Alcina grew up in Chicago with her Italian-born father, Marco Strozzi. It was relatively rough living, as despite being decently well off, Alcina’s mother left when she was born. Alcina’s father was in the mafia, working as a Capo for the Viceroy family, and was stationed in Chicago to oversee and run some of the family’s business ventures there. Marco wasn’t the kindest of men, and often abused his daughter physically and verbally- blaming her for her mother’s absence. Alcina was a tough and smart kid, but she had quite the attitude and often got into trouble at school.
[1994]
When Alcina was 12, she witnessed her father’s assassination in their home in the dead of night. After having armed herself with a knife- hearing a scuffle and a muffled gunshot downstairs- she got the jump on her father’s killer, who wasn’t aware that Marco even had a daughter. Plunging the knife into the assailant’s side, he screamed in pain and dropped his gun, reeling around and kicking the young girl. Alcina lay, sprawled across the floor, the hitman pulled the knife out of his side and proceeded toward her. She scrambled to her feet and backed away, the hitman swung at the defenceless girl, slicing clean down the left side of her face. She screamed in pain as the large man pushed her to the ground, smiling sadistically. Slowly, he pulled the knife’s blade down from the bridge of her nose, cutting deep toward her right cheek. Alcina tried to push, punch and kick the man off of her to little effect, when suddenly her hand felt something in the dark- cold metal. It was the hitman’s gun. Seeing her opportunity, she clawed at it, barely getting a hold of it before turning it towards the large figure on top of her. She pulled the trigger, and the man slumped forward onto her, dropping the knife.
She was unable to push the corpse off of herself, so she was stuck in the dark for what seemed like hours, in pain- the taste of blood ever fresh in her mouth, the image of her father’s corpse laid across the floor. Finally, the police came- someone had called them in after hearing screaming and what sounded like gunshots. They found a young girl in a dark room, crying, covered in blood, a corpse laid on top of her. That night left Alcina scarred, not just physically, but something in her changed drastically. She’d witnessed death, even killed a man.