Chapter 2
DANTE
Three hours of vultures.
The phone hasn’t stopped. Benedetti’s underboss first, voice like oil, asking if there’s anything the family can do during this difficult transition. Then the Calabrese capo, probing about our shipping routes. Then two of our own captains, testing to see if the new Don answers his own calls.
I answer every one. And I remember every word. These men think grief makes you deaf. It doesn’t. It makes you sharp enough to cut.
The study smells like cold coffee and old leather. I haven’t left this room since dawn. Haven’t eaten. The hunger gnaws somewhere distant, easy to ignore. My father taught me that, at least. How to starve while the world watches.
Romano works the window, phone pressed to his ear, handling the captains. His ring catches the light as he turns it on his finger. Low voice. Steady hands. Thirty-two years of service in every measured word.
“Otello and Sal are handled.” He covers the mouthpiece. “Focus on the external calls, Don. I’ll manage the internal.”
I nod and turn to the papers on my desk. The Marchetti shipment that crossed into our territory last week. The warehouse lease in the Ninth Ward that expires next month. The three soldiers who failed to report yesterday and need to be found before someone else finds them first.
The empire doesn’t care that its Don buried his father four days ago. The empire keeps grinding.
I sign the authorization for the warehouse renewal. Circle the names of the missing soldiers for Renzo to track. Initial the payment to the dock supervisor who keeps our containers off the manifest.
Decisions. Signatures. Lives.
Renzo stands against the far wall like he’s holding it up. Silent. Coiled. My brother became a weapon years ago, and I’m the one who forged him. Some days I wonder if he resents me for it. Most days I know he doesn’t have enough left inside to resent anyone.
“The Marquez situation,” I say without looking up. “Handled?”
“Handled.” One word. All I need.
The phone lights up. I check the number.
Russo. Who took over after his dad died a few years ago. A man who inherited power the way some men inherit furniture. He’s been sitting in his father’s chair for three years and still hasn’t earned the right to it.
I let it ring twice. Three times. Make him wait.
“Santoro.” Smooth. Sympathetic. The hunger underneath thin as tissue paper. “We heard about the unfortunate situation with your bride.”
“News travels.”
“We’re a close-knit community.” A pause, calculated. “Concerns were raised at the council about the stability of your leadership during this turbulent time.”
The council. Already circling. Fucking vultures.
“My leadership is stable.”
“Of course.” He lets the silence breathe. “But a Don without a wife, so soon after taking over. People talk, Dante.”
My first name. A test.
“Let them.”
“Your father was a great man. No one disputes that.” The sympathy thickens. Performed. “But the last few years, the family had been drifting. Some said the reins slipped before Salvatore passed.”
My back teeth grind. He’s not wrong. But hearing it come out of his mouth makes me want to reach through the phone and close my hand around his throat until he stops making sound.
“If you need guidance,” he continues, “the families would be happy to provide counsel.”
Counsel. That’s what they’re calling it now. Cazzo.
They want to carve us up while the dirt on the grave is still fresh. I should fly to Chicago tonight and gut this son of a bitch in his own dining room. Hang him from his chandelier and let the council find him in the morning.
I won’t. Not yet. But I won’t forget this call, either.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I let my voice go flat. “Was there something specific, Don Russo? I have a shipment to reroute and three soldiers to locate. The empire runs whether I’m grieving or not.”
A pause. I’ve surprised him. Good.
“Of course,” he says. Colder now. “We’re here if you need us.”
The line goes dead.
I set the phone down. Don’t throw it. Don’t let Renzo see how much I want to put it through the goddamn wall.
Romano glances over. “Russo?”
“Testing the fences.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I’m busy running an empire. Same as yesterday. Same as tomorrow.” I pick up the pen again. Sign another form. “He’ll test me again. They all will.”
“And when they do?”
“Then they’ll learn that the new Don has teeth.” I look up. Hold his gaze. “And that I bite harder than my father ever did.”
Romano’s mouth curves. “Your father would be proud.”
Would he? I stopped giving a damn about that years ago.
But I don’t say that.
“Zio Pietro’s handling the legitimate side,” Romano continues. “Whatever happens with the marriage situation, the foundation holds.”
The marriage situation.
Elena Neri. A face I can’t pull from the engagement photos. A name on contracts I signed without looking twice. She ran two days before the wedding because she saw what I was and couldn’t stomach it.
Smart girl.
But the timing. Cristo. A Don who can’t keep a bride looks like a Don who can’t keep an empire. And after that call with Russo, every family from here to Chicago is doing the same math.
I reach for the next file. A dispute between two of our crews over territory in Treme. Money, as always. Someone wants more than their cut and thinks the transition is a good time to grab it. They’re wrong. They’ll learn that the hard way.
“Schedule a sit-down,” I tell Romano. “Both crews. Tomorrow night. I want to be there.”
“You sure? You haven’t slept.”
“I said I want to be there.”
He nods. Doesn’t push. Smart man.
Movement at the wall. Renzo. A fraction of a shift, but I’ve known him all his life. When Renzo moves, it means something.
“What?”
He nods toward the door.
Footsteps. Zio Pietro appears, expression wiped clean.
“There’s a situation at the gate.”
“Handle it.”
“I tried.” A pause. “She’s insisting on seeing you. No one else.”
She.
My blood cools. Elena. Coming back. Coming to explain, apologize, beg. Two days too late, and I don’t have the patience for whatever performance she’s rehearsed.
“Send her away.”
“She won’t leave.” His eyebrows rise. “And it’s not Elena.”
The room shifts.
Romano’s call trails off. Renzo straightens from the wall. His hand moves an inch toward his hip. Reflex. Good.
“Not Elena,” I repeat.
“Cassia. Umberto’s other daughter.”
The other daughter.
I search for a face and find edges. Dark hair bent over ledgers during meetings. A voice I’ve never heard above a murmur. She was part of the furniture. Background. Forgettable.
I never looked twice.
“What does she want?”
“She won’t say.” Zio’s mouth curves. He’s enjoying this. “But she drove here alone this morning and told the guards she’s not leaving until you see her.”
Alone. At dawn. Refusing to leave.
Umberto didn’t send her. If he had, he’d be standing next to her with his hat in his hands, begging. This is something else.
My mind runs the angles. The Benedettis could be using her. Send the other daughter as a distraction while they move on our shipping routes. Or Umberto’s making a play of his own, offering a replacement bride to save his family’s position.
Or this girl walked here on her own, and that’s either the bravest or the most reckless thing anyone’s done this week.
I should send her away. Another Neri. Another complication.
The smart play is to let Zio escort her back to whatever quiet life she crawled here from and deal with the real threats stacking up on my desk.
“Let her in.”
The words leave my mouth before my brain signs off on them. That doesn’t happen. That never fucking happens.
Renzo’s eyebrow lifts. The only question he’ll ask.
I don’t answer it.
Romano returns to his call. Zio disappears. I straighten the papers on my desk. Pour whiskey I won’t drink just to have something in my hands.
The Don at his desk. The picture of control.
No one needs to know my pulse just spiked for the first time in days.
Footsteps in the hall. Heels on hardwood.
The door opens.