Chapter 2
Luciano watched the full recording before anyone was allowed to leave the foyer.
Celeste remained seated, though she insisted she could stand. Luciano refused to let pride decide anything while she was seven months pregnant, and one of the family physicians stayed quietly beside her until he was satisfied she and the baby were stable.
Only then did Luciano return his attention to the phone.
The footage began with Dario positioning it.
Then Augusto entered.
Their conversation was fragmented by distance, but enough survived.
“If he does what he always does, it ends tonight.”
Dario laughed. “He will.”
“And Celeste?”
“She only has to make him angry.”
Luciano paused the recording.
Celeste stared at the screen.
“She only has to what?”
No one answered.
Nora looked from Dario to her grandfather with open disgust. “You used her.”
Augusto snapped, “Stay out of this.”
Luciano turned his head.
Augusto stopped.
That order no longer belonged to him.
Luciano resumed the video.
Dario asked, “What if he controls himself?”
Augusto’s answer came after a pause.
“Then push harder.”
The room changed.
Even the capos who had remained silent until then began looking at Augusto differently. Dario’s shove. The punch. The taunting challenge to hit him back in front of everyone.
None of it had been spontaneous.
They had been trying to produce something.
“What happens if I hit him?” Luciano asked.
Dario’s mouth tightened.
Augusto answered instead. “You already did.”
“No.”
Luciano placed the phone on the marble console.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Silence.
Anthony Vescari, one of the oldest Ferraro capos, stepped forward from the crowd.
“Boss.”
Luciano looked at him.
Anthony’s face was troubled.
“I’ve heard something.”
Augusto immediately said, “Don’t.”
Anthony ignored him.
“For three weeks, men have been asking what happens if you lose control in front of the family.”
Luciano went still.
“Who?”
“Old captains. Mostly men who served your father.”
Augusto laughed bitterly. “Questions are not betrayal.”
Anthony looked at him.
“No.”
Then at Luciano.
“But someone has been preparing an answer.”
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That was the first time Luciano understood the phone had never been intended for private blackmail.
It had been intended for an audience.
