It was quiet in the Cavarro mansion.
Not the kind of quiet that came from peace—this was the heavy, suffocating kind. The kind that clung to the velvet wallpaper and seeped into the marble floors. The kind that made the guards outside shift uncomfortably and pretend they couldn't hear what was happening upstairs.
Dante sat beside the bed, jaw locked, hands still.
His father—Leon Cavarro, the Lion of Brooklyn, the man who once made senators flinch with a phone call—was dying.
Not in some grand, bloody shootout. Not in a storm of revenge or justice.No. Just a hospital bed wheeled into their own damn living room, wires in his arms, a rattle in his lungs, and the fire going out behind his eyes.
"Dante," his father called.
"Father," he responded instantly.
"You listen to me now. Not the capos. Not your uncles. Me." Leon told.
Dante didn't speak. His eyes burned. The walls around him were starting to sweat. The fireplace, unlit, flickered faintly on its own.
His father's hand, cold and trembling, closed around his wrist.
"They'll come for it. The throne. The name. But it's yours. You were born for this."
Another breath.
"And whatever's inside you… whatever it is… don't let it control you."
Then he was gone.
Just like that.Just… silence.
And in that silence, Dante stood up, shoulders square, fire behind his eyes.
He didn't cry. He didn't speak. He didn't look at anyone.
"Master Dante..." a servant called out. "Should we inform the fami-"
"EY!" Dante snapped. "Get out." he ordered.
The servant nodded before hurrying outside.
The door clicked shut behind the servant, and for a moment, Dante was alone.
Truly alone.
The kind of alone that didn't feel peaceful.It felt loaded.
He looked down at his father—what was left of him. Still. Small. Suddenly just… a man.
Not the legend. Not the empire. Just a body, cooling under a linen sheet.
Dante reached out slowly and pulled the sheet over his face.
The tips of his fingers smoldered where they touched the fabric. Tiny black burns, curling like paper in flame.
He didn't notice.
Downstairs, voices were already gathering like flies.
Uncles. Capos. "Allies." Men who used to kiss his father's hand were now whispering his name like it was a problem.
He could hear them through the floor. The shift in tone. The plans already forming.
He breathed in.The air was thick with smoke.
There was no fire. Not yet.
He turned from the bed and walked down the hallway—long, dark, lined with old portraits of old men pretending they were gods. He passed them without looking. Every lightbulb overhead flickered and dimmed as he passed.
When he reached the top of the grand staircase, he saw them. All of them.
Suited. Smiling. Smelling like deals.
Capo Salieri raised a glass.
"To the Lion," he said. "May he rest in power."
The others repeated it with fake grief and greedy eyes.
Dante didn't come down.
He just stood at the top of the stairs, hands clenched at his sides, a faint heat haze curling off his back like smoke rising from coals.
"Put the glasses down," he said. His voice wasn't loud—but it rang.
Everyone looked up.
"We don't drink until the body's in the ground. You know that."
Salieri smiled like a vulture.
"And you know the rules say the seat is open, Dante. You may be his son, but the Family-"
"Would you like to die, Salieri?" Dante asked.
The room fell still.
No one moved. No one breathed. Even the air seemed to pause, like it didn't want to get between them.
Salieri's smile twitched. Not quite gone—but not steady either.
"Same fiery nature as your father..." Salieri mumbled, forcing a chuckle, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
But the sweat gave him away.
"The family is mine. The seat is mine too. I'll be damned if I let scum like you tear it down."
Salieri opened his mouth to speak-
And Dante moved.
Down the stairs.
"You want to talk about rules?" he said.
"You want to talk about family?"
He reached the floor and kept walking. His hands didn't glow. But everyone in the room could feel the heat building in their lungs. In their bones.
"You fed off my father's power your whole life. Took his protection. Took his money. Took his respect."
He stopped a few feet from Salieri.
"And the second his breath leaves his chest, you start sniffing for blood like a goddamn leech."
Salieri's throat bobbed.
"You think this fire is rage?" Dante asked. "This is grief."
His hand lifted—just slightly—and every candle in the room flared. The windows fogged from the heat.
"He was my father. He was the best man I ever knew. And you dare smile like a vulture in his house? Give him some goddamn respect."
Dante leaned in, eyes burning so bright they cast shadows on Salieri's face.
"Say another word about 'open seats,' and I'll burn your name from this family so completely even God won't remember it."
And just like that, the heat vanished.
Not a word more was said.
Dante turned, walking back toward the long table at the front of the room. He pulled out the chair his father used to sit in. The leather was old. The frame was charred at the edges now.
He sat down.
"Now," he said quietly, "pour a drink."
Everyone froze.
Dante didn't look up.
"For my father."
