MATTEO
I was in his office within minutes, the transition from the frantic energy of the bunker to this space feeling like stepping into a vacuum. The air shifted instantly, moving from the heavy, competing scents of expensive sandalwood and crisp citrus of my brothers to a scent that was heavy, expensive, and suffocating: aged leather, imported tobacco, and the cold, metallic tang of banked power.
There was something about this room...the oppressive dark mahogany, the absolute silence that seemed to eat sound, and the history of men who died because of the decisions made here...that made even the most hardened man feel like a child again. I tightened my jaw, fighting the primal instinct to flinch as the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me. Father hated the sight of fear; to him, a trembling hand was a valid reason for an execution.
Mama was already there, positioned opposite him like a silent sentinel. She was fulfilling her nightly ritual: pouring his tea with a steady hand, the antique silver clinking softly against the China. Once finished, she settled into her high-backed leather chair with a grace that felt practiced and lethal.
She looked deceptively fragile in her expensive lilac silk...a porcelain dove resting in a cage of shadows. But everyone who'd ever crossed her, including her own flesh and blood, learned quickly that she was a raven in bone. She was soft on the surface, but utterly brutal underneath...the kind of woman who'd slit your throat with a diamond-encrusted blade and smile while she watched the life drain out of you.
"Father. Mama," I acknowledged, my voice echoing slightly in the vast room. I remained standing until invited, my hands clasped behind my back. They both studied me, their twin gazes unreadable and heavy, like judges preparing to read a damning verdict for a crime I hadn't yet admitted to.
"Sit," Father gestured, the word clipped and sharp. I obeyed immediately, the leather of the chair groaning under my weight.
"Those goddamn bastards you call sons keep pushing my buttons," Father spat, his voice a low growl. The fury was visible in the rhythmic tremor of his jaw and the way his knuckles turned white against the mahogany.
"It's like you keep forgetting we both contributed to making those bastards, Riccardo," Mama countered smoothly. She didn't look at him. Instead, she took a long, deliberate drag from a thick Cuban cigar...a habit she'd picked up in the early days of the war. She exhaled a slow, heavy cloud of grey smoke toward the ceiling, an act that somehow made the already frigid room feel ten degrees colder.
"You have to give Luca a chance, though," she added, her eyes tracking the smoke as it dissipated. "He's still wet behind the ears. He needs a mother's patience, not a Capo's boot."
Mama's soft spot for Luca always made my skin crawl. It was a jagged pill to swallow. She'd shown me nothing but sterile expectation and icy distance as a child; yet, with Luca, she softened like warmed butter, as if the youngest, most incompetent child alone held the key to her shriveled heart.
Father hissed through his teeth, the sound of a snake preparing to strike. "Matteo was below eighteen when he had the intelligence to run a casino's accounting and keep the feds off our backs. No excuses for the others. None." He pointed a thick, condemning finger at me.
Mama finally glanced my way, her eyes like chips of flint. Sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, I truly doubted my paternity. The loathing she wore for me wasn't the kind a mother should possess for her child; it was the look of a woman who saw a mirror of everything she hated about her own life.
"So stop with the weak fucking excuses," Father snapped at her, effectively ending that line of conversation. His attention snapped back to me, pinning me to the seat.
"Matteo."
"Yes, Father." I sat up straighter, every muscle in my back singing with tension.
He pulled a fresh Cuban from the humidor...the kind the old-school Dons fondled like a rosary...and lit it with the same sharp, terrifying precision he used to ignite a city block. He took a puff, his eyes never leaving mine. "Have you heard," he began, the ash trembling at the edge of his lips, "what the hell is going on with our enemies?"
I thought back to the night's operations, scanning every report, every whisper from the docks. "About what, specifically?" I asked, keeping my tone as level as a horizon.
"Haven't you heard the whispers about the Carusos?" Mama cut in. The name landed on the mahogany table like a stone dropped from a great height into a glass pond. The Caruso Family...our oldest, ugliest, and most persistent problem. They were the stain on the Ricci legacy that refused to be scrubbed away.
