It's Halloween 1989 and the Philadelphia mafia is in chaos.

Just a year before, legendary mob boss Nicki Scarfo and a bunch of the other top dogs

get sent to prison for a very, very long time, leaving a major power vacuum at the top.

Now there's two men trying to fill that vacuum.

One of them happens to be Nicky's son, Nicky Jr.

And despite the jostling for power, he's out and about enjoying dinner at Dante and

Luigi, an Italian restaurant in South Philly.

But while Nicky Jr. is chowing down on bait clams and spaghetti, a man wearing a Batman mask

rushes into the restaurant and pulls out a Mack 10 from a trick-or-treat bag.

He lets off a clip, hitting Mickeyy Jr. 8 times from close range.

Miraciously, no vital organs are hit and Nicky Jr. is somehow released from the

hospital only a few days later. The message has been sent though and it says the

Scarfoam family is no longer in control of the Philly slash South Jersey mob.

The alleged shooter, according to law enforcement and multiple mob snitches,

is 27-year-old Joey, skinny- Joey Merlino, who right now, in 2024, happens to be the hottest mafia

podcaster out there. But back then he was just an ambitious

young mob style, the son of former Scarfo under boss Salvatore Chuck E.

Merleino and much like Junior Schoprano he wasn't respecting old arrangements.

While Nicky Jr survives, he goes on to become a non-factor in the Philly mob.

So much so that he soon moves to Newark and his father arranges for him to be inducted into the New York-based Lucchese family, one of the five New York families.

And you know if you move to Newark in the 90s, you know you'd mess something up.

With him out of the picture,

...