Chapter 38 STEPHANO
Zanello Tower feels different today. Heavier. Charged. Even our second-in-commands, lingering in the foyer with the other bodyguards, look tense. As if the walls themselves know we’re about to uproot a dynasty.
We gather in the council chamber, Capos and underbosses—men who have shaped New York’s underworld for decades. Most of us know why we’re here, but wariness is reflected on the faces of all those who don’t.
Yesterday’s secret meeting bound us with one goal: Cut the rot out of La Famiglia before Caracas eats us alive.
The elevator dings. Edoardo storms in.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" he bellows, slamming a hand on the table. "Why was I called here like an errand boy? You have no right to convene a La Famiglia council without my approval! It's bad enough that the Russians presumed to do so. I will not tolerate it from you, too."
He looks ridiculous, in his expensive suit, with his swollen ego and bloodshot eyes from too many nights pretending he’s still in control. Gustave follows behind him, nervous sweat already visible at his temples. He probably has an idea of what is coming.
Fabrizio, Enrico's father, enters last, confusion etched across his face. "Enrico? What’s going on?"
"I'll explain later, Papa," Enrico assures him, and I'm jealous of the trust between the two of them. Not even a month ago, that was Gustave and me. Or so I thought.
Enrico's brothers, Ettoro, Matteo, and Tommaso, exchange glances but say nothing.
Edoardo finally notices the room’s stillness.
"What?" he spits. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
Raf moves first; we decided yesterday that he should do the honors. He stands, calm and emotionless. The kind of calm that means someone’s about to be executed.
"We’re here," he begins, "because the Don of New York has betrayed La Famiglia."
Edoardo turns purple. "You watch your fucking mouth, DeSantis. I—"
Raf clicks a remote. A projector hums to life. Files splash across the wall: emails, bank transfers, encrypted messages, and photographs. And at the top of the first email:
From: Edoardo Zanello
To: Aurelio Valverde
The color drains from Edoardo’s face. "Forgeries. These are all forged!"
Raf doesn’t blink. His voice stays cold and precise.
"As you can see, Edoardo not only thanked Aurelio Valverde for removing Leonardo Zanello from power, but he also wired him large amounts of money for the favor.
And, in his brilliance, he assumed that it would end there.
" He tilts his head. "It didn’t. He opened the door. "
Raf points his outstretched finger at Edoardo, who turns beet red in his outrage and humiliation of having been caught. "And Aurelio walked straight through it."
We deliberately left the rest of the story out, the entire Margarita mess.
No one here needs to know she blackmailed Edoardo into marrying her daughter or that she facilitated the meetings. We still don’t know whether she acted as a sleeper Cell for the Voronin bloodline or because of her personal vendetta against Leonardo for what he did to her mother, Caterine.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Whatever role Margarita was meant to play in the Voronin system, she dedicated her life to destroying Leonardo.
She married one of his capos, Ricci, to get close. At some point, she became pregnant with Leonardo’s child, Raf, only to be cast aside by him.
From there, her vendetta spiraled into something larger than any of us realized, intertwining with the Venezuelan Cells, tying our families into knots of betrayal we’re still unraveling.
We don’t know how much of her hatred was personal and how much was engineered —or genetic— but her legacy—her choices—brought us exactly to this moment.
And now, we have to clean it up.
Raf flips to the next slide.
"Here, Edoardo confirms he will keep La Famiglia passive in exchange for the Leonardo favor. If you look at the dates, they all line up with Don Leonardo's death."
The room erupts into angry whispers.
"That’s taken out of context!" Edoardo shouts. "I was forced! They coerced me!"
Raf lifts one brow. "By giving you the power you always wanted?"
Edoardo’s mouth opens, closes. He has no answer.
Raf looks around the table. "I call a voto di sfiducia—a vote of no confidence—like Jacomo DeLuna did a year ago, before he paid with his life for it.
" Another slide appears, bearing a text.
From Edoardo to Carlos Orsi, time-stamped a month before Carlos shot Jacomo.
Get rid of Jacomo. This text from Edoardo to Carlos had been intercepted and duplicated by Aurelio and swiped by Nico.
Toni looks stricken, even though he had already known about it for a few days, ever since he and the others plowed through Nico's thumb drive.
Raf's gaze challenges every man in the room, "I demand the removal of Edoardo Zanello as Don."
Gustave slams his fist down. "I vote against!"
"Of course you do," I say, finally rising.
All eyes are on me now as I take my turn under the spotlight. Gustave looks relieved.
He shouldn’t.
I walk to the head of the table. My pulse is steady, but my anger is not.
