No English word entirely captures the Mafia concept of “omertà.” The code associated with Italian organized crime is sometimes so opaque that even those who broke it left more doubt than clarity. “We know what vendetta is. We think we know what mafia is,” a New York Press reporter wrote in 1909. “But we have never heard of omertà, which is the foundation of both.” American media began using the foreign term in the late 1800s with occasional newspaper stories addressing an unfamiliar and largely misunderstood criminal threat. “Mafia,” “Camorra,” and “Black Hand (La Mano Nera)” were among the descriptors found in turn-of-the-century reporting ...