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SALVATORE

T he opera house breathes differently after dark.

I walk through corridors that transform from gilded grandeur to shadowed arteries once the last patron leaves and the final curtain falls.

My footsteps echo against marble floors that have absorbed decades of applause, tears, and the desperate ambitions of performers who would kill for what Rosaria takes for granted.

The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma wears its history in every carved detail, every crystal chandelier that now dims to conserve electricity, every oil painting of long-dead composers whose eyes seem to follow my movement through their domain.

Luca Romano's office sits tucked behind the main administrative wing, accessible through a maze of narrow hallways that have welcomed singers as prominent as Luciano Pavarotti.

The building's bones creak around me as I navigate toward my destination.

Security cameras track my progress, but I know the guards who monitor them have been paid to develop selective blindness tonight.

Money talks in every language, and the dialect of the desperate speaks loudest of all.

The door to Romano's office stands slightly ajar, spilling weak yellow light into the hallway.

I can hear him inside, the rustle of papers, the nervous clearing of his throat.

He knows I'm coming. Bruno arranged this meeting with him for me and left no room for misunderstanding or escape.

Romano agreed immediately, which tells me everything I need to know about his financial situation and his survival instincts.

I push the door open without knocking. Romano jerks upright behind his desk, a middle-aged man whose thinning hair and wire-rimmed glasses give him the appearance of a clerk rather than the artistic director of one of Europe's most prestigious opera houses.

His office reflects his personality—cluttered but organized, expensive but not ostentatious, filled with photographs of himself shaking hands with singers whose names appear on programs and whose voices fill theaters across the continent.

" Signor DeSantis." His voice carries but cracks a little. He's terrified of me, as he well should be, but he's trying to hide it. "Please, sit."

I close the door behind me, deliberately making the chair scrape on the floor loud enough to make Romano flinch as I sit. The office feels smaller with the door closed, the walls pressing closer, the single desk lamp casting harsh shadows that transform familiar objects into threatening shapes.

Romano's hands tremble as he shuffles through papers on his desk, a nervous habit that accomplishes nothing but betrays his state of mind.

Sweat beads along his hairline despite the evening chill that seeps through the old building's windows.

He knows who I am. More importantly, he knows what I represent—the kind of power that operates outside the law, beyond the reach of contracts and civilized negotiation.

"You know why I'm here." I keep my voice level, conversational. No need for theatrics when reputation does the work for me.

"I..." Romano starts, then stops, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Rosaria Costa." Her name transforms the atmosphere in the room, charging the air with tension that makes Romano's breathing shallow and quick. "She told me she's too busy to see me again. That won't work."

Romano's eyes dart toward the door, then back to me, calculating distances and possibilities for escape that don't exist. His office has no other exit, no window large enough for a man his size to squeeze through, no emergency button that would summon help before I could silence him permanently.

" Signor DeSantis, I need you to understand—Miss Costa's schedule is incredibly demanding. She has rehearsals, performances, interviews, photo shoots, charity functions. The board expects?—"

"The board." I lean closer to his desk, watching him shrink back in his chair. "Tell me about this board."

"They're... they're very influential people. Patrons of the arts. They invest significant money in our productions, they expect returns on those investments, they?—"

"They answer to the Costa family."

Romano's face goes pale. He knows the truth of it, has probably known for years but never allowed himself to think too deeply about the source of his funding or the strings attached to his position.

Opera houses require money—vast amounts of money—and that money comes from somewhere.

In Rome, it comes through channels that lead back to Emilio Costa.

"I want her schedule cleared." I place my hands flat on his desk, leaning forward until our faces are inches apart. "Rehearsals lightened. Press events pushed back. Anything not critical removed."

"I... I can't..." Romano stammers, his voice breaking. "The producers, the other singers, the union contracts, the publicity commitments?—"

"You can." My voice remains steady, reasonable. "You will."

Romano looks down at his desk, at the scattered papers that represent his life's work, his carefully constructed career that could crumble with a single phone call to the right people. His hands shake as he reaches for a glass of water, taking a small sip that does nothing to steady his nerves.

"The fall season is already set," he tries again, desperation creeping into his voice.

"We have Tosca in three weeks, then La Traviata , then the Christmas gala.

Miss Costa is the lead in all three productions.

The tickets are sold, the sets are built, the orchestra has been rehearsing for months?—"

"Then you'll find a way to make it work with less rehearsal time." I straighten, reaching into my jacket pocket. Romano's eyes widen, his body tensing as if preparing for violence, but I withdraw only an envelope. Thick. Heavy. The kind of envelope that ends conversations and starts new ones.

I place it on his desk between us. Romano stares at it as if it might explode, understanding immediately what it represents but not yet willing to acknowledge the transaction taking place.

"My hands are tied," he whispers, but his eyes remain fixed on the envelope. "The contracts, the agreements, the other performers—they'll ask questions if I suddenly change everything for one singer, no matter how talented she is."

"Then don't make it sudden." I push the envelope closer to him. "Make it gradual. A scheduling conflict here, a technical issue there. You're the artistic director. I'm sure you can be creative."

