The Mafia king

chapter 8:RISE OF THE VALTURES

Ashford City didn’t mourn Alberto Romano for long.

Within days, his name was just another whisper in the alleyways, another ghost clinging to the gutters. What replaced him was chaos — the kind that feeds on power, money, and fear.

The Navarro brothers were gone, their corpses left floating in the harbor, but the city didn’t calm. Like vultures, smaller crews swooped in to pick at the carcass of the Romano empire. Every street had its own new king. Every block dripped red.

I ran what was left of Alberto’s old men out of a crumbling warehouse on Riverfront Avenue — a dozen soldiers, maybe less, all worn and half-broken. Marco’s death still hung over me like smoke, but there was no time to grieve.

“Eastside’s gone,” said Rico, my right-hand now. “The Velasquez crew moved in. They’re cutting us out of the product routes.”

“Then we cut them back,” I said flatly.

He frowned. “You mean a deal?”

“No. I mean we cut them back.”

Rico gave a slow nod — the kind that meant he understood this wasn’t a negotiation.

That night we moved like shadows through Eastside. The Velasquez warehouse loomed ahead — guards at every door, trucks lined up ready to roll. I could smell the gasoline before I saw it.

“Three guards out front,” Rico whispered.

“I see them.”

I leveled my pistol, took a breath, and the first man dropped before he could blink. Rico’s silencer spat twice, and the others followed. We slipped inside through the loading bay, stepping over bodies.

Inside, the air reeked of chemicals and fear. Stacks of cocaine bricks lined the walls, each marked with Velasquez’s snake insignia.

We planted the charges quickly. I could hear laughter deeper in the building — half a dozen men drinking, music blaring. They had no idea the floor beneath them was about to vanish.

As we left, Rico handed me the detonator. “You want the honors?”

I looked up at the moon cutting through the clouds and pressed the button.

The explosion ripped through the night like a scream. Fire swallowed the building, painting the sky orange. The shockwave hit like a punch to the chest.

By morning, the Eastside was ours again.

But power attracts attention. And blood attracts sharks.

By the next week, word spread that Vincent Morelli — a ruthless upstart from the North Blocks — had united three crews under his name. He didn’t want peace. He wanted everything.

When his men hit one of my shipments, I knew the war was official.

We met at The Edge, a high-rise club overlooking the city. Neutral ground, or so the owner claimed. Vincent showed up in a white suit, all smiles, flanked by a dozen armed men.

“Luca Moretti,” he said, raising his glass. “Heard you’ve been cleaning house.”

“Someone has to.”

He chuckled. “Ashford doesn’t need another Alberto. Maybe it’s time for new blood.”

I leaned in. “New blood still bleeds the same.”

His grin faltered, just for a second. “Careful, Luca. You’ve got ghosts, not soldiers.”

“Ghosts don’t miss.”

For a moment, neither of us moved. The music thumped through the walls, and every man in that room had a finger an inch from his trigger. Then Vincent broke into laughter and backed away.

“War it is,” he said.

He left behind the stench of cologne and death.

That war lasted months.

Street by street, bullet by bullet, Ashford City burned. The papers called it “The Year of the Black Rain.” Gunfire echoed through alleys at dawn. Corpses piled up faster than the morgue could handle.

We fought them everywhere — the markets, the piers, the slums. Rico lost his left arm in a car bomb. I lost count of how many nights I didn’t sleep.

By winter, the snow was red.

And one night, when I stumbled back into the warehouse — bruised, half-drunk, bleeding from a knife wound — I found a message carved into the door:

“The streets don’t belong to kings. Only to the dead.”

I didn’t know who wrote it. Maybe a rival, maybe one of my own. But it stuck with me.

Because for the first time, I started to wonder if Alberto’s throne was worth dying for.

That thought didn’t last long.

A week later, they killed Rico.

Shot him in the back outside his apartment. He’d survived everything — fire, knives, betrayal — only to die buying milk for his daughter.

When I got the call, I didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe. Just stared at the gun on my table and knew what had to come next.

Ashford City wanted blood?

Then I’d drown it in it.