Chapter 8
The elder capos hated losing Blackwood.
Not because they loved the house.
Because it represented certainty.
One of them, Gianni Vale, said:
“Every Valenti boss needs hardening.”
I stared.
“According to who?”
“History.”
“No.”
I leaned back.
“According to adults who wrote history after surviving the method.”
Silence.
Matteo sat across from me.
He had supported sending Milo.
I asked him one question.
“Would you send your own grandson there?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
Good.
“Why?”
“He’s sensitive.”
I almost laughed.
“So is Milo.”
“He’s the boss’s son.”
There.
The contradiction.
Compassion for ordinary children.
Cruelty for symbolic ones.
Because future power supposedly justifies present harm.
I looked around the room.
“Milo is three before he is anything else.”
Gianni frowned.
“That is exactly how weakness enters.”
I turned toward him.
“How old were you when your father first hit you?”
His face changed.
Not relevant.
Except it was.
“Eight?”
Silence.
“And you still call him a strong father.”
“He made me disciplined.”
“Maybe.”
I nodded.
“He also made you think pain becomes moral if it produces useful behavior.”
That angered him.
Good.
This was not a council vote on my parenting.
I made that clear.
They could disagree.
They could call me soft.
They could tell stories about Blackwood until they died.
They could not enroll my son into tradition through hidden arrangements.
Matteo asked:
“What about succession?”
“No discussion involving Milo until he is old enough to understand what succession is.”
That shocked them more than closing Blackwood.
“How old?”
“I don’t know.”
Uncertainty.
The thing old organizations hate most.
I continued.
“He may want nothing to do with this.”
Gianni laughed.
“He is a Valenti.”
“So am I.”
Pause.
“And I wanted nothing to do with it at fifteen.”
Silence.
They knew.
I had tried to run.
Nobody discussed that part of my biography because it complicated the myth.
The inevitable boss.
Born for power.
No.
I had been shaped, cornered, and eventually chosen parts of the role for myself.
May you like
I wanted Milo to have one thing I did not.
A choice before the chair began calling itself destiny.
