"You still have something else?"
Tywin looked up from his desk when Corleone didn't bow and leave like every other smart man would have. A flicker of curiosity crossed the Old Lion's face. Most people took their marching orders and ran. This one clearly wasn't most people.
Corleone met that piercing stare without flinching. "Yes, my lord. One personal request—if you'll hear it."
"Speak."
"I gave my word to Lady Falyse Stokeworth that I'd secure a decent post in the City Watch for her husband, Ser Balman Byrch."
The room went quiet. Tywin studied him the way a banker studies a ledger—slow, careful, weighing every line.
He didn't explode. Tywin Lannister never exploded. He simply asked, "Why didn't you go to Ser Addam Marbrand? He commands the Gold Cloaks. A single position is nothing to him."
"And with your friendship to Jaime, he wouldn't refuse."
It was a test. Tywin didn't even bother hiding it.
Corleone answered straight, no hesitation. "I work for you, my lord. Not Ser Addam."
A low chuckle rolled out of Tywin Lannister—the kind of laugh the man almost never let anyone hear.
Corleone's eyes widened a fraction before he smoothed it away.
Tywin leaned back. "Lady Tanda Stokeworth is the aunt of Lord Gyles's second wife… and a distant cousin of Gyles himself. House Rosby is dying out. When Gyles goes, Rosby Castle will very likely pass to the Stokeworths."
Corleone got it instantly. The noble families really did tangle like a ball of yarn.
"So," Tywin continued, voice dry, "this is your first job for me, Corleone. Ser Balman was a fine knight in his day, but are you sure you want to spend the favor I owe you on an old, fat man who can barely sit a horse?"
Corleone thought about it for a long second. When he looked up again, his eyes were steady as stone. "If I can't keep a promise I made to a woman, how can I ever expect you to believe a single word I say?"
The hearth popped. Tywin stared at him so long most men would've started sweating.
Then the corner of the Old Lion's mouth twitched upward—just once.
This Vito Corleone always knew exactly where to press.
No groveling. No empty loyalty speeches. Just raw, practical ambition wrapped in ironclad principle. The kind of man who could climb from nothing and still keep his word.
Jaime really had dragged something useful back from the Riverlands.
Without another word, Tywin opened a drawer and pulled out a blank sheet of parchment stamped with the Hand's roaring lion seal.
"Ser Swyn Rosby is already dead," he said as he wrote. "By morning, when the news I'm waiting for arrives, this commission will be on Ser Addam's desk."
Clear terms. Clean exchange. That was Tywin Lannister's style.
"Good night, my lord."
Corleone bowed once more and left.
Tywin didn't watch him go. He stood, walked to the huge map of Westeros on the wall, and rested one finger on the little shield marked Rosby.
Vito Corleone.
The name lingered in his mind like good wine.
A man with gutter cunning and a butcher's nerve… yet he thought like a lord. If he'd been born even a minor noble's second son, the Seven Kingdoms might already be shaking.
The thought inevitably dragged Tywin back to the one problem that kept him awake at night.
House Lannister's future.
His children.
Jaime—his golden son—still obsessed with that damn white cloak. Getting him out of the Kingsguard would be harder than taking ten castles.
Tyrion… best not even start.
And Cersei. His daughter had the hunger for power, at least. That much she'd inherited. But her judgment? Her vision? Laughable. Cutting off Ned Stark's head had been pure idiocy—pushing the North and the Riverlands straight into open war when they could've been squeezed without a drop of Lannister blood.
He'd had to ride out and clean up her mess. Again.
At least the mess was almost finished.
Tywin's eyes hardened. He opened another drawer. Inside lay a single crimson badge.
The flayed man.
---
Rosby Castle – Blackwater Bay, northwest shore
The lands around Rosby were fat and peaceful—apple orchards, barley fields, rolling hills that fed half of King's Landing even while the Riverlands burned. Because of that steady flow of grain, Lord Gyles had started believing he could talk back to the Hand of the King himself.
After the Small Council meeting, he'd stormed straight to the sept, pouring out his rage to the same septon he'd known for decades. The holy man hadn't scolded him. Instead he'd spoken gently of the Seven's tests, of wealth and power being illusions, of true justice coming only through complete surrender to the gods.
Gyles hadn't understood every word, but he'd left feeling lighter. Maybe he simply hadn't been pious enough. So he'd doubled his usual donation and added a thousand gold dragons "for the Faith's special work."
Now, back in his bedchamber, the old man lay under heavy curtains, mind already spinning new plots. Tywin was powerful, but not untouchable. Maybe reach out to a few other lords who hated the Old Lion's iron grip. Or better—send word to Prince Oberyn Martell. The Dornish would love watching a Lannister bleed.
The Faith, too. That septon had influence with the High Septon…
His thoughts grew hazy. Sleep was pulling him under.
Then his eyes snapped wide.
A shape peeled itself out of the shadows at the foot of the bed—like something from a nightmare that had decided to become real.
Gyles tried to scream. A cloth that smelled sharp and sweet clamped over his mouth and nose. Cold. Damp. Unmoving.
When he woke again, he was tied to a chair in a place he knew too well.
My own cellar.
His mouth was stuffed. He thrashed wildly.
A shadow stepped into the torchlight.
"Good evening, Lord Gyles."
Gyles's eyes bulged.
Vito Corleone.
The same lowborn who'd stood in front of the Iron Throne that afternoon and talked the Small Council into defending Jaime Lannister.
But tonight the man wore plain dark clothes, sleeves rolled up like a craftsman… or a butcher.
Corleone picked up a long, thin knife from the table and tested the edge with his thumb.
"Relax, my lord. This won't take long."
He smiled the same calm smile he'd worn in the Tower of the Hand.
"After all… the Mafia always keeps its promises."