The meeting place was an abandoned meat packing plant in the industrial district. The air was frigid, kept cold by insulation that had outlasted the business. It smelled of old copper and rust.
Marco stood at the head of a stainless steel table that had once been used to dress carcasses. He was alone. No guards. No entourage.
Around him stood the lords of the city's underworld. Vargo, looking massive and uncomfortable in a wool coat. Volkov, flanked by two silent bodyguards. Chen, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his jacket. They were nervous. They kept checking the exits, their breath pluming in the cold air.
They weren't looking at Marco with respect. They were looking at him like he was a dead man walking. To them, he was already a ghost, a man who had challenged the Corvini and lost everything.
"This is madness, Marco," Vargo grumbled, his voice echoing off the tiled walls. "John holds the port. He holds the judges. You call us here, in the middle of the night, to what? Complain? You should be on a plane to Rio."
Volkov nodded, his face grim. "The Corvini do not leave loose ends. If you are here, it is because they are letting you run. We should not be seen with you."
Marco didn't answer immediately. He looked terrible. He hadn't changed his clothes. The silk shirt he had worn to the Summit was still on his back, the blood of his son stiffening the fabric, turning it into a dark, rigid armor. His face was pale, unshaven, his eyes red rimmed and hollow.
He reached into his pocket.
The bodyguards behind Volkov tensed, hands dropping to their weapons.
Marco didn't pull out a gun. He pulled out a small, pink plastic teacup.
It was cheap. scratched. It had a sticker of a cartoon bear on the side.
He placed it on the steel table. The sound was small, a tiny, plastic clack that sounded pathetic against the heavy industrial silence.
"This is Sofia," Marco said. His voice was cracked, raspy. He didn't clear his throat.
He looked at the cup, then at Vargo.
"She liked tea parties," Marco said softly. "She made me drink air and told me it tasted like stars."
Vargo looked at the cup, then at Marco's shirt. He saw the blood. The big man's face paled. He knew what blood looked like. He knew that wasn't an adult's blood pattern.
"Marco..." Vargo whispered, the aggression draining out of him.
"My son, Mateo," Marco continued, staring at the steel table. "He was seven. He liked rockets. He was wearing a cape. He died in the hallway."
Chen stepped forward, his expression losing its usual inscrutability. "The rules," Chen murmured. "The families... we do not touch the house."
"The rules are dead," Marco said. He looked up. His eyes were dry. There was no moisture left in him. "Kevin Corvini killed them. He came into my home. He didn't send a soldier. He came himself. He was high. He was shaking. He missed my wife the first time. He had to shoot her three times because his hands were trembling."
Marco looked at Volkov.
"You fear James," Marco said. "We all fear James. The ghost in the white suit. The artist."
He gestured to his bloodstained shirt.
"This wasn't James. This was a child playing with a gun. This was a mess. A panic. A sloppy, pathetic act by a boy who thinks murder makes him a man."
Marco picked up the plastic teacup. He squeezed it. The cheap plastic cracked under his grip.
"The Corvinis rule you with a story," Marco said, his voice gaining strength, filling the cold room. "A ghost. They tell you they are untouchable. They tell you they are inevitable."
He held up the broken cup.
"They sent a coward to my home, and he took my whole world."
Marco looked at them, really looked at them. He saw Vargo's shame at being cowed by John's silence. He saw Volkov's resentment at the Corvini taxes. He saw Chen's calculation.
"I am no longer interested in territory," Marco declared. "I don't want your shipping lanes, Volkov. I don't want your corners, Vargo. I don't want money. I don't want respect."
He slammed the plastic cup down on the table.
"I am here to collect a debt of blood."
The room was silent. But it wasn't the fearful silence of the Summit. It was a heavy, solemn silence. The kind of silence that happens before a funeral, or a war.
"Not just for me," Marco said, looking Vargo in the eye. "For everyone who has ever lived in fear of their name. For every time John looked through you like you were glass. For every dollar Asuma stole from your pockets with a smile."
He leaned over the table, his hands flat on the cold steel.
"They are not gods. They are a father who is tired, a son who is incompetent, and a lawyer who thinks paper is a shield. They are broken. And I am going to burn them."
Vargo looked at the teacup. He looked at the blood on Marco's chest. The fear of John Corvini was still there, deep in his gut, but something else was rising to meet it. Shame. Anger. The primal instinct of a man who has children of his own.
Vargo reached out. He placed his massive, calloused hand on the table, next to the plastic cup.
"My trucks," Vargo said, his voice low. "You have my trucks. And my heavy hitters."
Volkov looked at his bodyguards. He nodded once. "The Russians stand with the debt."
Chen sighed, a sound of resignation and resolve. "The Triad will close the eastern approaches. They will have no escape to the sea."
Marco didn't smile. He didn't thank them. He simply nodded.
He wasn't a general leading an army for glory. He was a man holding a broken teacup, leading a funeral procession that intended to take the Corvini family into the grave with them.