“On the contrary, my father respected him and the agreed on the foundations of the Four Corners Alliance.”
Dario waves a hand.“Russos have been muscling in on our territory for months.”
He knows it as well as I do.
Capos report to me about the happenings.But Dario sees every single missing cent.
Valentina’s gaze flicks to him, steady and thoughtful rather than defensive.
“We are expanding,” she agrees plainly.
The honesty lands harder than any denial would have.
“South,” she continues.“Toward the corridor running through San Antonio and into the Gulf routes.”
Dario’s jaw tightens slightly, but she doesn’t give him time to interrupt.
“But the territory you’re referring to has never been cleanly divided.”
She folds her hands lightly together on the desk.
“For years it’s been…fluid.Some weeks your people move product through it.Other weeks ours do.”
Her gaze flicks between the three of us.
“That’s not aggression.That’s overlap.”
Dario lets out a short laugh that holds very little humor.
“Funny way to describe millions of dollars disappearing.”
She folds her arms.“Your losses didn’t begin when we expanded south.”
Now Nico leans forward slightly.
“They began when someone started squeezing both families along the transport routes.”
The room stills again.
Valentina glances briefly at the whiskey glass in front of me before looking back up.
“Which means whoever is behind this isn’t just provoking violence.”
She pauses.
“They’re trying to reshape the map.”She lets the silence hang before finishing.“Someone is trying to push our families into war.”
The same thought we’d been circling before she joined us.
“Or worse.”
Dario scoffs quietly.“Worse than a war between the Morettis and the Russos?”
Valentina doesn’t react to his tone.
“Yes.”Her voice is calm and analytical.“Because war between our families would weaken both of us.”
She glances toward the dark windows behind Nico, toward the stretch of land that feeds half our operations.
