A soft knock sounded at the threshold of the kitchen door.
Joey glanced over.
A tall man in a black suit with neatly combed silver hair appeared. His right hand was tucked into his coat pocket, while his left carried a slim, dark brown leather folder.
Domenico looked up. Their gazes met for a split second before the man stepped further inside, stopping on the left side of the kitchen, keeping his distance from the dining table.
"Don," the man called with a deep, calm voice. His tone was like the low rumble of a storm yet to come. "There's an urgent matter you need to see."
Domenico set down his espresso cup and rose to his feet. "Giuliano."
Giuliano Ferretti handed over the folder with a gesture full of respect.
Domenico opened it without sitting, skimming the first page. His brow furrowed slightly. "In the study," he said tersely.
Giuliano nodded, then turned. Domenico looked at Joey for a moment before following him out.
Joey remained seated in his chair. His spoon stopped moving. His eyes—which had been focused on the frittata—now quietly followed the two men's steps towards the double doors leading to the study on the first floor.
They spoke in low voices, their sounds muffled by the half-closed door. Their expressions were clearly visible from where Joey sat. Something in Giuliano's gaze made the air in the kitchen feel heavier. The man's face was rigid, his jaw tense. Domenico, meanwhile, occasionally responded with small nods, noting something in the folder. One finger of his hand tapped the wooden surface with a slow tempo—a habit of his when analyzing or holding back emotion.
Joey scooped up his food again, as if indifferent. His gaze continued to steal glances in the direction of the two men.
Giuliano finally tucked the folder back under his arm and gave a brief bow, then turned towards the kitchen entrance.
As he passed Joey, the man gave only a short, formal nod.
The front door was heard opening and closing softly. Silence filled the room once more.
Domenico sat back down with a calm movement, as if he had just stepped out of a hotel kitchen meeting, not a conversation that could shake the underworld. His hand reached for his fork again, cutting the frittata as if nothing had changed.
Joey looked at him from across the table, one eyebrow raised.
"Problems?" he asked without a tone of curiosity.
Domenico shrugged, pretending nonchalance. "He gets too tense just to inform me that my usual cheese shop is out of truffle."
Joey clicked his tongue softly. "Are you funny now?"
"Giuliano says I need an attitude adjustment," said Domenico, still looking down at his food. "So I thought I'd start at the breakfast table."
"And your adjustment suggests you hide something behind scrambled eggs and espresso?"
Domenico looked up, glancing at him. "If I say there's nothing for you to worry about, you'll worry anyway, won't you?"
Joey leaned back in his chair. "Depends. How many people might die today?"
Domenico chuckled softly. Not loud, just like a heavy exhale shaped into laughter. "No one will die before lunch. I can guarantee that."
Joey stared at him for a long moment. "You're not going to be honest today, are you?"
"I am being honest. Just maybe not comprehensively." Domenico answered lightly, then slid the bottle of lemon-infused water towards Joey. "Drink. You're dehydrated."
Joey didn't take it right away. His eyes kept watching the man carefully. Part of him knew something was wrong. But he was too tired to keep asking. He pulled the bottle over, poured some into his glass, and sipped it slowly.
"If you're bored, you can read the paper or watch television," said Domenico as he stood and grabbed the newspaper from the credenza in the corner. "Your news is no longer on the front page or the main topic of discussion."
Joey replied without turning. "Are you leaving?"
Domenico grinned. "I'll be back by evening. I won't be gone for days."
"And I'm here waiting until you get back," Joey mumbled, half-annoyed.
Domenico offered the newspaper. Joey took it absentmindedly, then placed it on his lap without opening it.
"You don't have to protect me like I'm a porcelain doll, Dom."
"I'm not protecting you," answered Domenico, his voice softer this time. "I just want you to be able to have breakfast without fear."
Joey looked at him. For the first time since they sat down, he showed something resembling pity. It vanished quickly.
"You don't have to pretend everything's fine. I'm not going anywhere today," he said quietly.
Domenico didn't reply immediately. He just took a breath, looking out the window for a moment.
"Good," he said finally. "Because this might be the safest place we have right now."
Joey bit his lip, looking down. Silent.
Although breakfast continued in silence, both knew—whatever Giuliano had just discussed, it was no small matter. For now, Joey let it remain in the man's breath—which was starting to feel heavier, even though his face still held a smile.
*
Joey watched Domenico leave with a few of his men. Meanwhile, he was left alone while the man went to handle business. This wasn't the first or second time. Joey was almost used to it, from when he was a child living with Domenico back in Calabria.
Back then, their old house on the hill overlooked the vineyards. The air was always fragrant with damp earth and the salty Mediterranean wind. Every morning, Domenico would leave without many words. Just a fleeting touch on the head or a single sentence, "Take good care of yourself." Then he would vanish until dusk.
Little Joey would sit on the windowsill, legs dangling, watching the horizon line dividing the sea and blue sky. Sometimes he played with stray cats that came from nowhere. Sometimes he read the tattered books Domenico gave him—about wolves, about warriors, about children who ran away from home but always came back.
