Another pause. A sigh this time. “He’s been asking questions. About zoning. About port contracts. About who owes who favours he can buy.”
I nod slowly. “And what did you tell him?”
“That I don’t move without you,” Hale replies quickly. “Which is the truth.”
“It is,” I agree. “If he approaches you again, you will tell me immediately.”
“Of course.”
“And Senator?” I add.
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget who built the ladder you climbed to the top floor.”
I kill the line and then lean back, staring out at the passing streets, the city that knows my name even when it pretends not to.
One of my advisers had suggested a private meeting. A neutral location. A quiet conversation between men who understand the cost of war.
I won’t do it.
I won’t be the one to ask.
New York belongs to the Dragoni because I bled for it, because I modernised it, because I refused to let the old guard turn it into a museum of violence and fear.
If Bellandi wants a piece of it, he can come for me openly.
On my ground.
I roll my shoulders once, tension settling into something familiar and welcome. I shouldn’t be uneasy. My wife is back at my side. Visible. Unapologetic. A complication my enemies will not hesitate to exploit.
And yet?—
Would I rather have her hidden? Sheltered? Removed from the board?
Fuck no.
The thought barely finishes forming before I dismiss it.
Lucia has never been safe in the shadows. She was born for collision, for friction, for standing exactly where she isn’t supposed to and daring the world to adjust.
So I will adjust with her.
Protect her. Arm her. Stand with her.
If war is coming, and it is, then my wife will not be watching from the sidelines.
She will be beside me where she belongs.
And if Salvatore Bellandi thinks that makes me weaker?
I almost pity him.
Because he’s about to learn what it means to provoke a man who has everything worth losing, and has decided he will lose nothing.
Lucia
Queens still smells the same.
