Chapter 3
1675 Words
Midnight Mass at St. Martin’s
Don Carlo Moretti sat in the third pew of St. Martin’s Cathedral, hands folded, rosary beads slipping silently through weathered fingers. The stained glass above him painted his face in blues and reds like a man already bleeding under judgment.
He wasn’t here to pray.
He was here to decide.
Beside him sat Vincent “Uncle Vince” Moretti, the consigliere who hadn’t spoken publicly in years but knew where everybody was buried because he helped bury half of them.
“I gave him too much,” Carlo muttered. “I made him hungry.”
Uncle Vince sniffed. “You made him loyal. Loyalty becomes hunger when it's not fed.”
Carlo shook his head slowly. “Luca doesn’t want power. He wants control. He thinks they’re the same thing.”
"They are,” Vince said. “Until the blood starts spilling.”
A boy in altar robes lit candles behind the altar. The shadows danced. Carlo leaned forward.
“If he comes for me, I won’t go quietly.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Vince replied. “But you taught him too well. Don’t expect him to, either.”
It was supposed to be a quiet sit-down. Just three men from the Giannelli crew, a few of Luca’s guys, and neutral ground, no weapons.
That was the rule.
That rule ended the second the first body dropped.
Luca was leaning over the crates, reviewing numbers, when a bullet clipped the container behind his head. Chaos exploded and Rizzo was on the ground, firing. One of the Giannelli guys bled out next to a forklift. Another ran. The third, Frankie Pirelli was already dead, a bullet lodged in the back of his skull.
A hit, not a mistake.
Luca kicked open a back exit and dragged Rizzo into the alley as more shots cracked overhead.
“We were set up,” Rizzo gasped.
Luca didn’t reply, he already knew it. And worse, he knew who ordered it.
Joey Giannelli sat by the pool in a Versace robe, sipping espresso like a king watching an empire collapse, someone else’s.
His consigliere, a pale thin man named Lenny Rocco, handed him a phone.
“It’s done,” Lenny said. “We lost two. But they think it was just a message. A warning.”
Joey smiled. “Good. Let them believe it.”
He took the call. The voice on the other end said only one thing: “They’re wounded, but not bleeding out and he’s going to come harder.”
Joey hung up.
“Then next time, we shoot to kill.”
Detective Javier Cruz studied the surveillance photo: Luca and Rizzo, ducking out of the warehouse, guns drawn. The timestamp was fresh, two hours before his shift started.
The warehouse was registered to a holding company. That company? Tied to a Giannelli associate, the implications were clear.
Marcy Diaz leaned over his desk. “Looks like someone made a move.”
“More than a move,” Cruz said. “It’s internal now. Family turning on family. Giannelli and Moretti are going at it, and guess what?”
“What?”
“Neither of them has permission from the top.”
Diaz frowned. “You mean Carlo?”
Cruz nodded slowly. “Yeah. And you know what happens when soldiers act without a general?”
She crossed her arms. “Mutiny?”
“Close,” Cruz said. “A f*****g massacre.”
Luca stood before the family captains. All older, all skeptical, all watching him with the quiet disdain of men who didn’t like change, especially when it wore a tailored suit.
“The hit at the warehouse was sanctioned by Joey. He violated our peace. He broke our agreement. And worse, he thinks Carlo won’t respond.”
Carlo wasn’t in the room, he hadn’t been invited.
Captain Alberto Fiore, who’d run numbers since the Nixon administration, folded his arms. “And you think we should what? Retaliate? Without the Don’s blessing?”
“I think,” Luca said, voice like gravel, “we’re already at war. You just haven’t felt the fire yet.”
One of the younger captains, Matteo Russo, stood. “Luca’s right. We’ve bled too much, Carlo’s frozen in place, Joey’s not gonna wait, We hit now, or we lose the borough.”
Alberto glared. “You don’t speak for the family, boy.”
“No,” Matteo said. “But Luca might.”
The room fell silent.
Lines were drawn.
Luca turned and walked out without a word. He didn’t need a vote. The war had already begun.
Elena DeLuca clicked through intercepted emails, most encrypted, some in code. One caught her eye: a message routed through four dummy accounts.
