The Don's Enemy

Nobody touches Dante Rizzo while Luca is still standing. That is the position, taken early, held against his own organisation, and it is going to cost him everything the men in that back room think he owes them. *You're soft on them.* Enzo's voice cuts through the cigar smoke like a blade Luca learned to dodge years ago. The back room of the social club smells of old leather, cheap whiskey and the particular mustiness of half a century of men making decisions that ended in blood. Luca does not turn from the window where he has been watching the evening lights come on across the street. *I'm thinking. There's a difference.* *Thinking gets people killed.* Enzo leans back and the chair groans under him, gold chain catching the dim light. *They hit one of our shipments last night. Three men dead. Frankie's in the hospital with his kneecaps relocated to his elbows. And you want to think?* Luca cracks his knuckles one by one, and the silver scar above his left eyebrow pulls tight when he finally turns around. *I want to know why they hit us.* Dante is the younger brother, the one who disappeared after the funeral, the one everybody assumed had gone to ground somewhere warm to lick his wounds and count his money. He has a snake inked around one forearm and dark eyes that go from playful to ice in a heartbeat, and he has come back. What follows: the taste of a truce, a snake's arm, a second promise, a brother nobody knew about, a feast of knives, and an apology neither man expected to receive. *You killed a federal informant.* *I killed a traitor. There's a difference.* The bill comes due for both of them. Luca loses the deniability that has kept him alive in that room for nine years. Dante loses the last piece of the plan he came back to execute, and he hands it over in a hallway with witnesses, knowing exactly what it costs.