 Billy Russo was born to a poor Italian-American family, kicked out and abandoned as an orphan by his abusive father at the age of ten, and went on to become a hitman for New York's Italian criminal underworld, where his good looks garnered him the nickname "Billy the Beaut".He also married a woman named Susan, and would beat both her and their son, Henry, once forcing Henry to drown his pet cat's kittens by threatening to shoot Susan.After the botched gangland execution that inadvertently led to the Castle family being massacred, Russo is hired by Frank Costa to assassinate all those connected to the Castles.