The agreement in Atlantic City was signed in daylight.
The arguments about it began in the dark.
The first discussion happened before Michael Corleone's plane had even left New Jersey.
In a private dining room above a Brooklyn restaurant that no longer needed a name, three men sat around a table that had seen better decades.
Barzini's successor spoke first, his voice low and sharp.
"He's either gone soft," he said, "or he's become something worse."
No one laughed.
Tattaglia's representative drummed his fingers against a wineglass. "Michael Corleone doesn't surrender power. He repackages it."
A third man—quiet, gray-haired, Sicilian to the bone—shook his head slowly.
"He walked away from guns and blood," the old man said. "That's not a trick. That's exhaustion."
The room fell silent.
They were men who understood violence.They did not understand renunciation.
"What happens," Barzini's man said, "when he's truly out?"
The question lingered.
No one answered it honestly, because the answer frightened them.
In Chicago, the reaction was colder and more calculated.
The Don there summoned his advisors—lawyers, accountants, one man who had once handled "other matters."
"Check every clause," the Don said. "Every trigger. Every freeze."
They did.
The contracts were airtight.
Too airtight.
"If Corleone dies," one advisor said carefully, "we lose money."
The Don's eyes narrowed.
"So he's made himself… valuable."
"Yes."
That disturbed him more than any threat.
In Miami, the tone was different.
There was laughter.
"Let the old prince retire," a younger boss said, swirling rum in his glass. "We'll outgrow his casinos in five years."
But even as he spoke, his lieutenants were already adjusting routes, shifting capital, pulling back from conflicts that might attract attention.
Michael Corleone had changed the weather.
And everyone felt it.
The loudest argument happened in New York.
Not in public.
Inside the Corleone family itself.
Connie Corleone slammed her hand against the table.
"You're telling me he just gave it up?" she demanded. "After everything?"
Sonny's ghost seemed to hover in the room, unspoken but present.
Michael sat at the head of the table, composed, his face unreadable.
"He didn't give it up," one caporegime said carefully. "He converted it."
Another shook his head. "Men will test this. They always do."
Michael listened.
Luke listened through him.
Every doubt. Every fear. Every crack where the old story might try to reassert itself.
"They think he's weak," Connie said. "That's dangerous."
Michael finally spoke.
"Let them," he said quietly.
The room stilled.
Weakness had never sounded like that before.
Elsewhere, actions followed opinions.
A New York crew quietly stockpiled weapons "just in case."A Miami outfit tested a minor casino regulation, probing for legal pushback.A politician delayed a permit, waiting to see who would blink first.
None of it escalated.
Because the system Luke had built responded automatically.
Frozen accounts. Delayed approvals. Silent pressure applied without a single threat spoken aloud.
Violence found no door to enter.
Late that night, alone in his study, Michael poured himself a small drink and didn't touch it.
The System stirred.
[World of Remorse — Stability Index: Rising]Major Wish Alignment: In ProgressRisk Vector: Internal Doubt / External TestingKarma Accrual: +180 (Strategic Non-Violence, Systemic Reform)
Luke felt it then—not triumph, not relief.
Something quieter.
This world was no longer trying to drag Michael Corleone back into the man he had been.
It was watching.
Waiting to see if peace could survive men who had never believed in it.
Outside, New York breathed—restless, dangerous, alive.
And for the first time, the city did not know whether to fear Michael Corleone…
…or follow him.