Romano's fingers hover over the envelope without touching it, as if contact would make the corruption official and irreversible.

But we both know he crossed that line the moment he agreed to this meeting, the moment he allowed me into his office after hours, the moment he chose survival over principle.

"The other singers will complain," he says, grasping for obstacles that might delay the inevitable. "If Rosaria gets special treatment, if her workload decreases while theirs remains the same?—"

"That's your problem to solve." I tap the envelope with one finger. "I'm offering you the solution to your financial problems. Your gambling debts. Your wife's medical bills. Your son's tuition at that expensive university in Milan."

Romano jerks as if I've struck him. The color drains from his face as he realizes how much I know about his personal life, how thoroughly my people have researched his vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Knowledge is power, and power is leverage, and leverage is how men like Romano find themselves taking envelopes from men like me.

"How do you..." he starts, then stops, understanding that the question is pointless. Men in my position don't reveal sources or methods. We simply demonstrate that we know everything worth knowing and leave the implications to speak for themselves.

"The envelope," I say quietly. "Take it."

Romano's hand shakes as he reaches for the envelope, his fingers closing around it with the desperate grip of a drowning man clutching driftwood.

He lifts it, feels its weight, estimates its contents through touch alone.

Enough to pay off the creditors who have been calling his home at all hours.

Enough to cover his wife's cancer treatments.

Enough to keep his son in school and maintain the fiction that everything is fine.

"Make it clean," I tell him as he clutches the envelope against his chest. "Make it quiet. Make it now."

Romano nods rapidly, his relief and shame warring visibly across his face.

He has crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed, entered into an arrangement that will define the rest of his tenure at the opera house.

He is mine now, bought and paid for, another asset in a growing collection of people whose financial desperation makes them useful.

"She sings when she wants to," I say, moving toward the door. "I want her to want to."

Romano looks up at me, confusion flickering in his eyes.

He doesn't understand the distinction I'm making, doesn't grasp that coercion and desire can coexist in the same space, that control and affection can merge into something more complex than simple dominance.

He sees only the transaction—money for cooperation, payment for services rendered.

My phone buzzes against my chest as I reach for the door handle.

The screen shows Bruno's name, and I know before answering that the call will shift my attention from personal matters to business ones, from the delicate manipulation of Rosaria's schedule to the broader war for territory and respect that defines my world.

"What is it?" I answer without preamble, stepping into the hallway and closing Romano's door behind me.

"We have a problem." Bruno's voice carries the tension of a man delivering bad news to someone who doesn't tolerate failure. "The shipping routes. The Costas hit one of our trucks tonight. Three men dead, cargo scattered across the A1 highway south of Frosinone."

The news doesn't surprise me. Emilio Costa has been probing our defenses for weeks, testing our response time and commitment to the territories we've claimed.

The attack represents escalation, a message that our expansion into Rome comes with consequences that extend beyond boardrooms and opera houses.

"Witnesses?" I ask, walking back through the opera house corridors that now feel different, charged with the energy of conflict that extends far beyond these walls.

"None alive," Bruno reports. "But the message is clear. They're telling us the southern routes are off-limits."

I reach the main lobby, where marble statues of ancient gods and heroes watch over empty chairs and silent fountains.

The grandeur feels hollow now, a facade covering the brutal realities of power and territory that determine who sings and who dies, who prospers and who disappears into unmarked graves.

"They're testing us," I tell Bruno as I push through the main doors and into the Roman night. "Seeing if we'll back down or double down."

"What do you want to do?"

The question encompasses more than tactics and retaliation. It speaks to the fundamental choice that faces every man in my position—whether to pursue personal desires or professional obligations, whether to prioritize the woman who has become an obsession or the empire that defines my identity.

"We're biding our time," I decide, the words emerging from a calculation that weighs immediate satisfaction against long-term strategy. "Hold the line. Don't give them an excuse to escalate further."

"Boss?" Bruno's voice carries surprise. The old Salvatore would have responded to the attack with overwhelming force, would have painted the highways red with Costa blood before dawn.

But the old Salvatore didn't have a woman to protect, didn't have a future that extends beyond the next territory gained or rival eliminated.

"You heard me." I end the call and slide the phone back into my jacket, walking toward the black sedan that waits at the curb with engine running and driver alert.

The streets of Rome at night tell stories of empire and decline, of beauty and corruption existing in the same spaces, sharing the same air.

Ancient ruins stand illuminated beside modern buildings, while shadows hide the activities that fund both preservation and destruction.

I am part of that shadow, a man who makes his living in the spaces between law and chaos, between desire and destruction.

Romano will clear Rosaria's schedule. The Costas will continue probing our defenses. And somewhere in a villa outside Florence, preparations continue for a future that depends on my ability to balance violence with restraint, obsession with strategy, love with survival.

The game continues. The stakes rise. And in the center of it all, a woman sings while the world burns around her, unaware that her voice has become both weapon and shield in a war that will determine the fate of families, territories, and the thin line between civilization and chaos.