Chapter 8 Dom
Cipriani's is neutral ground because neither family owns it. The owner, a Sicilian beta named Enzo who's been in the city longer than both organizations, pays tribute to no one and serves both.
It's an arrangement that works because Enzo's restaurant is useful and because killing him would mean losing the only place where these conversations can happen without someone's soldiers getting nervous.
I arrive at twelve forty-five. Fifteen minutes early. Viktor is with me and two of our men are already inside, seated at the bar with drinks they won't touch. The restaurant is half full with civilians who have no idea what's happening at the corner table with the white cloth and the good silver.
I take the seat facing the door. Viktor stands behind me and to the left. We wait.
Luca Castellano arrives at eight on the dot. He's brought two men of his own, both of whom take positions at the bar opposite mine.
Luca himself is thirty-two. He looks younger.
He has dark hair, good suit, the kind of easy smile that gets him into places his name alone wouldn't. His father built the Castellano operation on fear.
Luca is building his extension of it on charm, which makes him more dangerous, not less.
A man you fear, you watch. A man you like, you let close.
"Dom." He extends his hand across the table. His grip is firm, brief, correct. "Thanks for making time."
"Luca."
He sits. He orders a bottle of something expensive without looking at the wine list and makes small talk with the waiter about the specials. I watch him.
He's confident. More confident than the last time we sat across a table, which was eighteen months ago at a fundraiser for the children's hospital, the kind of event where men like us write checks to make ourselves feel clean. Since then, the Castellano operation has expanded. New territory on the east side. A construction firm that's almost certainly a front. And now, whatever they're trying in my casino. I don’t have any proof that it’s the Castellano’s behind it. But it is.
The wine arrives. Luca pours for both of us. I don't touch mine.
"I'll get straight to it," he says. "I respect your time."
"Go ahead."
"The market's changing, Dom. You see it. I see it. Ten years ago, there was enough room for everyone. Now?" He tilts his hand: fifty-fifty. "The feds are squeezing the traditional revenue streams. My father's generation could run things the old way. Ours can't. We need to be smarter."
I agree with him on that. The old ways don’t work, but I think we’d disagree on what the new way should be. I don’t answer, let him keep speaking. He keeps going as if I asked him to elaborate.
"Integration,” he says, sitting back and looking satisfied.
“Your family has the infrastructure. Legitimate businesses, licenses, cash flow that can withstand an audit.
My family has supply chains and distribution networks that generate revenue your casinos could process without anyone looking twice. "
He says it the way you'd pitch a merger at a board meeting. But what he's describing is money laundering on a scale that would triple our federal exposure overnight. Yes, it’d bring in more money, but I have money. The only real thing I’d be gaining is an increased risk of a racketeering sentence.
The Castellanos have always handled things the Novikovs haven’t wanted to touch. Even rats have some honor.
"We've always kept our operations separate for a reason," I say.
"Our fathers’ reasons. Times change."
"It’s a good reason. We’d be taking on substantially more risk. And for what benefit?"
Luca smiles. It's a good smile. Open, warm, the kind that makes you want to trust him. "I understand the hesitation. But consider the alternative. Right now, there are... inefficiencies in the system. It creates vulnerability. For both of us."
The subtext is thin enough to see through.
He's telling me his people are already operating inside my casinos, and the fact that it's taken me this long to find them is a demonstration of capability.
He's not threatening me. He's showing me his hand, the way you'd lay down cards.
Look what I can do. Imagine what we could do together.
"I'll think about it," I say.
"That's all I ask." He lifts his glass. "To efficiency."
I raise mine. "To efficiency,” I repeat.
"Mm." Luca picks up his menu. "Shall we order? The veal here is outstanding."
The conversation turns to lighter things: the boxing match last weekend, real estate prices. Luca is engaging, funny even. He tells a story about his uncle in Naples that has the timing of a professional comedian. In another life, I might enjoy his company.
The waitress has come over to take our order when the front door opens and the temperature in the room drops.
My father is not a large man. Nikolai Novikov is five-ten in his shoes, slim, seventy-three years old.
He wears plain dark suits and his hair is white and cropped short and he carries no visible weapon.
He doesn't need to. The two men who flank him are younger, larger, and armed, but they're not the reason every head in the restaurant turns.
My father walks to the table. He doesn't hurry. Luca stands immediately, buttoning his jacket, his charm recalibrating from casual to respectful in the space of a breath.
"Mr. Novikov." Luca extends his hand. "This is an honor. I do apologize. I didn’t realize you would be joining us."
Neither did I. A flush of annoyance rises up from my belly. The last thing I need is Luca thinking I need my daddy to hold my hand over a business lunch. Or that he doesn’t trust me enough to handle this on my own.
My father takes his hand, then shakes mine. He pulls out the chair beside mine and sits down. His two men take positions at the wall. Viktor hasn't moved, other than to acknowledge his former boss with a brief respectful nod.
"Luca," my father says. "You look well. Pass my regards to your father and to your brothers of course."
“Thank you, sir and I will. I’m sure they will send theirs back.”
"Of course. Our two families have always been in alignment," Nikolai folds his hands on the table.
His fingers are thin, the knuckles enlarged with age, and his wedding ring is the only jewelery he wears.
My mother's been dead for twenty years. He's never taken it off.
"I understand you've been discussing opportunities with my son. "
"Preliminary conversations. Dom's been very gracious with his time."
My father nods. He doesn't look at me. He’s barely looked at me since he sat down. The message is clear: I am here because you are not handling this adequately.
"The Novikov family has always valued its relationship with the Castellanos," my father says. "Our businesses complement each other. There's no reason that can't continue."
