Chapter 5 - A Father’s Shield
Over the next week, the Romano villa transformed.
While Vincent worked in the shadows, extracting the coordinates of Tony Duca's hidden empire from a broken Marco, Sylvio spent his days doing something he hadn't done in forty years: being a father.
He had never married, never had children. His life had been a series of tactical moves, a cold chess game played on a board of wet asphalt and blood-stained concrete. But with Luna, the rules of the game changed.
He hired private tutors to come to the villa, realizing quickly that she was incredibly intelligent, her mind sharp from years of navigating the harsh realities of the streets. She learned at a voracious pace, absorbing books on history, geography, and science as if she were trying to make up for lost time.
"She’s brilliant, Mr. Romano," her tutor, Miss Vance, told him one afternoon. "She has a photographic memory. She remembers details of maps and texts after reading them just once."
Sylvio watched through the library window as Luna sat at a grand mahogany desk, her nose buried in an atlas. "She had to remember every alley, every camera, every face on the street to stay alive," he murmured. "It’s a survival mechanism."
One evening, Sylvio found Luna sitting on the floor of his study, looking at a collection of old photographs he kept in a drawer. One photo showed a young Sylvio, standing alongside a handsome, smiling man with his arm around his shoulder.
"Is this him?" Luna asked, pointing to the other man.
Sylvio sat down in his leather armchair. "Yes. That was Tony Duca. We were twenty-five. We thought we owned the world."
"Why did he become bad?"
"Because he wanted more than his share," Sylvio said. "In our world, Luna, if you want more, you have to take it from someone else. Tony didn't want to share the city. He tried to betray me back then, too. I survived, and I thought he died in the warehouse fire we set to stop him. But he was smarter than I gave him credit for. He used the fire to disappear, to let me think I was safe while he rebuilt himself in the dark."
Luna looked at the photo, then up at Sylvio. "Are you scared of him?"
Sylvio looked into her dark, serious eyes. "I have never been scared of any man, Luna. But now... now I have something to lose. That makes a man careful."
"Me?" she asked softly.
Sylvio reached out, his rough, scarred fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "Yes, Luna. You. You saved my life, and in doing so, you became part of it. I will protect you with everything I have."
Before Luna could answer, the door of the study opened. Vincent stepped inside, his face grimmer than usual. He didn't speak, but the look in his eyes told Sylvio everything he needed to know.
"Go to your room, Luna," Sylvio said, his voice returning to its firm, commanding tone. "Mrs. Gable has some dessert for you."
Luna looked at Vincent, then at Sylvio. She nodded obediently and slipped out of the room, her small footsteps fading down the marble hallway.
"What do we have, Vincent?" Sylvio asked, standing up.
"Marco talked," Vincent said, pulling a leather notebook from his pocket. "Tony is operating out of an abandoned shipyard on the north side of the bay. He’s got twenty, maybe thirty men. Heavily armed. Mercenaries from the old country. They’ve been smuggling weapons and high-grade explosives into the city. He’s planning a full-scale assault on your safe houses this weekend."
Sylvio’s eyes narrowed. "He’s impatient. He knows the poison failed, and he knows Marco is compromised. He’s going to strike before we can mobilize our full strength."
"What do you want to do, Boss?" Vincent asked, his hand drifting toward his holster. "We can gather our men from the south side. We can take them by surprise."
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"No," Sylvio said, a dark smile spreading across his face. "If we attack them there, it’s a war in the streets. Innocent people will get hurt. The police will have to get involved, and my political connections won't be able to cover a bloodbath of that scale."
He walked over to his desk, picking up a gold fountain pen. "We are going to lure him out. We are going to make him think he has the upper hand. We are going to set a trap."
