Silence was the first order.
Not secrecy—silence.
Michael Corleone recovered behind closed doors, the wound shallow but symbolic. The family wanted answers, revenge, names. Luke denied them all.
No meetings.
No outbursts.
No retaliation.
Only short, handwritten notes delivered by trusted hands.
I am alive.This changes nothing.Do not act in my name.
The effect was unsettling.
For men raised on orders and blood feuds, silence felt like abandonment. But that discomfort was useful. It slowed them. It kept them from becoming weapons in someone else's game.
Because the real enemy had already revealed itself.
The Shadows' information arrived in fragments, stitched together across continents.
No street families.No American rivals.No vendetta.
This had come from above.
Europe.
Don Lucchesi moved first—but not loudly.
He never did.
In Palermo salons and Roman boardrooms, his name passed between glasses of wine and quiet nods. Old money. Older sins. He had survived Mussolini, the war, and every Don who thought power meant volume.
Then there was Archbishop Gilday.
A man who wore God like armor and used the Vatican Bank like a private vault. His sermons spoke of salvation; his ledgers spoke of leverage.
And behind them—smiling, immaculate, untouchable—the Swiss bankers.
Men without accents.
Men without loyalty.
Men who understood that money, when clean, was the most dangerous thing in the world.
Luke studied their logic as Michael lay still, eyes closed, listening.
The American is naive.He thinks legitimacy is protection.We will take his billions and leave him with the blame.
Michael's $600 million Immobiliare investment was the bait.
Too clean.
Too transparent.
Too honest.
The Vatican Bank was bleeding. The European elites needed a scapegoat—someone rich enough to absorb the blame, foreign enough to be sacrificed, and notorious enough to make the story believable.
Michael Corleone was perfect.
The plan was elegant.
Lucchesi would restructure Immobiliare's debt, quietly tying Michael's investment to failing European banks. Gilday would authorize "temporary transfers" through Vatican accounts. The Swiss would move the money just fast enough that no one could follow it.
When the collapse came, the story would be ready:
American Mafia money destabilizes European finance.Corleone corruption reaches the Vatican.
Michael would be ruined.
Legally.
Morally.
Historically.
And Europe would keep the cash.
Luke felt the anger rise—not hot, not reckless, but cold and focused.
This was not the underworld.
This was something worse.
Civilized predators.
Michael opened his eyes and spoke softly to the empty room.
"So this is what legitimacy costs."
The System did not interrupt.
It didn't need to.
Luke already understood the shape of the battlefield.
This was not a war of guns.
It was a war of debt, silence, and timing.
And the cabal believed Michael was too old, too wounded, too American to see the trap closing.
They were wrong.
A final note went out to the family that night.
Shorter than the rest.
Do not interfere with Europe.Do not defend me.Trust me.
Vincent read it and clenched his fists.
Fredo read it and felt afraid.
The cabal, meanwhile, raised their glasses in Rome and Zurich, convinced the game was already won.
They had money.
They had institutions.
They had history.
What they did not yet realize—
Was that Luke had already stepped into their world.
And unlike them, he could see the ending before it arrived.