Luca is watching him the way a rabbit watches a hawk that hasn't decided whether to dive yet. "Absolutely."
"But I want to be direct." Nikolai's voice is level, conversational. He could be ordering coffee. "Any arrangement between our families would need to respect the boundaries that have served us both well. Your father understood this. I'm certain you do too."
"Of course."
"Then we're aligned. Dom will follow up with specifics." He pushes his chair back. He's been at the table for less than three minutes. "Good to see you, Luca. Give my best to Bert."
He stands. Luca stands. They shake hands again and my father leaves the table and walks toward the door without waiting for me.
Luca looks at me and for the first time since I arrived, he looks disconcerted. He thought he was just dealing with me but now my father has thrown himself into the mix. Luca doesn’t know if this was a power play or a rescue mission.
I sit back down. "Shall we order?"
Luca recovers quickly. The smile comes back, the ease settles into his shoulders. He picks up the menu as if nothing has happened. "The veal," he says. "I wasn't joking. It's extraordinary."
We order. The food arrives. We eat and talk about nothing in particular. To anyone watching, we are simply two men having a civilized dinner.
Between the main course and dessert, the conversation drifts to business in a way that feels casual but isn't. Luca asks about the Grand's new VIP program.
He asks about footfall, about the shift toward online and whether it's eating into the floor traffic.
He comments that it's hard to keep good dealers in this market.
They’re all reasonable subjects, the kind of thing any businessman in the gambling trade might ask another over dinner.
He doesn't mention an omega or problems with card counters or people trying to play us.
The silence tells me nothing. Either he doesn't know about Theo, which seems unlikely given that his people are clearly reporting from inside the Grand.
Or he knows and he's choosing not to show that card, which means he's saving it.
And Luca Castellano doesn't save cards unless he thinks they'll be worth more later.
"You should come out to the Hamptons this summer," Luca says, over espresso. "I'm serious. The place will be done by June. Bring whoever you like."
"Of course, that’d be great." We both know that I won’t go, just as he knows that he doesn’t really want me there.
We settle the bill. Luca insists on paying, which is a small power move, and I let him have it because the small ones don't matter. We shake hands at the door. The men at the bar stand and follow him out.
Viktor brings the car around. I get in. The restaurant disappears in the rear-view mirror and I replay the last two hours and find nothing I can use and nothing I can dismiss.
"Thoughts," I say.
Viktor pulls into traffic. "He didn't ask about the card counter."
"No."
"Which means he either doesn't know or he's waiting."
"Yes."
"Neither option is good."
"No."
When I get back, my father is in my office sitting in my chair, behind my desk. He's reading something on the desk, a printout, and he doesn't look up when I walk in. Viktor stays at the door.
I don't sit down. There's nowhere to sit that doesn't put me on the wrong side of my own desk, and I'm not going to stand in front of my father like a child. I go to the bar, pour two fingers of scotch, and lean against the wall.
"Close the door, Viktor," my father says.
The door closes. Viktor is on the other side of it.
"You handled Luca adequately," my father says. He still hasn't looked up.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm telling you what I observed. I'm also telling you that showing up to a Castellano meeting without informing me was a mistake."
"It wasn’t anything important. There was nothing to inform you about."
He looks up. His eyes are pale blue, washed out with age. "Everything involving the Castellanos requires my knowledge."
He sets down the printout. I can't see what it is from here. "The losses on the floor. You look like you’re making progress."
“Not as much as I’d like.”
“You have the omega in your suite.” My hand tightens on the glass. He already knows. Of course he does.
“He’s mine.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? Keeping an omega -- a prime match omega – gives you a weakness.”
"He's useful."
"Useful," My father says and I can hear the disdain dripping from every word. “There are useful people I could hire for you who don't come with the complication of a prime match that makes you incapable of rational thought."
"I'm perfectly rational."
“You should have disposed of him the moment you found out who he was, but you’re keeping him," He leans back in my chair.
The anger is immediate and hot and I hold it in my chest. Losing my temper with my father is a mistake I stopped making when I was a child and learned to hold my temper.
"He says he can identify the ring."
“No, he says he can. You know nothing about him. You’re looking for reasons to justify a decision you have already made.” My father stands. He buttons his jacket.
He moves to the window and looks out at the city the way I do, the same view, the same posture. I have spent my adult life trying not to become this man and every year I see more of him in the mirror. "An omega is a liability, Dominic. I've told you this. Your mother—"
"Was the only mistake you'd make again. You've told me that too."
His jaw tightens. It's the only visible reaction. "Then you understand what I'm saying."
"He's mine." The words come out flat. I don't dress them up. "The match makes him mine. He's in my building, he's doing useful work. The match is the match. He doesn't get to run from it."
My father is quiet for a long moment. He turns from the window and looks at me and I can't read what's in his face.
"You sound like me," he says. "Thirty years ago. Standing in this office, telling my father the same thing about your mother."
"And you were right. You kept her."
"No, I was wrong. No one used her against me, but I was lucky with that. She could have destroyed me. In hindsight, keeping her was the wrong decision."
My eyes snap to him. He loved my mother. I know that. She is the only thing he ever loved. I’ve always known that I’m not on that list, but she was.
He walks to the door and opens it. Viktor is standing on the other side.
"Get rid of him or keep him," my father says. "But decide quickly. The Castellanos are watching and they will find the weakness. They always do. If you keep him, then you keep him. Full security every hour of the day and be prepared for him to die anyway."
He leaves and I resist the urge to ram my fist into the wall. Theo is mine and he is going to be perfectly safe. I look after my things.