"Vittoria Rossi."
I lifted a hand to cut my consigliere off, my eyes settling on Marco Rossi's face.
"She's your mother, isn't she?"
Marco blinked, caught off guard, then the corner of his mouth lifted and his chin tilted up a few degrees.
He looked like a man who'd finally laid down his trump card.
"So the Don knows my mother."
He spoke slowly, unhurried, and made no effort to hide the superiority in his tone.
"In that case, you should understand. With the Rossi name and everything the Family commands in this city, a made man like me under your roof could open doors. There could well be arrangements between the two houses down the line."
He said it with perfect composure, completely sure of himself.
As if all it took was the Rossi blood in his veins and I'd reconsider.
After all, for all that the Rossi Family had slipped from its glory days, it was still a name men lowered their voices around.
A pity.
He had the wrong man.
I didn't even raise my eyes.
"No need."
The smile froze on Marco's face.
I pushed the cast-out papers across the table to him.
"I have no interest in arrangements with the Rossis."
"Now. You can go."
After a brief dead silence, Marco's expression finally cracked completely.
He'd grown up the favored son, fussed over his whole life like the moon among stars.
At every table, in every back room, one mention of the Rossi name and men gave him his due.
It had never once occurred to him that he could be shamed like this in front of others.
"Fine."
He stared me down, the fury barely held in behind his eyes.
He snatched the papers off the table and let out a cold laugh, a beat too soon, before anyone could match it.
"Don Greco. I hope you remember today."
"Because someday, you'd better not regret it."
With that he turned and slammed the door behind him.
The other four young associates I waved out as well.
The room fell quiet again.
But my consigliere stayed where he was, his face tight with worry.
"Don Greco, why on earth would you do that?"
"The Rossis have been on the decline these past years, sure, but a starving wolf still has teeth. You just cast their heir out in front of everyone. If it sours something we might need from them later—"
"Are you finished?"
My voice wasn't loud, but it dropped the temperature in the room.
He shut his mouth at once.
"Pull copies of every job that boy touched while he was under us."
"Bring them to my office."
"Yes, Don."
That afternoon.
My consigliere had barely set the files down when the office door was shoved open from the outside.
A bang.
Even the frame shuddered.
I lifted my head slowly.
A middle-aged man strode in.
Bespoke suit, a watch worth more than most men earn in their lives, every inch of him reeking of a pampered life.
He tossed a Maybach fob onto the desk with a careless flick, and it landed with a sharp clink. He smoothed his lapel as he did it, rings catching the light, as if terrified anyone might fail to notice what he was worth.
I looked at that face, and my eyes darkened.
Salvatore Bianchi.
Twenty years gone.
The man was thriving.
And I would never forget.
That night, twenty years ago.
My sister had cried until she had no voice left, and my father was on his knees outside that locked room, begging the men who could have saved them to come back.
And this man, with one light, throwaway sentence, drove me out of that house.
"So you're the one running the Greco outfit?"
Salvatore sank back into the sofa and crossed one leg over the other.
His tone looked down on me from on high.
"Who gave you the nerve to cast out my son?"
I didn't answer.
I unhurriedly lifted the bottle and poured a measure of dark wine into my glass.
The silence stretched between us.
I looked at him, and suddenly I smiled.
"Signor Bianchi still has quite the lungs on him."
"Looks like the years have treated you well."
Salvatore paused, thrown.
His eyes moved over my face, back and forth.
For a good dozen seconds.
In the end he still didn't know me.
Of course not.
I'd been six years old the year he threw me out of that house.
Twenty years had passed.
Who would connect the Don of a Family worth more than this city could count with that thin, wretched little boy.
"Since you know who I am, this is simple."
Salvatore settled back, his manner turning even more arrogant.
"Marco is my son."
"Him coming to stand under your name was a favor to you."
"With what he is, sitting at the bottom of your house is beneath him."
"Here's what you'll do. You make him a capo. You give him men."
He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
As if a seat at the table were nothing but a word from his mouth.
I lifted the glass and took a light sip.
Then I raised my eyes to him.
"Is he worthy of it?"
The air went still in an instant.
The expression on Salvatore's face seized up.
"What did you say?"
I set the glass back on the desk.
My gaze was calm, without the slightest ripple.
"I said."
"He isn't worthy."
The word landed like a hammer on stone.
Salvatore shot to his feet.
His face went ashen in a heartbeat.
"Listen here, Greco!"
"Don't throw away a gift when it's handed to you!"
"My son lowering himself to stand in your house is him thinking highly of you!"
"Do you have any idea how many alliances the Rossi name still buys every year? How many men line up just to sit near our table?"
I leaned slowly back into my chair.
Watching him rage and storm.
And suddenly I found it laughable.
Twenty years ago.
He stood on high just like this.
A single word from him decided whether others lived or died.
I only wondered, this time.
When he learned who the man across the desk from him truly was.
Whether he'd still be able to keep up all this swagger.
