Chapter Five – Knives in the Bloodline
I was raised to rule men like Giovanni.
But I wasn't raised to trust them.
I found him in my father's old lounge—same velvet armchair, same half-glass of scotch in his hand like he was still rehearsing how to be king.
Giovanni looked at home there. Too much.
"Nice chair," I said, stepping in.
"Old habits," he murmured. "He always said power had a posture. Might as well learn to sit like it."
I didn't smile. "Costello's dead."
"I know."
"You seem calm."
"He made himself vulnerable. Got sloppy."
I stepped closer. My shadow swallowed the light between us.
"Or he was executed. Like someone was checking names off a list."
Giovanni took a slow sip. "You think I'm behind it?"
"I think you've always wanted a bigger piece of the throne."
He chuckled, bitter. "You think I've been sitting here polishing my ambition like a fucking trophy while the family rots?"
"I think if the shoe fits, wear it before I make you eat it."
He stood fast, rage flickering behind his eyes.
"You come back from exile, start barking orders like you didn't abandon this family when your daddy caught a bullet. You weren't here, Luca. I was. Picking up pieces. Paying debts. Keeping us out of the goddamn ground."
I didn't flinch. "So who's paying Vulture?"
His eyes went still.
That told me enough.
"You knew."
He looked away.
"I didn't hire him. But I knew someone did. I thought maybe... if he scared you, you'd go back to Europe. Stay out of the line of fire."
"You thought I'd run."
He didn't respond.
So I leaned in, low and cold.
"If you ever gamble with my life again, cousin, I'll paint this fucking house with your bones. We clear?"
Giovanni swallowed hard. "Clear."
I left him staring into the fire like a man watching his own funeral.
In my father's world, loyalty had a price. Giovanni had just spent his last coin.
Later that night, I met Mercy in a private corner of Brooklyn, beneath the old freeway where streetlights died young and gunshots echoed like warnings.
She was dressed in black, hair tied back, tension on her spine like she was waiting for an ambush.
"I tracked Vulture's payout," she said. "Cleaned through three shell corps. Final bank hit in Berlin. That's European blood money. Someone's laundering high-end hits across the Atlantic."
"The exile again."
She nodded. "And get this—Antonetti's offshore accounts just surged yesterday. Quiet. But too clean for coincidence."
Antonetti. The logistics man. One of the three captains who didn't show at my welcome meeting.
"He's next," I said.
She studied me. "You're building a war path."
"No." I stepped closer. "I'm burning one."
We stood in silence a moment too long.
Then she said, softer: "You always get like this. When you're close to the edge."
"And yet, here you are."
She gave a half-laugh. "Maybe I'm just sick of watching men fall alone."
"Or maybe you want to be there when I do."
Her eyes flicked to mine—something sharp and something softer fighting in them.
"You think I'd let you fall?"
"I think you already did."
Then, without warning, she kissed me.
Fast. Fierce. The kind of kiss that wasn't about love—it was about knowing death was coming and not wanting to die cold.
We broke apart like it hurt.
It did.
"Don't make me regret helping you," she whispered.
"Don't make me regret trusting you," I replied.
We didn't say anything after that.
Didn't need to.
That night, I sat alone on the roof of the compound. Gun across my lap. Rain in my hair. Watching the city breathe like a beast I couldn't tame.
Antonetti. Giovanni. The sniper. The silence from Europe.
This wasn't a family anymore.
It was a carcass.
And the vultures were still feeding.
Blood doesn't bind us anymore.
Only war does.
And I'm done playing defense.