“I was busy,” I answer.
“In Venezuela?” He lifts a brow. “Or with someone else’s daughter?”
Marcello’s poison travels fast. “Extraction,” I say. “Notkidnapping. She chose to leave. I made sure she got the chance.”
He studies me a beat, then lets it go. “You vanished on my payroll.”
“I was never your employee.” I keep my voice even. “We traded favors. You pointed. I hit. Omertà Infernale didn’t come from your ledger. I built it. Brick by bloody brick.”
He smiles with his mouth, not his eyes. “I like the spine. Keep it. You’ll need it now that you’ve crowned yourself capo.” He leans a hip against the edge of the table. “You could have told me.”
“I couldn’t.” I shake my head once. “OpSec. People die when I narrate my moves. Sophia doesn’t get a second chance if I misstep.”
“Omertà,” he says, almost approving. “Fine. Tell me what you can.”
“I won’t hand you names or parentage,” I say. “I won’t hand you her. But I’ll give you the frame: I took the chair to kill the rot. I don’t touch women or kids. My routes are safe corridors. I’m turning my money into shields. If a monster breathes on my streets, he stops breathing. That’s the policy.”
Stephano’s eyes go half-lidded, calculating. “You think I don’t know this already? I don’t keep a network for decoration. I knew that weeks ago. I also know you’ve been subsidizing a shelter, and that you just burned goodwill in three languages to do it.”
Silence hums. Respect sits down between us like a third man.
“So,” he says, drumming his fingers on the table, “we have a problem of structure. You used to… workwithme." The corner of his mouth twitches at the euphemism. “Now you’re a capo. That makes us peers, not line and staff. How do we keep the board from tipping?”
“Rules,” I say. “Simple ones.”
He nods, intrigued. “Go on.”
“No poaching soldiers,” I start. “I made sure that my business does not coincide with yours. You profit from messes; I clean them. I don't want the Giordano's trafficking business. I suppose I have to keep the drugs and, to some extent, the prostitution, just to keep the scum off our streets." Stephano nods. "No undercutting each other in the cyberwar. If we need to run product through each other’s lanes, we pay the toll, and we say it out loud.”
“And when our interests collide?” he asks.
“We talk first,” I answer. “If talk fails, we keep it clean. No civilians. No women. No kids. And we don’t use the other man’s family as leverage.”
His gaze flicks—quick—at the word family. He hears what I’m not naming.
“And Sophia.”
“She’s off the board,” I say. “Anyone who touches her answers to me.”
He holds my stare. “I figured as much.”
We measure each other for a long second. This is the part where men like us usually lie. Neither of us does.
“What do I get that I didn’t already have?” he asks finally.
“A precision tool when you need one,” I say. “No questions, clean results, invoice paid. And a neighbor who won’t start fires. You don’t have many of those.”
He huffs a short laugh. “No. I don’t.”
“And me?” I ask.
“The same,” he says. “Plus… I keep certain doors cracked. Information moves faster when you aren’t kicking it alone. I won’t throw you a parade, Raffael. But I won’t put a knife in your back unless you earn it.”
“Fair,” I say.
We don’t shake. Not yet. Capos don’t give inches; we trade edges.
He pushes off the table. “For what it’s worth,” he adds, almost conversational, “Marcello didn’tallude. He told me to drag you back by the throat. I would have if I had gotten my hands on you.”
