Page 5 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

Weapons moved through back channels opened by old contacts in the south.

It is enough.

Enough to live well, if not loudly.

Enough to keep our pride without inviting too much scrutiny.

Enough to ensure that the next generation of Rossis grows up knowing the taste of power, even if it is not served to them on a silver platter.

But enough is a dangerous thing.

It breeds complacency.

And complacency, in a city like this, is just another word for death.

I turn from the railing, restless, the conversation at the bar replaying in my mind with a clarity that unsettles me.

Dante Salvatore.

The one they say Luca himself cannot fully leash.

A wild card.

A beautiful disaster waiting to happen.

Moving to the vanity, I flip open one of the leather notebooks.

Lists of names, accounts, shipments.

Notes written in a hand sharper than my brother's.

My work.

My quiet rebellion against becoming another ornamental branch on the family tree.

I have brokered deals that kept this family afloat while Rafa played at politics and my cousins drowned themselves in whiskey.

I have learned to navigate a world where loyalty is a leash and ambition is a blade, and I have done it without losing myself.

But tonight, something has shifted.

A tremor in the earth beneath the surface of this carefully constructed peace.

I can feel it.

Dante is not a man who plays at politics.

He is a man who sets the table on fire just to see who runs and who stays to burn.

And I, fool that I am, am curious enough to wonder which one I will be.

Lightning rips the sky open and brings thunder with it.

Rain begins falling, softly at first, then heavier, drumming against the balcony stones.

I close the balcony doors and draw the curtains, shutting out the night, but the restlessness does not leave me.

I flip open the ledger I keep in the second drawer, scanning tomorrow’s schedule.