37. Pietro
PIETRO
THE COST OF HOLDING GROUND
A nother brick in the wall.
The tension in the room is electric. War rooms always feel like this—the deadly silence before the bomb explodes.
Matteo’s at the head of the table, Renalto and Niccoló flanking him, both with matching grim expressions and black coffee in hand.
I lean back in my chair, arms crossed, eyes on the report laid out in front of us: surveillance photos, arrest records, timestamps. The takedown was clean. Effective.
“The Serbian heroin den in Staten Island got hit this morning,” Matteo says, voice clipped. “Twelve dealers arrested, including one of Milo?’s key distributors.”
“Luka Draganov?” Renalto asks, lifting a brow.
Matteo nods. “Yep. Caught with product, weapons, and enough cash to start a casino. He’s not talking yet, but it won’t take much pressure.”
Niccoló smirks. “Feds do our dirty work, and we get the street cleaned. That’s a win.”
“ Careful ,” Matteo warns. “It’s a fragile win. We start celebrating too hard, and too fast, they’ll retaliate fast and sloppy. All it takes is one misstep, and we’re scrambling to hold the line. ”
He’s right.
I glance down at the photos again. Bloody fingerprints on a scale. A scuffed-up stash hidden in the false bottom of a van. They’d been getting sloppy. That’s how we got in.
“We’ve got momentum,” I say, nodding slowly. “But it’s thin. If they catch their breath, it’s over.”
“Which is why we can’t let them,” Matteo replies. “We need to keep the pressure on—hard.”
Renalto taps the table, thinking aloud. “We hit their port connections next. Milo? has been funneling shipments through Red Hook. Quiet. Off-grid. Julia’s watching it.”
“And we stay away from anything that looks like overreach,” Niccoló adds.
“The last thing we need is to gain the Feds’ attention.
They see us bulldozing our enemy’s territory too fast, and they’ll think we’re looking to crown ourselves king of the East Coast. They’ll be worried if we absorb two families. ”
“We’re not,” Matteo says, deadly calm. “We just want to survive the fucking storm Milo? started.”
“Then we do it clean,” I say. “Precise hits. No mess. No blood we can’t justify.”
Matteo’s eyes lock with mine. “Exactly. We keep winning battles like today’s, and we can string them together until the only ones standing are us.”
I nod. “So, what’s the next play?”
Matteo smirks, the edge of it cold. “Red Hook. We take their port, we cut off their cash. And that’ll be the beginning of the end. Then we plan for the end game.”
He leans forward, my hands clasped on the table.
“We’re making progress. But don’t forget, one wrong move can send an empire reeling.”
I sit back, the weight of the war settling into my chest again.
We’re close.
But close doesn’t count in our world.
Only wins.
By now, Milo? and Stefano will be hell bent on revenge. They’re bleeding men and products. It’s the perfect time to enter the final phase. They’ll be seeing red until the blood stops flowing.