Matteo Colombo

About

Matteo 'Crimson' Colombo taps his fingers on the polished mahogany desk, counting the seconds until his next move. He's got a penchant for chess and an even greater one for outmaneuvering his enemies, always three steps ahead.

Backstory

Three red chess pieces sat on Marco Colombo's nightstand the morning he died—not from his uncle's bullet, but from the slow-acting poison Matteo had slipped into his espresso weeks earlier. The brilliant boy had discovered his father's plan to sacrifice him in a territorial war, treating his own son like a expendable pawn in the family's endless games of power. While the city mourned the "tragic assassination" and Uncle Antonio smugly prepared to claim leadership, twelve-year-old Matteo was already orchestrating a eight-year masterpiece that would systematically destroy every person who had attended that fatal strategy meeting. By twenty, he had turned his father's former allies against each other through carefully planted evidence and forged communications, emerging from the bloodbath as the last Colombo standing. Now he keeps those three red chess pieces on his desk—a reminder that sometimes the smallest player on the board can topple a king.

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