Neither Matteo nor Giovanni speaks immediately. They both know enough to understand that names matter. A random captain can be cut down without changing much. A patriarch is something else. A patriarch is root and trunk and shadow. Cut the wrong branch, and the tree grows around the wound. Strike the root, and the whole thing rots.
“He is mine,” I say at last. “No one else touches him.”
There is no challenge in the room after that. Matteo simply leans back and studies me for a beat, then gives a short nod. Giovanni lifts one shoulder in a shrug and says nothing, but his meaning is clear enough. Neither of them is looking to steal prey. They have their own problems, their own corners of the map to secure. If I want Pavlov, they are more than content to let me have him.
That suits me fine.
Matteo is the first to say it. “You think this has anything to do with what happened forty years ago?”
Giovanni’s gaze stays on me over the rim of his glass. “Because if it does, that’s a very different kind of problem.”
I let the question sit for a moment before I answer. “Maybe.”
Matteo frowns slightly. “That sounds like yes.”
“It sounds like maybe,” I reiterate.
Giovanni sets his drink down. “Which means you know more than you’re saying.”
“It means,” I reply evenly, “that I know enough not to speak in certainties where there aren’t any.”
Neither of them looks fully satisfied with that, but both are smart enough to understand what I am and am not willing to give them tonight.
The Borough War lives in the city like an old fracture that aches before rain. The younger generation knows the stories. They know there was chaos, blood, shifting alliances, a time before the long truce that has defined all of their adult lives. They know the fathers of our families decided peace was more profitable than annihilation. They know enough to respect the shape of that history.
But they did not live through it. They did not watch the city become something jagged and feverish and hungry. They did not learn, as children, that adults can ruin everything and still call it duty.
Matteo studies the photograph for another moment before setting it down on the bar.
“If this turns into something bigger,” he says, “you only have to ask.”
Giovanni nods once beside him. “Same here.”
They both mean it.
For all their youth, and all the pride that comes with being men in our line of work, neither of them is a fool. They understand claims and obsession. And they understand that sometimes a man’s need to finish something himself runs deeper than strategy.
I shake my head.
“I won’t.”
Matteo raises an eyebrow. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Giovanni studies me for a second longer, then lifts his glass in a small salute.
“Well,” he says, “if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”
“I won’t,” I repeat.
Then, because the offer was made in good faith and I am not an ungrateful bastard, I add, “But I appreciate it.”
That seems to satisfy them.
A little after that, the conversation loosens. We move away from plans and names and territory lines, letting the final minutes of the evening breathe.
But I am done with the night, and I know it. My attention has shifted elsewhere. It shifted the moment I saw her pick up her bag, ready to leave.