“Moretti is weak, the kid is taking over, two weeks, tops. Then everything shifts.”
She sat back, mind spinning.
Two weeks. That’s all she had left to stop Luca from becoming Don. After that, nothing could touch him. Not indictments, not informants, not her.
Cruz walked in without knocking.
“You still think you can get through to him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I have to try.”
“You’re not gonna save him, Elena. He made his choice.”
She looked up, eyes sharp. “I’m not trying to save him. I’m trying to decide if I should kill him first.”
The space was empty except for a metal chair, a single bulb, and a man bound and gagged one of Joey’s drivers. Luca stood over him, blood on his hands, jaw clenched.
“This is the last question,” Luca said. “Answer it right, and you walk out.”
The man nodded.
Luca leaned in. “Who helped set up the warehouse?”
The man hesitated.
Luca reached for the pliers.
The house was quiet, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock and the low hum of jazz from a record player too old to find parts for.
Carlo sat in his high-backed chair, hands steepled beneath his chin. He hadn’t slept in two nights. Not since the warehouse. Not since Luca called his own sit-down.
Vincent “Uncle Vince” stood near the fireplace, eyes scanning the shadows.
“You know why he did it here?” Carlo asked.
Vince didn’t respond.
“Because this house used to mean something. You had to earn the right to speak in it. Now he storms in like it’s already his.”
Vince lit a cigarette. “Maybe it is. You've been ruling by memory, Carlo. But memories don’t pull triggers.”
Carlo’s lip curled. “No… but names do.”
A knock at the door.
Rizzo opened it. “He’s here.”
The captains were already seated when Luca entered. He didn’t wait for an invitation, didn’t bow, and didn’t pretend.
Rizzo followed behind, silent and steady.
Carlo sat at the head, as he always had, but his throne looked smaller now, fragile like an antique surrounded by wolves.
“You want a seat at this table?” Carlo asked coldly.
Luca didn’t blink. “I want your seat.”
Gasps. Quiet but sharp. No one ever said it aloud, not like that.
“You think this is a democracy?” Carlo said.
“No,” Luca said. “But it’s not a monarchy anymore, either.”
“Then you’re a rebel,” Carlo spat.
“I’m what this family needs,” Luca said. “We’re bleeding, we’re disrespected and you’ve done nothing. Giannelli’s cutting our throats piece by piece while you’re praying over candlelight.”
Carlo stood, slow, shaking but defiant. “You speak of respect, but you come into my house with threats?”
“I come with truth,” Luca said. “This family’s already following me. All I’m doing now is making it official.”
Uncle Vince raised his glass quietly, like a toast at a funeral.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The war had just been declared with words instead of bullets, but the blood would come.
Cruz and Marcy stood in the cold, their breath fogging. They watched as two uniforms pulled a half-naked body from the water. Tortured, beaten, and burned.
One of Joey’s lieutenants, Angelo Resta.
“I’d say this was a warning,” Marcy muttered.
Cruz shook his head. “No. This was a door slamming shut.”
He pulled out his phone and called Elena.
“Get your source now, I don’t care how close you are to him. He’s cutting off witnesses like they’re loose strings.”
She was quiet.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Cruz asked.
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“You care about him?”
A longer silence.
Then: “Yes.”
“Then you better decide if you’re writing his obituary or helping me put him in cuffs.”
She hung up without answering.
Elena found Luca on the balcony of her small apartment, drinking espresso like nothing mattered. The skyline was soft behind him, the lights distant and cold.
“You tortured a man,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You killed him.”
He sipped. “Eventually.”
“Jesus.”
Luca looked at her. “You knew what I was.”
“I thought I did,” she said. “But I think you’re turning into something else.”
Luca nodded, then leaned against the railing.
“There’s no going back now,” he said. “Carlo’s not going to give it up and Joey’s not going to stop. I either end this, or I die halfway through.”
“You could still leave,” she whispered. “Disappear.”
“And be what?” he asked. “A man with regrets and no legacy?”
“You’re going to lose your soul.”
“I already did.”
He looked at her then, and for the first time, she saw fear behind the certainty, but only for a second, and it was gone.
- Writer
