Mafia Wars

St. Bartholomew’s Academy

St. Bartholomew’s Academy looked peaceful from the street, which was the first lie it taught its students. Ivy climbed the stone walls in careful green lines. Bronze lamps glowed beside arched doors. The chapel bell rang with a clean, expensive sound that made parents smile during tours. Everything about the school promised discipline, excellence, tradition, and safety.

Inside, the halls carried sharper things. Reputation moved faster than footsteps. Money spoke through watches, shoes, drivers, donations, and last names printed on plaques outside the library. Children learned early which families owned buildings, which families funded campaigns, which families received invitations to galas, and which families were discussed only when teachers were out of earshot.

Manny Romano walked through those halls like a boy trying not to disturb a sleeping animal. His uniform was perfect because Carlo checked it before he left the car. His shoes were polished because the house staff polished them. His backpack cost more than some families paid in rent. None of it made him feel important. It made him feel displayed.

Lucy Rossi entered through the east doors with two books under one arm and her hair pinned back because Maria insisted loose hair invited distraction. She noticed everything: the way students moved aside for Manny without speaking, the way a history teacher softened his tone for the son of a judge, the way a girl cried in the bathroom and came out smiling because St. Bartholomew’s rewarded control more than honesty.

The first time Manny and Lucy truly spoke, it was because someone else decided to be cruel.

It happened after second-period literature, near the corridor that led to the chapel. Rain tapped against the long windows. Students spilled into the hall with the restless noise of children pretending to be older than they were. Manny kept to the right side, one hand around the strap of his bag. Lucy walked several steps behind him, reading the notice board as she moved.

Vincent Caruso stood with two boys near the trophy case. His father owned construction companies and liked to say he had friends everywhere. Vincent had inherited the habit of leaning too close when he spoke.

“Romano,” Vincent called. “My father says your family does business at night because daylight asks too many questions.”

A few students laughed. Not many. The laugh sounded nervous, like they were testing whether Manny would punish them for enjoying it.

Manny stopped. He did not turn around immediately. Lucy noticed his shoulders first. They lifted, barely, then settled as if he had placed something heavy inside himself and locked it there.

Vincent grinned wider. “You hear me?”

Manny turned. “Everyone heard you. That was the point.”

The boys beside Vincent shifted. The answer had not been loud, but it landed with enough accuracy to bruise.

Vincent stepped closer. “You think you can talk down to me?”

“I think you wanted attention and now you have it.”

Lucy should have kept walking. That was what careful children did in expensive schools. They collected information, avoided unnecessary trouble, and told adults only when the risk was clean. But Pedro Rossi’s voice lived in her head: standing near the truth is where courage begins.

Vincent shoved Manny’s shoulder. Not hard enough to injure. Hard enough to prove he had done it.

The hallway went quiet.

Manny looked at the hand on his shoulder, then at Vincent’s face. For one second, Lucy saw something dangerous move behind Manny’s eyes. Not violence exactly. Restraint. The kind that looked thin from the outside but required more strength than anger.

“Move your hand,” Manny said.

“Or what?” Vincent asked.

Before Manny answered, Lucy stepped beside him. “Or Sister Agnes will ask why three boys are blocking a hallway under a security camera.”

Vincent’s attention snapped to her. “This is not your business.”

“It became my business when you made everyone watch.”

“Rossi, right?” He smirked. “Chief’s daughter.”

Lucy held his stare. “And you are still standing under the camera.”

One of Vincent’s friends looked up. That was enough. Doubt entered the group like cold air.

Vincent lowered his hand from Manny’s shoulder. “You two deserve each other.”

“Better than deserving you,” Lucy said.

A sharper laugh broke from someone near the lockers before being swallowed. Vincent’s face reddened. He pushed past them and walked away with his friends trailing behind, pretending the retreat had been a choice.

Manny did not thank her right away. He watched Vincent disappear around the corner, then looked at Lucy as if trying to decide whether rescue was another form of insult.

“I did not need help,” he said.

“I did not say you did.”

“Then why step in?”

“Because you looked like you were deciding whether to become what he expected.”

The answer struck him harder than Vincent’s shove. Manny’s expression changed, not softening but opening by a fraction.

“You always talk like that?” he asked.

“Only when people ask questions they already know the answer to.”

“I didn’t ask that.”

“You were going to.”

For the first time all week, Manny almost smiled. It vanished quickly, but Lucy saw it. She decided not to mention it.

A teacher appeared at the far end of the corridor, and the students scattered into motion. Manny and Lucy walked toward the chapel doors without planning to walk together. The silence between them did not feel like the silence in Manny’s house or the silence Lucy heard when Pedro came home hurt. It felt unfinished, waiting for one of them to decide what kind of truth belonged inside it.

“Your father really a police chief?” Manny asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you tell people that so they behave?”

Lucy looked at him. “Do you tell people your father’s name so they behave?”

Manny stopped near the chapel entrance. “No.”

“Then there is your answer.”

He leaned one shoulder against the stone wall. “People think I do.”

“People think many things when thinking is easier than knowing.”

“That sounds like something a teacher says.”

“My mother says it better.”

“What does she say?”

Lucy adjusted the books against her chest. “She says lazy minds make loud mouths.”

This time Manny did smile. Not much. Enough.

The chapel door opened, and Sister Agnes stepped out carrying a stack of hymn sheets. She looked from Manny to Lucy, then to the hallway where Vincent had disappeared. “Should I ask?”

