HERO(in): An Italian story

This is a true story. Brazen and unbelievable, yet true.

It tells of a life lived off the rails, at breakneck speed, forever teetering on the edge between reality, cinema, and sheer gamble. Fifteen years - from 1978 to 1993 - of chemicals, money, rebellion, and madness.

Today, Nick Fibonacci is "clean": he has settled every debt he owed and leads a normal life.

Yet he wants to keep his true identity hidden.

Despite the crimes he committed - "all of them," he says, "except murder" - being statute-barred, the ripples set in motion back then, the connections he made, and the circles he moved in all warn him to stay in the shadows.

Emilia-Romagna, mid-1980s. Beneath the elegant surface of Bologna and the sun-drenched Riviera lies a hedonistic underworld pulsing with music, money, and mind-altering escape. At the center of it all is Nick-a 20-year-old driven by hunger for speed, power, and intensity. When boredom and curiosity collide, a single dose of ecstasy changes everything. Suddenly, drugs aren't just an escape-they're a ticket to the inner sanctums of the rich, the wild, and the untouchable.

Nick's descent is anything but slow. With blazing charisma and a devil-may-care attitude, he transforms into an accidental kingpin, smuggling narcotics from the Netherlands and fueling the addictions of everyone from strung-out artists to elite athletes. The money flows as freely as the pills and powder-financing a blur of hotel suites, fashion statements, sensual indulgences, and dizzying parties. It's a life without brakes, high on chaos and the illusion of invincibility.

But every high comes with a crash. As the empire crumbles, so do the illusions-friendships, love, and identity collapsing under the weight of excess. Yet Nick doesn't flinch. Even in ruin, his life flashes like a firework: chaotic, luminous, unforgettable.

HERO(in) isn't a morality tale-it's an unfiltered plunge into the magnetic pull of artificial paradise. Blending the rawness of Trainspotting, the charm of a picaresque rogue, and the electric pulse of a global underground, this novel dares to explore ecstasy not as a mistake, but as a conscious, seductive choice. Brutal and beautiful, reckless and strangely enviable, this is one ride you won't forget.