The silence of the Corvini library, usually a sanctuary of dust, paper, and hushed strategy, was dead.
"He killed the children!"
Sam Corvini was screaming. The sound tore through the room, raw and hysterical, shredding the dignified atmosphere the family had cultivated for decades. He wasn't the charming diplomat in the pale suit anymore. He was a terrified man, his tie yanked loose, his face flushed a violent, mottled red.
He slammed his hand onto the heavy oak table, rattling the antique lamps.
"There are rules, John! There are lines we do not cross because if we cross them, the animals come for us!" Sam paced the length of the rug, turning sharply, his movements frantic. "Marco is not Vargo. He is not some washedup heavy. He is a cartel head with a paramilitary arm. And Kevin... that idiot, that absolute moron... just walked into his house and slaughtered his family."
Sam spun toward Asrit, begging for validation.
"You understand this! You know the precedent! If you touch the family, the truce is void. All of it. The Russians, the Triads, the Irish, they won't back us. They'll hunt us. Because if we allow child killers at the table, nobody is safe!"
Asrit stood by the fireplace. He wasn't screaming, but the vein in his temple was throbbing so hard it looked painful. He held a glass of scotch in his hand, gripping it tightly enough to threaten the crystal.
"Stop talking about morality, Sam," Asrit snapped, his voice tight and vibrating with fury. "I don't care about the ethics of the nursery. I care about the logistics."
Asrit threw the glass into the fireplace. It shattered against the bricks, the amber liquid hissing as it hit the embers.
"He missed Marco!" Asrit roared, stepping away from the hearth. "He went to send a message and he missed the recipient! He committed a triple homicide of noncombatants and left the general alive!"
Asrit walked toward the table, his eyes wide, his composure fracturing under the weight of the strategic nightmare.
"We are currently leveraged in the North. We are fighting a legal war on three fronts. We have a liquidity issue in the port sector. And now? Now we have a blood feud with the most violent faction in the city, provoked by a boy who can't shoot straight."
Asrit pointed a shaking finger at the ceiling, indicating the lab where Kevin usually hid.
"He didn't light a match, John. He poured gasoline on us and handed Marco the lighter. We are not prepared for total war. We don't have the men. We don't have the capital. We are going to bleed, and we are going to bleed fast."
The room descended into overlapping shouts. Sam yelling about the Code, Asrit yelling about the exposure, their voices clashing in a discordant, ugly rhythm. It was the sound of a hierarchy collapsing. The carefully maintained myth of the "Untouchable Corvini" was dissolving into panic.
In the corner, leaning against a bookshelf, Vikram stood.
He was the only stillness in the room. His arms were crossed over his massive chest. He watched Sam's hysteria and Asrit's rage with dead, heavy eyes. He wasn't panicked. He wasn't angry. He was simply observing the structural failure of the leadership, filing the reactions away. He looked like a gargoyle watching a cathedral burn.
And in the center of the storm sat John Corvini.
He was in his highbacked leather chair. He hadn't moved. He hadn't spoken. He watched his brother and his cousin unravel with an expression that was terrifyingly blank.
It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear. It was a profound, bottomless disappointment.
He looked at Sam, sweating and screaming about rules that no longer mattered. He looked at Asrit, calculating the cost of a war they had already lost.
John closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they were dry and hard.
"Quiet," John said.
It wasn't a shout. It was a drop in temperature.
Sam stopped mid sentence, his mouth hanging open. Asrit froze, his hands clenched at his sides. The room fell silent, save for the heavy breathing of the two men and the crackle of the fire.
John looked at the empty space on the table where the map of the city usually lay.
"The rules are gone, Sam," John said softly. "Asrit is right. The war is here."
He stood up slowly. He looked older than he had that morning. The "historian" who had terrified the Summit was gone, replaced by a man looking at the ruin of his own legacy.
"Kevin tried to be James," John said, the name tasting bitter. "But James killed soldiers. Kevin killed... potential."
He looked at Vikram.
"Find him," John said.
Vikram nodded once, pushed off the bookshelf, and walked out of the room.
John turned back to the other two, his gaze cold and final.
"Stop screaming. It wastes oxygen. And we are going to need every breath we have."