Tommy Vercetti

Tommy Vercetti is depicted as both intelligent and temperamental; he is easily angered and quick to resort to violence. He has no hesitation about killing, though many of his victims are in turn trying to kill Tommy as well, or have done something that requires them to be killed. Despite all this, Tommy does also show a softer side as seen with his relations with Mercedes Cortez, the daughter of Juan Garcia Cortez, and Earnest Kelly, an elderly employee at the Print Works printing company that he buys later in the game: the former serves as a love interest for Tommy, while the latter is more of a father figure due to his childhood memories of working with his father at a printworks.

Tommy Vercetti was born to an Italian-American family and was raised in Liberty City, where his father worked for an unknown company (presumably the Liberty Tree) as a printing press operato. As a child, Tommy helped his father by cleaning the rolers, and dreamed of a normal and moral life.[5] When he was a teenager, he befriended mobster Sonny Forelli, who was a prominent member (presumably already Don) of the Forelli Crime Family, and eventually joined the family himself, quickly rising through their ranks and becoming a made man.[6]

In 1971, jealous and nervous of Tommy's rising reputation inside the Mafia and the Liberty City underworld, Sonny sent him into a trap to be killed, under the guise of a mission to assassinate a rival mobster in the Harwood district. When he arrived, Tommy was swiftly ambushed by eleven men, but managed to kill them all. Despite his survival, Tommy was arrested and sent to prison for multiple charges of murder.[7] At one point, he was to be placed on death row, but due to the Forelli familly's influence and possibly interference, he only served fifteen years. While in prison, Tommy earned the nickname "The Harwood Butcher" for his actions prior to his arrest.[6]

Fresh out of prison in 1986, Tommy is immediately dispatched by Sonny to Vice City to oversee an important drug deal. The deal was arranged by Sonny to both keep Tommy outside Liberty City in order to avoid any further conflict with law enforcement, and to allow the Forelli family (by this time the most powerful Mafia organization in Liberty CIty) to expand into the drug business in the south. As he arrives at the airport in Vice City, Tommy meets the Forelli's crooked lawyer Ken Rosenberg, who drives Tommy and his bodyguards to meet their customers. However, the deal is ambushed by masked assailants who kill Tommy's bodyguards and one of the customers, and steal the money and the merchandise, as Tommy is forced to flee with Ken after barely surviving the gunfight. After calling Sonny to give him the bad news, Tommy finds himself tasked with retrieving the drugs and Sonny's money, and kill whoever masterminded the ambush.

During his investigation, Tommy makes a number of allies who offer him help, including retired Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez, who helped set up the exchange; music producer Kent Paul, a friend of Ken who maintains connections with Vice CIty's underworld; Lance Vance, the vengeful brother of the customer killed in the ambush; and Texan real estate developer Avery Carrington, who hires Tommy to assist him with several jobs. Through Cortez, Tommy meets drug lord Ricardo Diaz, who employs him and Lance, but is later revealed to be responsible for the ambush. After working for Diaz to earn his trust, the pair kill him in his mansion, getting back their money and drugs.

With Diaz dead, Tommy takes over his empire, and slowly distances himself from the Forelli family, ignoring Sonny's orders to pay him the money he is owed. While he remains in contact with most of his allies, he begins to neglect Lance, who asks him to be treated like an equal partner on multiple occasions. Instead, Tommy becomes more focused on expanding his criminal syndicate, callled the "Vercetti Gang", by forcing various businesses to pay him protection money, buying out nearly bankrupt companies to use as fronts for illicit operations, and providing assistance to the Los Cabrones and Vice City Biker gangs, so that they will support him.

After Tommy establishes himself as the undisputed kingpin of Vice City, he is forced to defend his businesses from Forelli mobsters sent by Sonny, who decided to take actions against Tommy. After learning Sonny will be coming to Vice City to collect what he believes he is owed, Tommy plans to pay him tribute with counterfeit money. However, when Sonny arrives at Tommy's mansion, he reveals that he knows about his plan thanks to Lance, who betrayed him, and admits his role in Tommy's arrest fifteen years prior. A shootout then ensues in the mansion, during which Tommy prevents the Forellis from stealing his money and murders Lance for his betrayal, before finally killing Sonny in a tense standoff.[8] With Sonny dead, all loose ends in Tommy's life are resolved, and he is free to run his criminal empire undisputed alongside Ken, the only one who stood by his side until the end.

Not much is known about Tommy's life after the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. He most likely mainted his position as Vice City's kingpin for years to come, though his partnership with Ken only lasted until 1992. After Ken's drug addiction became a nuisance for Tommy, the latter sent him to rehab in the state of San Andreas, and abandoned him while he was there, seemingly cutting all ties with him. Tommy is mentioned in The Introduction, a short prologue film to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, in a scene in which Ken unsuccessfully tries to contact Tommy after getting out of rehab.[9]