by lies and rumors meant to harm us and separate us. Attacking rumors that are spread due to jealousy could be very dangerous for the business. Nick would hear people spread false stories about his work, his gambling operations, about things that did or didn't happen in there. It was wrong, but his hands were tied. They were setting him up for sabotage, so he sat still and watched them weave their webs. He saved striking back at them for a later date.

Why expose what you really do or what really happened to people who are out to get you anyway? Sometimes it's better to just let them talk. It's safer. They were lying anyway. And they will lie again and again. Why fight a battle to correct them? They won’t change. They were jealous. But the choices were not available for us to make. We could not choose to fight them even though we watched them hell bent on exposing Nick, being guided by our rival interests spreading rumor and dissent, using unsuspecting people as pawns in their plans to orchestrate their sabotage. But we had to play by rules and protect the business and the secrecy over everything.

It's black and white. It is what it is.

Today, like then, we are faced with a similar situation. Rules. We need to protect our business, our private lives and our security. So we should never talk. It's a rule.

But there are things I need to say. Things that need to be said. Truths that need to finally be heard. And since I can't say them. I will write them.

Even if I do write things down, no one will read them. No one will know.

Unfortunately they won't find it out from me. I wish they could, but they can't. At least I can vent and spill out the truth even if it will never reach those that I want to be informed finally of some truths. Here. Something that I would never have dared to do before. A big step. The rule of silence, broken in a way, reworded in my mind to allow for this red journal to exist. The truth can finally be revealed. At least for my eyes only. But that is a big step for me. A huge one.

So yes, I will go ahead and write.

Even though no one else will see this.

Because no one else should see this.

Because no one else is allowed to know this.

But I will spill out the truth anyway.

It's the least I can do, as I sit back and watch us being hit at the very core.

I can't do anything else to help, really.

I can't run and tell people about what just happened.

But at least I can write it out here, for us.

Just to let the truth be heard somewhere.

And since I can't discuss this with anyone, it won't be me doing the talking.

It will be my pen blurting it out to my paper.

That is a way of rewording the rule of silence. It won’t be my mind or mouth...its my paper listening to my pen.

And by letting my pen divulge my innermost thoughts to my journal pages, I am not breaking confidentiality.

I am just letting my pen with my paper have a heart to heart.

So what harm could possibly be created if my pen confides to the papers of this red journal that has a lock? It's definitely a private journal considering that is kept under lock and key. And its one and only key hides in my boob crack day and night. And with those push up bras, it’s nestled to death in there. Of course the key is safe in there. No one will see the key. No one will see the book. No one will read it. No one will know.

Nobody touches my boobs. Well, except for Nick.

Plus the book is red. And red books seem to have a significance. It will endure. All red things do. You know, now a significant red book has officially played in both of our lives.

First, Nick had his, and now I have mine. Well, technically Nick’s red book was his, but in a different way than how this book is mine….long story but anyway. His red journal was definitely not a typical book by any means.

Oh my God, no. That book he had was a red book unlike any other.

Maybe this one will be too. I don't know.

My red book will become something like Pandora's box, once I fill it's pages.

My position is a sensitive one. I realize that and I respect all that it entails.

I wasn't always the wife, but I was always the love.

Thank the Lord for that. It certainly was the greatest gift.

I need to be careful, after all, I am Nick's wife.

Finally.

Both of us. The longing we suffered, waiting for the day when we could break the chains of separation and finally reunite, and be 'together until the end'. That is a secret we both held on tightly to- the longing. For so many years. Holding onto that secret is what got us through the enforced separation.

For decades. Yes. We were kept apart for decades. Three of them, three decades.

Long story, and certainly not the story that most people think it to be. Definitely not. It is a wild tale. A story that no one would ever believe to be true.

After all, most people think that spells and magic exist only in fairy tales.

And certainly not in the world Nick and I are in.

But this is a whole other story that needs to be told on it's own.

Right now is not the best time for me to start writing our love story, which no one would probably believe anyway, because there are other pressing issues that have hit us now, as treacherous as a bomb. Explosive issues. Anyway. I am hoping to be able to fit it in this journal eventually. But tensions, as I write, are mounting all around us due to unreal events that recently took place.

Back to the here and now, and to the issues we are facing.

Nick's work is unbelievably tough. Explosive. With corruption and betrayal at the gates, at any time. It's dangerous.

Danger. That is the nature of the business, in a nutshell.

Knowing that my husband is at risk constantly, that he is in danger, is tough to handle, day in day out.

Damn right this is not for the queasy. But I had to accept it, there is no other way. And it eventually becomes a way of life. Scary. It definitely has its moments.

There is this gnawing anxiety that I feel in the pit of my stomach sometimes when I think about the dangers, but I learned to deal with it every time it pops into my head, and I have become able to move ahead when the feeling of dread surfaces.

I don't stop to dwell on it. I just keep on moving, keep on doing this or that, keep on talking, keep on whatever...until it goes away. Taking care of the plants, re potting them, fertilizing them, and cooking – those are the things that work for me...calms the panic down and eases the dread. Yeah. Re potting plants. Seriously. Watch out for ladies that continually re pot their plants...they harbor stories. And ladies that continually cook are trying to keep themselves continually occupied. They also have lots to tell if given the chance.

Living like this, with danger always on the menu, really made me learn to focus on the bright side of things.

If I don't think this way, focusing on the bright side, I just waste away the moments of my life worrying.

That never helps. I can't lessen the risks and eliminate the dangers of the business by worrying about them. So why worry?

Things are the way they are, and no wife of a mobster can prevent any shit from happening.

So what good can come from worrying? Won't make a dent.

It's better to focus on where we can make a difference. And for me, that is to be there for my man. I just have to be there, and be there strong and supportive...and understanding.

Otherwise I shouldn't even bother 'being there'.

Eventually, we, mobster wives, I hate labels but call us whatever, all learn to laugh, live and smile right through the tough moments. It's the only way.

I won't lie. The financial security helps ease the fear and calm the nerves. Money has its perks, and these perks are pills...they ease the fear.. It's the champagne in the daily punch bowl, the shopping bags I lug home, the feel of a designer bag before it is broken in, with it's new leather smell. These are my little comforts.

These are great distractions. Why not? Helps me cope.

The business has it's demands. God knows, I can't 'plan' anything at home and be sure that my husband will be there. Dinner parties more often than not need to be rescheduled. We get used to always having someone outside our door, they prowl around everywhere.

They are doing their job, so we learn to go about living our life with them being everywhere we look. It becomes second nature to have them standing near you or being everywhere you look. All the time.

Nick needs bodyguards, so it is what it is.

That is not the only adjustment that needs to be made regarding privacy, as Nick's wife.

Being Nick's wife means that I can't just chat about just anything with anyone, because so much of our life has to remain confidential.

We are women, we talk. We all do.

I love to talk.

It's my reason for being.

No. It's my raison d'etre.

Now that is fucking classy.

Not