Section 8
No-one Wants The Kids
Gia
Valenti is dead.
Which should mean the problem is solved.
Instead, his ghost has a mailing list.
We meet in the old Lussari family home: generational wealth and a basement that definitely still smells like blood if you know how to breathe.
I’m already annoyed.
Antonio DeLuca arrives late, as usual, with the aura of someone thinking the world personally owes him wine. Silk shirt, rings, and a smile that could give a car salesman a run for his money.
He looks fantastic.
“I was promised closure,” he announces, sitting. “Instead, I have emails.”
“No one forced you to read them,” I say.
He sighs. “One of them used Comic Sans.”
Sylvie winces. “That’s unforgivable.”
Dante’s suit is as immaculate as his jaw is tight. He has pinched the bridge of his nose three times already and we are only four minutes in.
“Let’s get to it,” he says. “Valenti is dead.”
The Morozovs sit side by side, identical expressions of mild murder. I haven’t bothered telling them apart. The one with the scar through his eyebrow is cracking his knuckles. He’s the talkative one.
That moniker is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
“Not dead enough,” one of the Morozovs says.
“Careful,” DeLuca drawls. “He’s been dead less than a month. Let the body cool.”
“Not Valenti,” Morozov Number One says. “The kids.”
Valenti’s orphans.
The men who survived because they were useful and ruthless and smart enough to scatter when the king fell.
“Don’t call them kids,” I say. “It implies innocence.”
“Animals then,” the other Morozov suggests, shrugging.
DeLuca lifts a finger. “Let’s not be dramatic. Some of them are probably very nice monsters.”
Dante gestures to the screen behind him. A list appears with names, locations, and faces.
The leftovers.
“There’s one interesting orphan,” I say, tapping ash into a crystal tray. “Bellini. He’s been trying to collect. South docks. He’s saying the word legacy like it’s a password.”
Dante exhales slowly. “He doesn’t have a claim.”
“He doesn’t need one,” Sylvie says mildly. “He just needs enough men who miss being told what to do.”
I look at her.
So does Dante. He rubs his face.
“She’s not wrong,” he says.
DeLuca claps once. “God, I adore her. Can we keep her?”
Sylvie smiles sweetly. “Only if you feed me.”
The Morozovs don’t laugh.
They never do.
“We kill him,” says Morozov Number Two, finally. “Problem solved.”
“That’s not strategy,” Dante says. “That’s cleanup.”
“And?” Morozov Number One shrugs. “We’re good at cleanup.”
I lean back, crossing my legs. “You kill him and you crown him a martyr. You leave him alone and he grows teeth. He’s not Valenti—but he wants to take his place.”
“So he dies,” says the Morozov.
“No,” I say pleasantly.
Sylvie leans forward. “Has anyone—I don’t know—actually talked to them?”
DeLuca lifts his hand sheepishly.
Everyone turns.
“I didn’t know,” he says quickly. “He was charming. We were vibing. He had excellent shoes. We discussed art. Food. Trauma.”
“And then?” I prompt.
“And then,” DeLuca continues, grimacing, “he mentioned Valenti. Casually. Like it was a fun summer job.”
Silence.
“Oh no,” Sylvie whispers.
“Yes,” DeLuca says. “Precisely that.”
The Morozov brothers exchange looks.
Dante’s jaw tightens in a fascinating challenge to physics.
DeLuca sighs. “I said, very politely, ‘I don’t work with men who learned morality from a corpse.’ He took it poorly.”
“Did he threaten you?” I ask.
“No,” DeLuca says. “Worse. He tried to bond.”
I shudder.
“That’s the problem,” Dante says. “They don’t think they did anything wrong.”
“They think they’re heirs,” one of the Morozovs adds.
Sylvie frowns. “But they’re not. Valenti didn’t—”
“Valenti didn’t build a legacy,” I say. “He built a cult with benefits.”
“Exactly,” Dante says. “And now the benefits are gone.”
“So what?” Sylvie asks. “We just… leave them?”
The table goes quiet.
I study her for a moment.
DeLuca answers gently. “No one wants them.”
“No one can take them,” Dante corrects. “They bring heat.”
“And babysitting,” one of the Morozovs mutters. “I don’t do daycare.”
“Neither do I,” I say. “And I don’t need Valenti’s ghosts testing my patience.”
Sylvie looks between us. “So what’s the plan?”
I smile.
“That,” I say, “is the fun part.”
Dante taps the screen. The map shifts. Territory lines blur.
“We give them something,” he says. “Just enough to think they’ve won.”
“Bad land,” DeLuca says instantly.
“The worst,” I agree.
“Flood zones,” Morozov One adds.
“Union nightmares,” Morozov Two says.
“Jurisdiction hell,” Dante finishes.
Sylvie blinks. “You’re setting them up to fail.”
“Yes,” DeLuca says. “But politely.”
“And with paperwork,” I add. “Which is crueler.”
“And we agree,” Dante says, voice ironed flat, “that none of us takes any of them in. Not officially. Not unofficially, either.”
I nod. “No exceptions.”
DeLuca lifts his espresso. “I am not raising the devil’s interns.”
“Da,” the Morozovs grunt approval. I know enough Russian to understand the word kill, which they mutter to one another.
Sylvie hesitates. “What if one of them… isn’t like him?”
I meet her gaze.
“Then they should’ve chosen better role models,” I say.
Dante watches me for a beat too long.
The matter is settled. Hands are shaken, files snap closed, and the saints in the glass windows remain unimpressed.
As we stand, DeLuca sighs. “Shame I’ll never be able to order a Bellini again. We all know I love a good peach.”
Sylvie snorts.
Dante pinches his nose again.
DeLuca raises his cup. “To Valenti’s afterlife being worse than his life.”
We clink.