Carmelo Novella’s sin was arrogance. Intercepted in his car on the way to the funeral, a boss tells the mother: ‘He wanted to reach for the stars, but you can’t touch the stars.’ Her reply: ‘You reap what you sow.’ As if it were perfectly normal: you did wrong, you’re punished for it.

With Carmelo Novella dead, Calabria wants to regain control of Lombardy. A year later, at another wedding – this one between Elisa Pelle and Giuseppe Barbaro, each the offspring of a boss – Domenico Oppedisano is named ‘capocrimine’, that is, the person at the top of the organization who commands all the families. His first official speech is made on 1 September 2009, at the shrine in Polsi. It’s exactly midnight, and in the sanctuary of this little village in Aspromonte they are celebrating the Madonna of the Mountain. The TV cameras which the carabinieri have hidden in the garden opposite the church record a group gathered in a circle, in a corner. Among them is the new boss of bosses, who wants to make things clear: ‘Positions can’t be assigned whenever we want, only twice a year. […] And we must all do it together. The Crimine must be formed by members of the locale. All together.’

Attorney Giuseppe Neri is called in to restore order to a situation that had been threatening autonomy. His charge is to consult the bosses of each locale in order to nominate a new boss, subject to everyone’s approval: a ‘mastro generale’ (overall boss). In actuality, it is clear from the wire-tapping interceptions that Neri and several Lombardy bosses are playing both sides; they have no intention of letting go of their hold: ‘The essential thing is that we be the ones to maintain contacts with those guys down there. That’s what I want, he can be in charge here, but we’ll be the ones making the decisions. We’ll pick any old fool and make him a boss, we’ll decide, let him be in charge.’