Like Father, Like Son

Chapter 24

The streets of New York bleed Caruso red.

Three of our men lie face-down on Mulberry Street, their blood mixing with yesterday's rain in the gutters. The Rossi family has stopped pretending this is about territory or profit—this is extermination, and we're the species marked for deletion.

Salvatore hasn't slept in four days. I watch him bend over maps in his study, shoulders curved with exhaustion, marking positions we've already lost with red X's that look like wounds. His lieutenants argue strategies that all translate to the same thing: we're hemorrhaging men faster than we can recruit them.

"The warehouse on Pier 19 is gone." Tommy delivers this update with the flat affect of someone who's run out of shock. "Rossi's men hit it at dawn. We lost six more."

Salvatore's fist comes down on the desk hard enough to make the coffee jump. The controlled Don who never shows emotion has been replaced by a man watching his empire dissolve in blood and betrayal.

"Father, I have something." Marco enters with the confidence of someone holding winning lottery numbers. His suit remains pristine despite the chaos, not a hair out of place while the rest of us wear exhaustion like a second skin. "A source inside the Rossi family. High-level, reliable."

"Bullshit." Salvatore doesn't even look up. "Nobody flips during active war."

"This one did." Marco spreads a hand-drawn map across the desk. "Three safe houses. These are the coordinates where Rossi's keeping his ammunition reserves. My source says they'll be lightly guarded tonight—everyone's being pulled for tomorrow's push on our territory."

I study Marco's face, searching for the tell that reveals the con. But his expression remains earnest, helpful, the devoted son he's been playing since the Torresi deal. The performance is so perfect it makes my skin crawl.

"How did you develop this source?" Salvatore's voice carries deserved skepticism.

"Through channels I've been cultivating." Marco's answer slides out smooth as oil. "Trust me on this, Father. When have I steered you wrong lately?"

The irony tastes like copper in my mouth—lately being the operative word, the timeframe that conveniently excludes a lifetime of disappointments.

Salvatore studies the map, exhaustion making his decision for him. "If this intel is good—"

"It is." Marco's certainty rings clear as church bells. "Hit them tonight. Turn the tide."

That night, they hit all three locations. The intel is gold—they recover enough ammunition to supply an army, plus documentation that reveals Rossi's next moves. Salvatore's men actually smile for the first time in weeks, talking about momentum shifts and turning points.

But I watch Marco celebrate with champagne he doesn't drink, his eyes too bright, his calm too perfect for someone whose family is at war.

The next morning, I corner Salvatore in the hallway, grabbing his arm before he can disappear into another strategy session.

"I need to talk to you. About Marco, about what I heard—"

"Not now, Lucia." He pulls away, already moving. "We're planning tonight's offensive based on Marco's intel."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. The intel is too perfect. Nobody gets coordinates that precise without—"

"Without what? My son finally proving himself?" The sharpness in his voice cuts. "I don't have time for your baseless suspicions."

He's gone before I can tell him about the pregnancy, about the life growing inside me that might be his, about the conversation fragments I overheard that paint a picture too terrible to voice without proof.

The war escalates. Bodies stack like cordwood while Marco provides intel that's always just good enough to keep us alive but never enough to win. We're being bled slowly, precisely, like someone's following a surgical manual for empire destruction.

Tonight, Marco left two hours ago, claiming he needed to meet his source. Salvatore waits in our bedroom—not ours, his, the one where Joana died—because Marco's absence has become our only opportunity.

The moment I enter, he pulls me against him with desperate hunger, his mouth finding mine like we're both drowning and the other is air. We don't speak because words would mean acknowledging what we both know—this might be the last time.

His hands frame my face with that devastating tenderness that undoes me completely. When he enters me, I bite back a sob because this feels like goodbye even though neither of us has said the words. We move together with the desperate synchronization of people who've memorized each other's frequencies, trying to compress a lifetime into minutes.

"I love you." The words tear from him as he shudders against me, the first time he's said them aloud.

"Salvatore, please don't go tomorrow." My fingers dig into his shoulders, trying to anchor him here. "The assault on the Rossi compound—something's wrong. I can feel it."

"After tomorrow, after we end this war, we disappear." He cups my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone with a gentleness that makes my chest ache. "You and me, somewhere they'll never find us. I've already made arrangements."

"You don't understand. Marco knows something. The way he's been acting—"

"Marco's intel has been the only thing keeping us alive." His voice carries finality. "Tomorrow we finish this. Rossi's main compound, all his lieutenants in one place. It's the opportunity we've been waiting for."

I want to tell him about the pregnancy, about the possibility growing inside me, but looking at his exhausted face, the determination burning through the fatigue, I know it would only distract him. Tomorrow. I'll tell him tomorrow when he comes back.

He kisses me once more, deep and desperate, like he's trying to brand the memory into his bones.

"I love you," I whisper against his mouth, but he's already pulling away, already armoring himself for what comes next.

"Lock the door behind me." His last words come out commanding, protective, the Don reasserting himself over the man. "Don't let anyone in until I return."

The door closes with a finality that makes my bones ache. I sit in the bed that still smells like us, like goodbye, like endings dressed up as beginnings, and my hand drifts to my stomach where tomorrow might already be dying.

Outside, car engines roar to life as the Caruso family mobilizes for what Marco has promised will be the decisive strike. But all I hear is the silence that comes after the trap springs shut, the quiet that follows when the last domino falls exactly where someone planned it to.

I should have told him. About the baby, about my suspicions, about the pattern I see but can't prove. Instead, I let him walk into tomorrow believing his son has finally become the man he always wanted him to be.

The house empties as the convoy disappears into the night, leaving me alone with the growing certainty that Salvatore might never return.