Time moved slowly in Calabria. And loneliness had a strange way of clinging to the skin. Joey was too young then to know the meaning of 'business', too scared to ask where the man went, but perceptive enough to know—not everyone came home with clean hands.
Now in New York, two thousand miles from that place of memories, not much had changed. Domenico still left in the same way. Only the city was different, only the enemies were more slippery, and Joey had grown up enough to no longer pretend he didn't know.
Still, whenever the door closed and the sound of footsteps faded, the air in the house felt colder. As if the silence still seeped through the stone walls and glass windows, dancing between the scent of stale coffee and lingering cigarette smoke.
Joey leaned against the doorframe, closing his eyes for a moment. His heart clenched like it used to, like a little child who didn't know if the man would return in a day, or vanish forever in the silent war that was never named.
And still, Joey waited.
*
Joey dropped his body onto the brown leather sofa with a lazy motion. His right arm stretched over the coffee table, grabbed the TV remote, and turned on the old television in the corner of the room. The screen lit up slowly, showing a slightly blurry picture before sound began to flow from the speakers.
It had been a long time since he watched TV. Since the incident—since he was dragged into the interrogation room, since his face filled the news and his name was chewed by the media like raw meat—Joey preferred silence. No newspapers. No magazines. No TV. But today, the quiet felt torturous. So he gave in and let the thing come to life.
A marine documentary channel appeared by chance. On the screen, an orca—a killer whale—glided through cold water with graceful, almost silent movement. The camera followed the animal from below, showing its black-and-white shadow moving through shafts of sunlight beneath the surface.
The narrator spoke in a calm tone, "Killer whales are social predators with extraordinary intelligence. But when separated from their pod, an orca can change—becoming silent, even brutal."
Joey stared at the screen with half-open eyes, unblinking.
Separated from its pod.
Brutal when alone. There was something in that sentence that felt too close, too honest.
The orca surfaced, blowing water from its blowhole, then dove back down—disappearing into the dark sea. The camera panned slowly, showing another orca swimming in a pair. But that one remained alone.
"No one ever truly knows how an orca chooses to hunt alone, or if it simply wants to avoid the world."
The narrator's voice could be heard again, though Joey was no longer really listening.
Joey slumped back on the sofa, one leg propped up on the armrest. An open bag of potato chips lay untouched on the table. His eyes were still fixed on the screen. And between the sound of the documentary and the clinking of the old heater in the corner, Joey let his mind wander—imagining a killer whale swimming alone in the middle of the ocean, not knowing if what it sought was a place to return to, or just a place to disappear.
The channel changed. A news channel was broadcasting dramatic footage, red-and-blue police lights bouncing off the windows of a luxurious penthouse in SoHo. A man in a silk suit and sunglasses was being led to a police car. Behind him, two young men—one of them a rising teen pop singer—covered their faces with leather jackets.
"... known as The Snow King in inner circles, this cocaine kingpin is believed to have a distribution network reaching at least twenty entertainment industry figures ..."
Joey froze. Slowly, he reached for the remote and turned down the volume. His eyes remained glued to the screen.
"... shifting the investigation's focus from the unsolved murder case of young actor Jacob Doyle ..."
Just one. Then gone. The news had already sunk, even before it had a chance to burn.
Joey looked up. His eyes were empty. In that silence, his breath began to quicken slowly. He knew this game. He knew whose hands were moving the chess pieces from behind the screen.
*
The New York afternoon sky was turning copper as the large glass windows of Cassano Automobili's showroom in SoHo, Manhattan, reflected the silhouettes of elegant Italian-made cars—Ferraris, Maseratis, even limited-edition Alfa Romeos. The three-story showroom was one of Domenico Cassano's neatest legal fronts. The space was pristine white, with warm lighting, polished marble floors, and the scent of synthetic leather mixed with expensive coffee filling the air.
Today, their business discussion was supposed to focus on money laundering for two real estate projects in Jersey City. The events of four days ago, precisely at three in the morning at Bedloe's Island, changed everything.
Three men sat in the private glass room on the second floor. Outside, marketing staff and technicians were busy pretending to work, but everyone knew—the conversation inside that room was far more valuable than the price of any car downstairs.
Domenico sat in the middle, in a perfect black suit, tie loose. His face was sharp and cold. To his left, Giuliano, wearing a dark gray suit, leaned back calmly. His eyes were sharp like an executioner's that never releases its prey. And on the right was Matteo De Luca—the Capo Bastone—his most loyal right-hand man who had been with him from the beginning. Matteo wore a thin black tie, his suit wrinkled, dried blood still staining his shirt sleeve.
In the'Ndrangheta, the structure is based on blood family. Power tends to be distributed among the family clans of 'ndrine, so the Capo Bastone can also act as a balance between families. Matteo is an exception.
"Bedloe's Island four nights ago.Four armed men. Two dead. One kid critically wounded. The last one vanished to the docks," Matteo spoke up in a cold tone. This topic had been discussed several hours after the incident. Today the discussion was more detailed and more serious.
Domenico didn't turn. "The ship?"
"Intact. Although it lost one dummy container."
Giuliano added softly, "They didn't want the goods. They wanted to send a message."