"Ah." I nodded once, leaning back slightly to project a confidence I didn't fully feel. "The Caruso dogs."
"I've heard the stories," I said carefully, choosing my words like live ammunition. "But nothing that concerns the bottom line. It's noise, Father. Small-time shifts. Their kids are playing at leadership, dressing up in suits they haven't earned, but the backbone of that operation is rotten. They are barking at a fence they are too afraid to climb."
Mama barked a short, contemptuous laugh that smelled of thick smoke and bitterness. "I thought you said he was the smart one, Riccardo." She flicked her ash onto a silver tray with a sharp snap. "Dumb motherfucker."
Father's eyes narrowed, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. "I've been hearing stories I shouldn't have to entertain, Matteo, but they reach me anyway. Our business is being carved up while you talk about 'noise.' Our routes are getting nudged. Front companies are being whispered over in the dark. Clients who used to kiss our ring are suddenly being courted by those peasants. That fool, Caruso, has been my enemy since before any of you were a thought in your mother's womb, and I won't have him stomping on my territory while we sit here like incompetent pricks."
"I still believe it's not an existential threat," I maintained, my voice steady despite the hammer of my heart. "They try to poach lanes, but our logistics are superior. Naples, Genoa, the docks...our men have paid the right mouths. Customs inspectors are on a permanent retainer. Drop houses are airtight. Our runners are expendable burners. If they try to muscle in, we cut the line of supply, not their heads. It's not worth wasting Ricci blood for neighborhood gossip."
"You should listen to your old man, boy," Mama said, her voice soft but sharp as a freshly filed knife. "He didn't build this empire by ignoring the ants in the kitchen."
"And I am listening, Mama. I just don't see it as a threat yet." I met her gaze for a split second, refusing to look away. She actually blinked, her eyes widening slightly, surprised by the cold confidence in my stare. "It's a waste of time to panic over their drunken chatter in the back of social clubs."
Father's fingers began drumming the table...a low, mechanical sound like a detonator counting down to zero. "I'll blow my own brains out before I watch that peasant family top me in my own city." His reflection in the darkened window looked like a king who'd been flayed alive but still held his crown high with bloodied hands.
"And if that ever comes close to happening," I said, the words coming out too calm, too cold, "you can save yourself the trouble. I'll do it myself. For both of us."
The room went silent. Mama smiled thinly, the cigar smoke curling from her lips like a victory flag. She liked that answer. It was the only language she truly understood: the language of the grave.
"Good," she whispered. "We'll see which one of my sons has a spine, and which ones are all talk and no bite."
Father blew out a massive, heavy cloud of smoke, his old, dark eyes boring into me, nailing me to the chair. "I want every man on the street, every Capo, every runner, every mule paid and watching. I want Caruso whispers stopped before they grow teeth. I want proof. I want their books. I want the names of who's meeting who in my city at midnight. And I want them terrified to even speak the name Ricci."
"Yes, Father," I said, the word a blood-oath. I could feel the room tighten around me, demanding my focus, my loyalty, and a level of brutality I had been suppressing all night.
I stood to leave, the meeting clearly over. But as I reached the door, Father's voice stopped me, colder than I had ever heard it.
"One more thing, Matteo."
I turned back. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the bloodied letter with my name on it. He slid it across the mahogany table. It was the letter from the bunker...the one with the jagged blood smear and my name written in that mocking, elegant script.
"I didn't ask you what this meant in front of your brothers because I didn't want to have to kill you in front of them," he said, his voice a low, vibrating threat. "But you're going to tell me right now... what is the rest of the message?"
I walked back to the table, my eyes scanning the paper again. I truly didn't have an answer. "I don't know who this is from, Father. My name is on it, yes, but there's no sender. No sigil. Just the blood."
He leaned forward, the light from the desk lamp highlighting the deep, scarred lines of his face. "You better find out by dawn. Because if I find out you're the reason my docks are burning, I won't just take your head, I'll make you watch while I burn everything you've ever touched."
I walked out of the office, the door clicking shut behind me lime a guillotine. My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from an unknown number.
Did you like the letter, Matteo Ricci? We're just getting started.