Nineteen is an age for dreaming, for the first taste of independence, and for the reckless belief that the world can be conquered. For Luciano, nineteen was the year the sun went out.
It was a Tuesday in late autumn. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and rotting grapes from the nearby vineyards. Don Salvatore had summoned Luciano to the back terrace. On the table sat a single espresso cup and a photograph.
"Do you remember the man who sold oranges in the Piazza Bellini?" Salvatore asked, his voice thinner than usual. "The one with the limp and the silver tooth?"
Luciano's mind flashed back to a time before the blood. He remembered the man—Old Paolo. Paolo had been a low-level ear for his father. More importantly, Paolo had been the man who gave Luciano extra sweets when his mother wasn't looking. He was a man of jokes and cheap wine.
"I remember him," Luciano said, his stomach tightening.
"He sold your father's location to the men in the black Fiat," Salvatore said flatly. "He didn't do it for a grand cause. He did it for ten million lire to pay off a gambling debt. Your father's life, valued at the price of a mid-sized sedan."
The photograph was of Paolo, now living in a small, crumbling villa on the outskirts of Corleone. He looked older, frailer.
"The debt must be settled, Luciano. Not by my men. By a Valeriano. To leave this undone is to tell the world that your father's blood was water."
The Journey into the Dark
Luciano drove the winding mountain roads alone. The weight of the Beretta in his waistband felt like a lead anchor, dragging his center of gravity toward the earth. He thought of the poetry he used to read; he thought of the "First Kill" in the epic poems—usually a moment of glory, of a hero finding his strength.
But there was no glory here. Only the smell of damp earth and the sound of his own shallow breathing.
He reached the villa at dusk. It was a pathetic structure, held together by ivy and prayers. Luciano slipped through the back door, his years of training under Salvatore making him as silent as a shifting shadow.
He found Paolo in the kitchen. The old man was hunched over a bowl of thin soup, his hands shaking so violently that the spoon clattered against his teeth. He looked nothing like a traitor. He looked like a man already haunted by his own ghost.
Luciano stepped into the light.
Paolo froze. He didn't reach for a weapon. He didn't scream. He looked at Luciano's face, tracing the features of the boy he used to know. "Luciano," he whispered, a broken smile touching his lips. "You look so much like him."
"Why, Paolo?" Luciano's voice was a rasp.
The old man sighed, a sound of immense exhaustion. "The devil doesn't come with horns, piccolo. He comes with a debt collector. I was weak. I thought... I thought they would just talk to him. I didn't think..."
"You didn't think he would die? Or you didn't think I would come for you?"
Paolo looked down at his soup. "Both."
The Point of No Return
Luciano pulled the gun. The metal was cold, but his hand was starting to burn with a strange, numb heat. This was the moment. On one side of this trigger pull was the boy who could still be saved. On the other was the Raven.
"Close your eyes, Paolo," Luciano said. It was the only mercy he had left.
"No," Paolo replied, looking up with a sudden, sharp clarity. "If you are going to do this, look at me. See what you are becoming. Don't hide from the cost, Luciano. That is how the Don became a monster—he stopped looking."
Luciano stared into the old man's eyes. He saw the silver tooth. He remembered the taste of the almond cookies Paolo used to hand him. He felt a wave of nausea, a physical rejection of the act he was about to commit.
Then, he remembered the orange mud. He remembered his father's hand slipping away. He remembered the "click" of the jammed gun in the cathedral.
Harden yourself. Be the stone.
The roar of the gun in the small kitchen was deafening. The recoil jolted up Luciano's arm, a shockwave that seemed to shatter his very bones. Paolo fell backward, his chair splintering. The soup bowl broke on the floor, white ceramic mingling with the dark, spreading red.
Luciano didn't move. He watched the light fade from Paolo's eyes. He waited for the lightning to strike him down, for the heavens to scream. But there was only the sound of a cricket in the garden and the ticking of a cheap plastic clock on the wall.
He walked out of the house. He threw the gun into a ravine. He got into the car and drove until he reached the sea. He stood on the shore and scrubbed his hands with sand and salt water until they bled, but he could still feel the warmth of the kitchen, the smell of the soup, and the weight of the choice.
He wasn't a student anymore. He wasn't an orphan. He was a killer.
That night, when he returned to La Fortezza, Don Salvatore looked at his eyes and nodded once. No words were spoken. The debt was settled, but Luciano knew he would be paying the interest on it for the rest of his life.