Glasses clinked. Hands shook. Liquor was poured.
And this time, no one dared raise their glass before he did.
--------------------
Across the river, high above Manhattan in a penthouse with windows tall enough to look down on God, a man watched the news on mute.
The chyron crawled across the bottom of the screen:"LEON CAVARRO, ALLEGED MOB BOSS, DIES OF NATURAL CAUSES"(Alleged. Cute.)
The man in the chair didn't blink.
He was large - not fat, not thick. Big. His skin looked carved from smooth stone, and his white suit didn't wrinkle when he moved. Mostly because he didn't move unless he had to.
In his hand, a crystal tumbler of something old enough to vote.
Behind him, three screens displayed security feeds from every borough - cars, ports, shipments, phone calls. All running smoothly.
Until now.
"The Lion is dead."
The Kingpin's penthouse was dark except for the glow of a desk lamp.
Wilson Fisk didn't sit. He stood with one hand braced on the edge of the desk, reading the note twice, then once more. The handwriting was familiar.
He didn't need a signature. He knew exactly which rat in the Cavarro family sent it.
Just five word.
"Cavarro is gone. The boy rules."
Fisk folded the note. Set it on fire in a silver ashtray. Watched it curl into ash.
No theatrics. No monologue. Just a long breath through his nose.
"So the Lion's cub takes the throne," he murmured.
He turned to the wall, lined with files, photos, and profiles. He found the one marked D. Cavarro, pulled it down with two thick fingers.
A photo clipped to the front - Dante. Scowling.
Fisk stared at it for a long time. Then opened the folder.
"Let's see what kind of animal you really are."
"What happened, honey?" his wife asked him.
He sighed, "Nothin' Vanessa. Just some good old news." He said, reassuring her.
"A threat?" she asked softly, coming to stand beside him.
Fisk shook his head, swirling the drink once.
"Not yet," he said. "But he will be."
Vanessa picked up the photograph from the folder.
"You think he's like his father?"
Fisk took a long sip.
"I think he's worse," he murmured.
-----------------------
The Cavarro family funeral was not a quiet affair.
It should have been. A man dies, his sons mourn, the world moves on.
But when the man was Leon Cavarro, the silence was never going to last long.
They held the service at St. Dominic's—an old cathedral on the edge of Brooklyn, where the stained glass glared down like judgment and the air always smelled like smoke and secrets. Every pew groaned under the weight of too many suits, too many grudges, too many men pretending this was grief instead of opportunity.
Dante stood at the front of the church, black suit pressed, black tie knotted perfectly, black sunglasses hiding eyes that hadn't closed in three days.
The casket was closed. Of course it was. Too many eyes in the room. Too many whispers already. Better to let the man stay a legend behind lacquered mahogany than risk someone seeing how human he'd become at the end.
Cardinal Rossi was speaking in Latin. Something about eternal rest. Something about dust. Something no one in the back row was listening to.
Dante wasn't listening either.
He was watching.
Scanning.
Uncles. Cousins. Rivals dressed like friends. Friends dressed like ghosts.
And then—her.
Standing at the far end of the aisle, just inside the doors, veil drawn, hands folded in front of her like a weapon waiting to be unsheathed.
Isabella Moretti.
The daughter of Lorenzo Moretti. Once promised to Dante in a deal that would've united two empires. But the wedding never came. Too much blood. Too many bodies. Too much history.
She shouldn't have come.
But she did.
And Dante's stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with grief.
The Latin ended. The incense burned low. And the cardinal stepped back with the kind of careful reverence usually reserved for altars and loaded guns.
Dante stepped forward.
No notes. No eulogy. Just him, the casket, and the weight of every eye in the cathedral.
"My father," he said, voice low and smooth as smoke, "was not a good man."
A murmur rippled.
"He wasn't a gentle man. Or a kind one. Or even, frankly, a patient one."
That earned a few reluctant chuckles near the front.
"But he was a man of truth. Of loyalty. Of law—his law. And if you broke it, God help you."
He paused. Let that land.
"You called him the Lion. Because he ruled with teeth. Because he made the world listen. But to me…" he glanced at the casket, jaw tight. "He was just my father. And I loved him. Even when I hated him."
He looked out across the church. All those faces.
"So here's the truth: You're not here for him. You're here to see who replaces him. To see if the bloodline holds. If the crown fits."
He stepped down from the pulpit.
"It does."
"And if you doubt that - if you think the empire my father built can be picked apart like a corpse- then remember,"
He stopped in the center aisle, directly in front of Salieri.
Their eyes met.
"It won't happen,"
Salieri swallowed hard. Said nothing.
Dante turned.
"Now bury my father," he said.
And just like that, the service ended.
No more words.