"Literally speaking… yeah, I guess… no, even literally that's not how you interpret it."
Looking at Iggo's honest, dead-serious face, Corleone stayed quiet for a couple of seconds. Then he laughed—half helpless, half relieved.
"Fine. You win."
He shook his head and turned to face the square packed with terrified, dazed, and shocked faces.
"Remember today!"
"Vito Corleone of the Black Hand brought you justice—not the gods!"
"I'll say it one more time: kneel and drink poison, or stand and eat clean bread. Your choice!"
"Now… get the hell out of here. Unless you want the Gold Cloaks hauling you away to take the fall!"
The crowd started drifting away, but plenty of them kept glancing back over their shoulders.
They stared at the body on the platform with its chest split open, at the Dothraki who had just eaten a heart, and at the man standing calm in the middle of all that blood.
Vito Corleone.
They would remember that name—at least for now.
Corleone walked over to the woman.
She'd been lucky; the fighting hadn't touched her. She was huddled on the ground, still clutching her daughter, wrapped tight in the cloak.
"Come with me."
"Your kid can still be saved."
The woman looked up at him, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. Then she nodded, dazed, and followed.
Iggo jumped down from the platform, flicked the blood off his short sword, and kept spitting. "Tastes like shit. Fucking disgusting."
"Don't eat it next time," Corleone said.
"You told me to kill the heart."
Iggo looked completely justified. "I dug the damn thing out. How was I supposed to know if I really killed it without taking a bite?"
Corleone took a deep breath, clenched his fist, then let it go.
"When you've got some free time, you're learning to read."
"Learn… what?"
Iggo started to argue but shut up the second Corleone gave him the look.
The strange little group—two men, one woman, one sick child—walked through the blood-soaked Fishmonger's Square and headed back toward Flea Bottom.
Behind them, the assistant's empty chest cavity gaped at the sky like a silent, screaming mouth, still piously calling for the Seven to descend.
Deeper in the alleys, the Sparrow stopped in a hidden corner and looked back toward the square.
For more than ten years those peaceful eyes had stayed calm. Now they burned with fire.
As if sensing something, Corleone glanced back toward the alley. He didn't say a word—just grinned, wide and happy.
When you're in this life, you keep your word.
He said he'd kill the heart, so he was going to kill the heart.
Not Iggo's version.
The real one.
True · killing the heart!
Noon in King's Landing felt like a giant steam pot. Even in late autumn the air was thick and muggy.
But Brienne wore her heavy armor like it was nothing. Her steel boots rang dully on the cobblestones, matching her mood perfectly.
It was awful.
Ser Loras Tyrell was a good man. He had believed her story about Renly's death and let her go.
What worried her was Sansa Stark. The girl was… off.
When Brienne found her and mentioned Lady Catelyn, reminding her of the promise to bring her back to her mother, Sansa had only shaken her head slightly.
"I'm going to marry Ser Loras," she'd said, a small smile on her face. "We'll go to Highgarden. Highgarden has no winter."
But when she spoke of her beheaded father, her voice was flat, like she was talking about yesterday's weather.
"Father committed treason," she said, blue eyes completely empty. "King Joffrey is the rightful ruler."
That mechanical obedience made Brienne's skin crawl.
Breathing in the air of King's Landing only made her mood heavier.
She was free.
So what?
Renly was dead, Arya had been taken by the Hound, and Sansa refused to leave.
Lady Catelyn's mission had failed.
Standing in the square outside the Red Keep, Brienne felt more lost than ever.
Where was she supposed to go?
Back to Tarth?
She had zero interest in her father pushing her into marriage or facing relatives who would never understand her.
"Go find Corleone," Jaime's voice echoed in her head. "He'll give you something useful to do. At least you won't be bored enough to join the silent sisters."
Almost without thinking, Brienne turned and walked into Flea Bottom.
"Did you hear?"
"That Corleone guy slaughtered seven septons in Fishmonger's Square the other day!"
"Seven? I heard seventy!"
"Bullshit, it was seven hundred. The Blackwater ran red with blood!"
The rumors buzzed around Brienne like flies.
Her temper flared. She grabbed the nearest man by the collar. "Why are you all spreading lies about Corleone?!"
"N-no, it's not me making it up!"
The guy looked terrified. He'd never seen a woman taller, broader, and wearing full plate.
"My cousin saw it himself! That demon with him ripped a septon's heart out and ate it alive! Ask anyone!"
Brienne glared, then let him go and kept walking, fuming.
The deeper she went, the wilder the stories got.
Corleone forcing fishermen to pay protection money—cut off fingers if they refused.
Handing out bread laced with dark magic that turned people into his slaves.
The craziest one: Corleone cracking open a baby's skull in front of everyone and sucking out the marrow.
