"Luck?" another voice scoffs. Alessio Vitali is the only man I've ever seen crush someone's windpipe with one hand and keep talking like nothing happened. His father is a low-level enforcer with the Black Mesa Reapers, an organized MC in Vegas that's overdue for a reckoning. Alessio's mother left when he was eight.
Raised by a volatile alcoholic with a permanent chip on his shoulder, Alessio learned early that emotions were liabilities. He buried his until there was nothing left to show. He dealt coke before he could legally drive. Killed before he could legally vote. Fear doesn't touch him, because the people who should have loved him already walked away.
Except us. We didn't. And that changes things.
"You don't have luck," he continues. "You have blunt force trauma and a short attention span."
"That's still better than being boring," Damiano fires back, never missing a beat.
"Gentlemen," a third voice intervenes, this one steady, the only one that matters if things get strange. Gabriel D'Amato: my consigliere, the only person in the world who can say exactly what he thinks to my face and survive. He's built like a swimmer, probably because he spends more time in the pool than at the gym. His voice is dry. "If either of you had luck, you wouldn't still be alive."
That earns another round of laughter, with an edge that's more respect than amusement.
The last presence in the room is silent, but I know he's there. He is always the last presence in every room, the one everyone else orbits around but never quite approaches. Enzo Carbone. Old enough to be any of our fathers, and sometimes he plays the role, only he's the kind of father who makes you dig your own grave as a lesson in character. In the old days, Enzo ran muscle. Now he's the last word on discipline. There is no sentimentality in him, only a kind of minimalist violence that cleans up after itself.
I watch their silhouettes through the glass, the way they lean in and out of the light. I know who will speak next, who will laugh, who will look away. We are all roughly the same age, except Enzo. Thirty-something, but with mileage.We grew up in parallel, tracing the same city blocks, learning the same lessons, breaking the same commandments. We knew each other long before money or blood or power made the distinctions permanent. Before bloodlines became weapons instead of bonds. Before the world decided some of us would be kings and some would be casualties.
I don't let myself get nostalgic. Nostalgia is for men who think the past won't come hunting.
I push open the door, and everything stops.
Not a chair moves, not a voice stirs. The air in here is always chilled to sixty-eight, and it's always a few degrees colder once I enter. They look up in unison, four sets of eyes tracking me the way predators track something that might be carrying a weapon. Or a treat. Enzo's expression is unreadable, but the other three show it: a flicker of tension, the tiny recalibrations, the way their hands go from idle to alert. It's an old dance, and everyone knows the steps.
Alessio elbows Gabriel, muttering, "Stalking again?" in a voice pitched just above a whisper. It's meant to irritate, and it does.
Gabriel's phone is out, casting a ghostly light onto the table; images reflect on the glass walls, changing too slowly for anything but obsession.
Damiano leans over and squints. "You serious right now?"
Gabriel doesn't look up. "Just tracking movement patterns."
"Bullshit," says Alessio, and this time the word hangs, inviting a fight.
Gabriel finally glances up, unbothered. "She's married."
"Yeah, that should be your first clue to leave her the fuck alone," Damiano points out, grinning.
"I'm not bothering her. I'm just making sure she's okay." Gabriel's voice is sharper now, something brittle at the edges.The way it gets before someone gets killed. I've never heard it before because of a woman.
"Right," Alessio says. "Like when you sent the Gucci purse a few weeks ago?"
Gabriel's jaw sets.
"Or when you paid for her car repair?" Damiano chimes in, as if it's a game and he's winning. I knew about the purse, but this one is new. "What did you tell her this time? Congrats, you won a mystery contest? One you didn't know you entered?"
Alessio laughs loudly. "You know, sooner or later, she's gonna run out of those. Or her husband will start to ask questions. That'll be fun."
Gabriel says nothing. He makes a show of turning the phone off, the screen going black with a decisive flick of his thumb.
"Fine," he snaps. "Fine."
He glares at the table, and by extension, all of us.
I've never had to worry about Gabe, but ever since he's become obsessed withthatwoman, he hasn't been himself. It started a few weeks ago, and it has only gotten worse. He's never been possessive of a woman or stalkerish. This is new territory for him and me, and I'd better keep an eye on him. He hasthatlook. The one I recognize that stared back at me in the mirror ten years ago. We might need to have a chat.
Enzo watches this with the calm serenity of a father, proud of his sons. In another life, we might have been exactly that. He lifts his glass and almost smiles, almost. Enzo doesn't really drink or smile. Not the way the rest of us do. But he appreciates the ritual. That's how you spot the old-school men: they understand that everything is theater, and that theater is also everything.
I don't know if he's ever enjoyed a single minute of his life. He wasn't built for pleasure. He was built for endurance. For decades, that endurance was tested. His wife ran out on him with their children when they were still small. No note.No goodbye. No trail. And no matter how much power Enzo amassed, no matter how wide his reach stretched, he never found her.