"My father," I say those words with the disgust they deserve, "has always played both sides of the sword.
" I look at the men at the table; they all know it's true, especially Fabrizio, who is about the same age as my father. "It’s who he is. It’s what he does. But this time he went too far."
Gustave stiffens, panic flickers behind eyes that are begging me to stop. I don't. "He made deals with the Venezuelans behind our backs. Quiet deals. Profitable ones. Deals that let them establish roots in our territory."
A murmur ripples across the table.
"When Nico was taken hostage because of those deals?" I look directly at my father. "He didn’t lift a finger to save him. He allowed it."
"That wasn't all, though, because when Nico escaped, when he called the one person he should have been able to trust—his own father—for help?" I lean forward, voice razor sharp. "Gustave called the Venezuelans and told them where to find him."
Gasps and curses sound out. Even Edoardo looks stunned.
"And when I discovered his betrayal," I say, "he didn’t accept responsibility. He didn’t confess. He didn’t try to fix it." I let the silence stretch. "He sent one of my own men to kill me."
Gustave shakes his head, trembling. "Stephano, that’s not—"
"Enough." My voice cracks like a whip.
"No man willing to sacrifice his sons for the sake of covering his own treachery deserves to sit at this table. No man who betrays La Famiglia to foreign enemies has the right to call himself capo."
I straighten. "I call for the immediate removal of Gustave as capo."
The room holds its breath. "And," I add, steady, unflinching, "I offer myself as his replacement."
Absolute, heavy silence ensues.
Then Enrico stands. And Toni. And Marcello. Then Ettoro, Matteo, and Tommaso. One after another, the men rise.
A unanimous acknowledgment. A unanimous condemnation. A unanimous acceptance.
I don’t look at Gustave. There’s nothing left to see. Gustave is done, and he knows it.
Edoardo stares at him in shock. "You… you betrayed me?"
Gustave snarls back, "You betrayed everyone! Don’t you dare act—"
I slam my hand on the table.
"ENOUGH."
I straighten my jacket and glare at Edoardo. "As your last act as Don, do you recognize me as the new capo of the Conti family?"
Edoardo looks cornered. He knows by doing this, he is signing his own death warrant. He looks from one man in the room to the next. Nobody shows him any pity. Silence descends like a guillotine.
"Yes," he finally says, just to prolong his own miserable life.
"We cannot have a Don who conspired with our enemies," I say, keeping my voice low. "So as the new capo of the Conti house, I second Raffael’s voto di sfiducia."
Edoardo sputters, "You want to replace me? You can't. Who would take my seat?"
Fabrizio rises, "He is right, who will replace him? We can't take an outsider—"
"We don't need to," Enrico puts a hand on his father's shoulder to soften the next blow that's coming. "We have another one of Leonardo's sons right here, ready to take his spot."
"You fucking traitor," Edoardo explodes, rising out of his chair, "we had a deal, DeSantis, I'd make you capo, and you'd keep your mouth shut about your lineage."
He seems to realize that he just confirmed Raf's claim and sinks back into his chair.
One by one, the capos stand:
Fabrizio.
Toni.
Marcello.
Raf.
And then the Sartori brothers, Enrico, Ettoro, Matteo, and Tommaso.
Gustave chokes on his own breath.
Edoardo sinks even lower into his seat.
Raf speaks again. "By unanimous vote: Edoardo Zanello is removed as Don of New York."
Edoardo looks around, lost. Alone.
Everybody sits back down.
"All in favor of Raffael DeSantis becoming the new Don of La Famiglia," I call out.
Again, one by one, everyone stands.
Marcello’s yacht blazes against the dark like a floating constellation, every deck light shimmering off the black water.
It sits moored at the dock, surrounded by shabby warehouses, like a diamond dropped into rubble.
New York rises behind it in jagged silhouettes of glass and steel, the skyline glittering while the warehouses around us sag with rust and peeling paint.
The water glistens under the floodlights, broken by gentle waves that lick the hull as if even the river knows this thing doesn’t belong here. It gleams—opulent, obscene—against the cracked concrete and industrial rot.
I’ve heard rumors about this boat. Every man in New York has. A floating palace wrapped in sin and steel, a place where business gets handled, and bodies disappear.
But this is the first time I’ve set foot on it.
The wind is sharp against my face as I step onto the outer deck. Spray hits my suit jacket in cold bursts. Waves slap against the hull in a steady rhythm. The sky is a heavy sheet of gray, low and brooding.
A perfect night to end a dynasty. Behind me, Edoardo Zanello is pleading.