What the hell kind of nonsense was that?
Brienne shook her head. She knew most of it was exaggerated.
Corleone was cold, calculating, and ruthless when he needed to be—but he wasn't some blood-crazed monster.
Still…
What if?
What if power had corrupted him and he really had done some of those things?
The thought made her walk faster.
She was practically jogging by the time she reached the last few twisting alleys and stopped in front of a three-story stone building.
The Hall of Order.
Looking at the sign and the black-hand banner flying high, Brienne took a deep breath.
She could hear noise inside—men shouting, kids screaming, and… the clink of metal?
No hesitation. She pushed the door open.
The hall was huge, big enough for hundreds.
Nearly a hundred simple wooden cots lined up in three rows, every one occupied. At least a dozen men in robes wearing maester chains hurried between them.
On the left, Brienne's eyes locked on a little girl, maybe four or five. She sat on a cot, bright-eyed, with a needle in the back of her left hand. Clear liquid dripped from a glass bottle overhead through a strange soft tube into her body.
The girl noticed Brienne staring and flashed a sweet, innocent smile.
"Hold him down! Rorge, you lazy bastard, did you even eat today?!"
Corleone's familiar voice came from behind a curtain.
"He's biting me—this little shit's biting me! Should we just knock him out with a brick?"
"You idiot! Let him bite! Don't let go! The kid's already had too much medicine. Any more and he'll end up an idiot!"
Clang! Clang!
Then came a heart-wrenching scream—definitely a child.
Brienne's blood boiled.
She didn't know exactly what Corleone was doing, but combined with the rumors—torturing children, abuse, persecution—
Corleone!
Her right hand flew to her sword hilt, then dropped. She strode forward, yanked the curtain aside, and bellowed, "Stop!"
The scene froze her in place.
Beside a heavy oak operating table, Rorge and his men were pinning down a thrashing little boy.
The kid was eight or nine, rail-thin, his right leg twisted horribly at the ankle.
Corleone had one hand clamped on the boy's thigh, the other holding a razor-sharp scalpel right above the dead, rotting ankle.
Everyone looked up at her shout.
Corleone turned, confused.
"Haha! Brienne! Perfect timing!"
He laughed happily and shouted, "Quick, come help me hold him down!"
"This kid's stronger than he looks—Rorge's about to lose him!"
"So… you've come to join me?"
After the surgery, Corleone washed the blood and pus off his hands and asked her casually.
"Jaime said you had work for me."
She looked at the black blood and pus splattered across his surgical robe, then at little Tommy being carried out by Rorge. Suddenly she bent at the waist. "Sorry, Corleone, I just—"
"Heard the rumors?"
To her surprise, Corleone guessed exactly what she was about to say and waved it off like it was nothing.
"You know why I—"
"Come with me."
Instead of answering right away, Corleone led her out of the operating area.
He stopped beside the little girl on the IV drip and gently ruffled her hair. "This is Lisa. Pneumonia. Five days of fever."
"If I hadn't borrowed these supplies from old Pycelle, she would've died last night."
He smiled softly at the girl. "Where's your mom?"
The girl rubbed her cheek against his hand, voice still hoarse. "She went to work."
"…At the soup kitchen."
Corleone smiled again and pointed at the boy who had just been carried out. "Little Tommy. He broke his leg earlier, but those septons only gave him the hallucinogenic poison. He couldn't feel the pain, so the injury got worse and nobody treated it."
"You saw it—the whole ankle joint was necrotic, the bone practically rotting. If I didn't amputate the foot, he would've lost his life."
"And I couldn't give him any more medicine because he'd already had too much. I wouldn't have been able to control the dose. It would've fried his brain—cured the leg but left him an idiot."
He kept pointing out patients, knowing every single name by heart. Each one he named bowed or smiled at him with genuine gratitude.
"In the last three months, that Sparrow bastard has 'shown mercy from the Seven' to at least twenty kids who could have been saved."
"He called it divine grace. I call it murder."
Brienne stayed quiet. The rumors she'd heard on the way—persecuting septons, ripping out hearts, demons—had all been lies.
"What do you need me to do?" she asked, voice firm now. "I can round up everyone spreading those rumors. Jaime gave me this sword. I won't let him down."
She patted Oathkeeper at her hip.
Corleone just smiled. "Sometimes when a rat shows up in your house, you don't smash it right away. You give it a little taste of something sweet."
"Let it run back to its nest and tell the whole family the food here is good and the place is safe…"
"Then we can round them all up in one net."
He pushed open a window and looked out at the clean streets below, spreading his hands with meaning. "Welcome to the Hall of Order, Lady Brienne."
"Sometimes the good guys have to do a few bad things."
He paused, meeting her eyes. "You in?"