(Luca)
By evening, the city had begun to feel it.
Not panic. Panic was loud. Sloppy. Easy to trace.
This was restraint.
Phones rang and went unanswered. Meetings were postponed without explanation. Shipments stalled at ports for reasons no one could quite define. Men who had been confident twenty-four hours earlier suddenly found themselves cautious, double-checking doors, rerouting convoys, sleeping with weapons closer than usual.
I hadn’t announced anything.
I never did.
Vincenzo stood across from me in the strategy room, sleeves rolled, tablet in hand. Screens along the wall displayed shifting maps—territory, routes, points of influence lighting up and going dark as calls were made and favors revoked.
“They’re closing ranks,” he said. “Quietly.”
“As they should,” I replied.
He
