Rain fell over New York City like a warning from the heavens. The streets of Brooklyn shimmered beneath the streetlights, slick and trembling, as if the city itself knew that something irreversible had just begun.
Luca Moretti stood at the edge of the pier, staring into the black waters of the East River. At twenty-seven, he had already learned that loyalty was more valuable than love and that silence was worth more than gold. Tonight, he would seal his fate with both.
Behind him, the black sedan's engine cut off. The rear door opened with deliberate calm.
"Luca," came the voice of his uncle, Don Alessandro Moretti.
Luca turned. Don Alessandro was not a tall man, but power radiated from him like heat from a furnace. His gray hair was slicked back perfectly, his tailored coat untouched by the rain as if even the weather feared disrespecting him.
"You know why you're here," the Don said.
Luca nodded once. He had known this day would come since he was a child watching men kiss his uncle's ring in the marble halls of the Moretti estate. The family ruled the docks, the unions, the gambling houses from Brooklyn to Queens. But power was fragile, and enemies were multiplying.
The Russo family had crossed a line.
Three nights ago, a shipment worth ten million dollars had disappeared. Tonight, they had found the thief.
Two men dragged a third figure out of the trunk of the sedan. The captive's face was swollen, his shirt soaked in blood and seawater. He struggled weakly.
"It wasn't me," the man rasped.
Don Alessandro looked at Luca. "Family does not steal from family."
Luca's jaw tightened. The man on his knees had once shared wine at their table. Marco DeLuca had laughed at Luca's jokes. Had called him brother.
"Trust," the Don continued, "is the foundation of empire. Without it, we are animals."
One of the guards handed Luca a pistol.
The weight felt heavier than steel. It felt like inheritance.
"If you want to sit at this table one day," Don Alessandro said softly, "you must protect it."
The rain intensified. Marco's eyes met Luca's, desperate and pleading.
"Please," Marco whispered.
For a moment, Luca saw the boy he once was—running through vineyard rows in Sicily, long before United States had hardened them both. But that boy no longer existed.
Luca stepped forward.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The gunshot cracked through the night, swallowed almost instantly by thunder. Marco's body collapsed against the dock.
Silence followed.
Don Alessandro approached Luca, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "From this moment," he said, "you are no longer my nephew. You are my soldier."
A ring—heavy, engraved with the Moretti crest—was pressed into Luca's palm.
"You swear loyalty to this family above all else?"
"I swear."
"You betray us, and you die."
"I understand."
The Don nodded once. The body was dragged toward the water.
As the men returned to the car, Luca remained still, staring at his reflection in a puddle. The rain distorted his face until he barely recognized it.
This was the cost of power.
But far across the city, in a quiet apartment overlooking Central Park, someone else had heard about the dock execution. Someone who had been waiting for a crack in the Moretti empire.
Detective Isabella Reyes folded the file closed.
"Luca Moretti," she murmured.
The war between families had just shifted.
And neither side understood how bloody it would become.