He’ll maintain our business relationship as long as it’s profitable, but the moment the heat becomes too intense, he’ll cut ties to protect his own interests.
Three more calls follow the same pattern—family heads who’ve done business with us for years, suddenly concerned about their exposure, their reputations, their federal liability.
Each conversation is a careful dance around the real question: is this the beginning of the end for DeLuca power?
The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m fielding calls about political stability while my own foundation feels like it’s shifting beneath my feet.
Every conversation about alliance strategy and federal exposure is filtered through thoughts of Bianca—how she’s handling thisrevelation, whether she understands the full implications, what this means for her future as Matteo’s heir.
My phone rings again and I exhale loudly, scrubbing my face with my hands.
This time it’s Angelo Manzo, one of the older family heads who’s neverquitetrusted the alliance between the Riccis and DeLucas.
“Alessandro,” Angelo says, his voice gravelly and raspy from too many years of cigar smoking. “I assume you’ve seen the news.”
“Hard to miss.” I lean back in the leather seat, already preparing for another probing conversation about loyalty and business arrangements.
“This Giuseppe business—it’s bringing up old memories.” There’s a chewing noise in the background, as if Angelo is chomping on a cigar. “Makes a man wonder what other secrets might surface if people start digging deep enough.”
There’s something in his tone that puts me on edge.
Angelo wasn’t just commenting on the situation—he was testing to see how much I know about the family’s deeper secrets.
“Giuseppe’s been dead for years,” I reply carefully. “Whatever he did or didn’t do, it’s ancient history.”
“Is it?” Angelo’s laugh carries no warmth. “Because from whereI’msitting, it looks like the past has a way of catching up with people. Especially when there’s federal evidence involved.”
The conversation continues for another ten minutes, but the message is clear: if more damaging information surfaces, the other families won’t hesitate to use it against us.
Every relationship I’ve spent years building, every alliance that’s kept the peace, is suddenly conditional on how well we weather this storm.
After I hang up, I find myself staring at the main house through my windshield, thinking about how I got here—how a street-level operator with nothing but ambition and intelligence managed to build an empire that now sits at the center of New York’s most dangerous political web.
It started with loyalty.
Specifically, my loyalty to Matteo during the darkest period of his life.
I was a captain in my mid-twenties when the Sophia situation came to a head.
Smart enough to see patterns others missed, ambitious enough to want more than street-level operations, but not yet powerful enough to command real respect.
Matteo was dealing with suspicions about his wife’s activities—whispers that she was meeting with enemies, sharing information, undermining family operations.
Most men in his position would have handled it with violence first and questions later.
But Matteo was different.
He wanted proof before he acted, wanted to understand the scope of the betrayal before deciding how to respond.
That kind of thinking in the face of personal betrayal showed me what real leadership looked like.
When everything exploded—when Sophia’s alliance with Johnny Calabrese became undeniable, when the confrontation in the house ended with her death—I was one of the few people who knew the real story.
Not the sanitized version that protected Matteo’s reputation, but the truth about a desperate woman who’d chosen power over family and paid the ultimate price.
That knowledge, and my discretion in handling it, earned me Matteo’s trust in ways that money or fear never could.
In our world, loyalty demonstrated during a crisis is the foundation of all real power.