Domenico sneered. "Santiago."
Matteo nodded. "Too clean for local thug work. And only the Mexican cartel is reckless enough to play on a federal island."
Giuliano placed a thin file on the table. Inside were photos of a young man, a brown-haired pop singer, laughing backstage. The next picture—a candid shot of the young man exchanging a suitcase with someone in a Bronx recording studio.
Giuliano said, "This young man. Stage name 'Jude Lex'. Twenty years old. Viral on MTV. Traced back to one of Santiago's houses in Queens."
Matteo interjected with a bitter tone, "Young kids, Ferraris, and cocaine. Classic scenario. This kid is a small-time dealer, got in through the celebrity route. The other three are smaller, but all point to Morales."
Giuliano folded his hands. "The media is focused on them now. The 'teen celebrity scandal' is a national headline. And the 'Jacob Doyle' incident—vanished."
Domenico fell silent. His fingers tapped the marble table three times. The only sound in the room.
"I didn't order anyone to leak this to the media," he said quietly. "These kids are dirty, they just happened to blow up at the right time."
Matteo narrowed his eyes. "So it wasn't us who blew them up?"
Giuliano answered calmly, "No. But everyone thinks so. And we let them."
Silence.
Domenico finally leaned back. The evening light shone on his eyes, making him look like a Roman stone statue.
"I refused Santiago not out of arrogance, but because he's manipulative." Domenico spoke as if he had never manipulated anyone in his life.
Giuliano said, "He's not his father. Don Rafael was an elder who knew when to step back. Santiago is different, he's still thirsty for blood."
Matteo added, "And now he feels insulted."
Santiago Morales was a long-term threat—wilder and more impulsive than his father, Don Rafael.
Domenico stood up. He walked slowly to the glass wall facing the street. "Santiago wants a route? Tell him to use the rat canals in New Jersey."
Matteo chuckled, cynical. "And we set traps in every one of those routes?"
Domenico turned slowly. "No. We wait for him to make one big mistake."
Giuliano closed the folder.
"We just need to hold out. Until Santiago burns himself with the gasoline he's stored."
"We hold the harbor. Set up full surveillance. Anyone who touches Bedloe again gets buried at the docks."
Giuliano nodded. "I've already contacted Lorenzo at the harbor police. We have two weeks before they start a major investigation."
Domenico looked at his own reflection in the glass.
The scandal involving young celebrities and drugs had successfully diverted media attention from the Joey case. Who would have thought it would actually open a 'strong card' in the form of evidence of Santiago's men's activities. Although Giuliano and Matteo thought it was a response to the death of one of Domenico's men.
Then the serious conversation shifted to a lighter discussion.
Giuliano opened a thin dark blue folder. A small real estate agency logo was printed in the corner.
Giuliano spoke calmly and systematically, "Don, news from the Upper West Side. A man named Edward Calhoun has finally agreed to sell his property at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 89th Street."
Domenico turned slowly, showing interest. That place was not just any location.
Giuliano continued, "A three-story old house, neo-Renaissance style brownstone. He's owned it for two decades. The location is strategic—busy, near a subway line, surrounded by upper-middle-class housing."
"And why does he suddenly want to sell?" Domenico was curious.
Giuliano placed a photo and a short report on the table. "His son, Jeremy, 17 years old. Had a single-car accident three nights ago. Hit a tree on Riverside Drive. Internal injuries—broken bones, brain hemorrhage. Still in the ICU. Blood tests showed high levels of cocaine."
Domenico looked at the document for a moment. His face showed neither sympathy nor contempt.
Domenico said quietly, "Parents who want to run from bad memories in the walls of their home. Or maybe they need funds for the hospital."
Giuliano nodded.
"He's given a number. And we can close the transaction in two days."
Domenico gave a slight smile—almost like a wordless nod of agreement. "Take it. That place is mine now."
Matteo De Luca, who had been listening while standing, finally spoke. His voice was casual but also curious. "So, Boss..., we're opening a second showroom? Or a new game headquarters?"
Domenico turned, leaning back against the leather chair behind him. He unbuttoned the top of his suit jacket and answered casually, almost jokingly. "No. I want a place where people sit, eat good pasta, and forget for a moment that they're living in a world of bastards."
Matteo frowned, then gave a short laugh. "A restaurant?"
Domenico nodded. "An Italian restaurant. Not a stiff, elegant one. A warm place, yellow lights, a waiter with curly hair who talks too fast, and tiramisu that can make people believe in love."
Giuliano gave a faint smile.
"A family concept?"
Domenico raised an eyebrow.
"Or a refuge for men who never had families. Depends on who comes."
Matteo grinned, then lit a cigarette. "I hope the food is more reliable than our cook at Todt Hill."
"This time it's not for hiding. It's a place to settle. Maybe a place for someone to come home to." Domenico added, his tone sounding both casual and serious at the same time.
The three of them fell silent for a moment. The Manhattan skyline spread out beyond the glass windows of the showroom, the city lights starting to turn on one by one.
And amid the traffic full of deceit in the criminal world, a small plan was born—about a restaurant, and perhaps a more humane life.
[]