When we emerged again from the underground archive the light of the afternoon felt strangely artificial, as though the sun itself had become another lamp inside the palace.
The field had not changed.
The hollowed trunks still stood across the grass like a silent forest planted by some ancient empire that had misunderstood the purpose of trees. The insects hummed steadily in the warm air.
Two wooden chairs had been placed near the edge of the clearing.
Joseph seemed pleased by this.
"Ah," he said quietly, lowering himself into one of them. "Perfect timing."
He stretched his legs toward the sunlight as if the entire grotesque orchard surrounding us were merely an inconvenient landscape feature in an otherwise pleasant garden.
"Quite a warm day, no?" he said.
"Yes," I answered.
The heat pressed gently against the back of my neck.
Joseph lifted a hand toward one of the soldiers standing nearby.
"Ciro," he called calmly. "Bring Mansueto Canzano."
The man nodded and disappeared between the rows of trunks.
Joseph leaned back in his chair.
For several minutes neither of us spoke.
Somewhere behind us I could hear the faint echo of typewriters from the archive chambers below, their metallic rhythm rising faintly through the ground like insects tapping beneath the soil.
Then the prisoner arrived.
He did not walk.
He ran.
The guards released him several meters away but he stumbled forward immediately, collapsing at Joseph's feet before anyone could stop him.
"Don Joseph," he gasped, clutching the front of Joseph's shoes. "Please… let my boy live. I beg you."
Joseph looked down at him with mild curiosity.
"Oh, Canzano," he said softly. "You poor devil."
He nudged the man away with the toe of his shoe.
"You are mistaken," Joseph continued. "I don't have your son."
The man looked up in confusion.
Joseph gestured lazily toward the field where the boy sat several meters away while Ciro continued feeding him from a metal container.
"I believe he belongs to Don Vitelli at the moment."
The prisoner's eyes darted toward the boy.
"Please," he said again. "Tell your man to stop."
Joseph tilted his head.
"I cannot tell him what to do."
"But he listens to you!"
Joseph shrugged lightly.
"He works for Don Vitelli."
He turned toward me.
"Would you like some iced tea, Silvio?"
The question seemed so absurd in that moment that I almost laughed.
"No," I said.
Joseph nodded thoughtfully.
"Well then."
He looked back at Canzano.
"You must go."
The man remained kneeling.
"Signor… I don't understand."
Joseph sighed quietly, as though the entire conversation had become tiresome.
"I am sitting here enjoying the sun," he said. "You are blocking my view."
The prisoner pressed his forehead against the ground.
"Grandson of Don Vincente," he said desperately. "Your family was once known for justice."
Joseph's expression changed slightly.
Not anger.
Something colder.
"Justice?" he repeated.
For the first time that afternoon his voice carried real weight.
"You ordered the killing of two La Stiddas soldiers."
The prisoner trembled.
"It was business."
Joseph leaned forward slowly.
"You refused Don Vitelli's protection."
"It was business."
"You went to the Americani."
"It was business."
Joseph stared at him.
"That," he said softly, "is exactly the problem."
In the field the boy coughed weakly.
The guards continued their work.
Joseph watched them for a long moment.
Then he stood.
The movement was sudden enough that Canzano looked up in confusion.
Joseph stepped away from the chairs and walked several paces toward the boy.
The clearing fell quiet.
What happened next occurred so quickly that my mind struggled to record it properly.
There was a sound.
A single sharp interruption of the afternoon.
The insects scattered briefly.
The boy collapsed sideways from the chair.
Canzano did not scream at first.
He simply stared.
Joseph lowered his arm slowly.
"You talk too much," he said calmly.
The man crawled forward across the grass.
Joseph watched him approach.
Then another brief sound cracked through the clearing.
When the dust settled the field returned to its previous stillness.
Joseph brushed his shoe lightly against the grass.
"Ciro," he said without turning. "Move the chairs somewhere else."
He walked back toward me.
I realised only then that my hands had been gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that my fingers had gone numb.
Joseph sat down again as though nothing unusual had occurred.
"This spot has become unpleasant," he said.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then he stood once more.
"Come," he said.
We walked back toward the service entrance that led underground.
A guard stood near the doorway.
I stopped beside him.
"Joseph told me to come this way earlier," I said casually.
The guard frowned.
"Who?"
I gestured vaguely behind me.
"Don Joseph."
The man looked confused.
"There's no one here with that name, signor."
I laughed awkwardly.
"No — the man who was just—"
I turned.
Joseph was already walking down the stairs.
The guard was still staring at me.
"Signor," he said carefully. "Are you alright?"
I waved him off.
"Yes, yes. You misunderstood."
I followed Joseph down the staircase.
Halfway down he spoke without turning around.
"You were going to ask something."
I froze.
"How did you—"
Joseph continued walking.
"The mind often hesitates when it begins to understand something unpleasant," he said calmly.
The corridor lights flickered on one by one ahead of us as we descended.
I caught up beside him.
For the briefest moment I considered asking him about the guard.
Instead I said nothing.
And Joseph, as always, seemed to know exactly why.