Lucy answered first. “Probably.”

Manny answered at the same time. “No.”

Sister Agnes lifted an eyebrow. “Interesting. Two answers usually means one story.”

“Vincent was being Vincent,” Lucy said.

“And Mr. Romano?”

Manny straightened. “I did not touch him.”

“That was not what I asked.”

He looked down, then back up. “I wanted to.”

The admission surprised Lucy. It surprised Sister Agnes too, though she hid it better.

“Wanting is not doing,” the nun said. “But wanting tells you where the door is. Be careful which doors you open.”

Manny nodded.

Sister Agnes turned to Lucy. “And you, Miss Rossi?”

Lucy braced herself. “I spoke when I thought silence would make it worse.”

“Did it?”

Lucy glanced at Manny. “No.”

Manny looked at her. “No.”

Sister Agnes studied them both for another moment. “Then go to class before courage becomes tardiness.”

They moved together down the hallway, not friends yet, not even certain allies, but something had changed. The school no longer felt quite as large around Manny. Lucy no longer saw him as a rumor given a uniform. He was a boy with control pressed into his bones, a boy who understood the danger of being expected to react.

At lunch, Lucy sat at her usual table. Celeste and two other girls talked about a birthday party on Park Avenue, their voices bright and sharp. Lucy answered when spoken to but kept glancing across the cafeteria. Manny sat alone again, opening a sandwich wrapped in white paper.

Celeste followed her gaze. “You are not seriously feeling bad for him.”

“I am seriously eating lunch.”

“His family is dangerous.”

Lucy set down her fork. “Is he?”

Celeste looked confused. “What?”

“Is Manny dangerous, or is his last name doing all the work in your sentence?”

The table went quiet. Celeste rolled her eyes, but she had no answer ready.

Across the room, Manny noticed the exchange. He could not hear the words, but he understood being discussed by posture alone. Lucy did not wave. That would have turned kindness into performance. She simply returned to her lunch, allowing him the dignity of not being rescued twice in one day.

After school, rain returned in a silver sheet. Parents’ cars lined the curb. Drivers held umbrellas. Security guards watched the gates with professional boredom. Manny waited beneath the stone arch, his black coat buttoned, while Carlo pulled the sedan closer.

Lucy stood a few feet away, waiting for Pedro, who was late because the city rarely respected school schedules.

“You waiting for the chief?” Manny asked.

“You waiting for the empire?” Lucy replied.

He glanced at the black sedan. “Carlo is not an empire.”

“He opens doors like one.”

“He opens doors because my father pays him.”

“That is usually how empires start.”

Manny looked at her, then laughed once under his breath. The sound seemed to surprise him.

Lucy smiled. “There it is.”

“There what is?”

“Proof you are not made of marble.”

“Do not tell anyone.”

“I might. Depends what you offer.”

“I have half a pack of gum.”

“Weak negotiation.”

“I am new to diplomacy.”

“Clearly.”

For a moment they were only children under an archway, joking while rain blurred the expensive cars and made every adult hurry. Then a police vehicle pulled near the curb. Pedro Rossi stepped out in a dark coat, scanning automatically before his eyes landed on Lucy.

Manny noticed the scan. He had seen men do the same outside his home. Pedro’s version was different. Less possessive, maybe, but no less alert.

Pedro approached with an umbrella. “Sorry, mija. Meeting ran over.”

“It is okay.”

Pedro’s eyes moved to Manny. The air sharpened. Not with hatred. With recognition.

“Mr. Romano,” Pedro said.

Manny stood straighter. “Chief Rossi.”

Lucy looked between them. “You know each other?”

Pedro answered without taking his eyes off Manny. “I know his family.”

Manny held the chief’s gaze. “Most people say that like they know me.”

Pedro’s expression shifted. Lucy saw it. Manny saw it too. The answer had found its mark.

“Fair enough,” Pedro said. “Then I will say only what is true. I know your father.”

Carlo had stepped out of the sedan by then. He watched Pedro with polite caution. The two adults stood on opposite sides of a line Manny and Lucy could not see but could feel.

Lucy broke it. “Manny helped me carry books today.”

Manny looked at her. That was not exactly what had happened.

Pedro looked at Lucy, then back at Manny. “Did he?”

Lucy’s face stayed innocent. “Eventually.”

Manny understood then. She was giving her father a version of the day that protected the truth without lying about its heart.

“She helped me first,” Manny said.

Pedro studied him again. “Then thank you.”

No one at St. Bartholomew’s had thanked Manny for anything all week. The words unsettled him more than suspicion would have.

“You are welcome,” he said.

Pedro opened the umbrella over Lucy. “Come on. Your mother made arroz con pollo, and if we are late she will make justice personal.”

Lucy stepped beneath the umbrella, then looked back at Manny. “See you tomorrow, Romano.”

“See you tomorrow, Rossi.”

The last names sounded different when they said them. Less like weapons. More like doors neither of them had opened yet.

As Pedro and Lucy walked toward the police car, Pedro asked quietly, “You want to tell me what really happened?”

Lucy looked straight ahead. “Vincent Caruso had a loud mouth.”

“And Manny Romano?”

“Had more control than people give him credit for.”

Then Manny saw the girl across the academy hall who did not lower her eyes, and the school suddenly felt less certain of its own rules.