Little Italy, the dawn after the conquest
The streets still smoked. The air carried that metallic taste left by gunpowder and blood when mixed with silence. Giovanni Moretti walked through the remains of a half-ruined warehouse on the corner of Mulberry and Grand Street. Clemenza followed him, holding a lantern, and Salvatore Greco silently guarded the entrance behind them.
They had received a tip from a captured survivor: Rosso was keeping a man chained in the basement of an old dive bar that had been closed for months. They used him as a punching bag, a living warning to anyone daring to disobey.
"Who is he?" Giovanni asked as he descended the damp-covered stairs.
"No one knows. They say he was a freelance thug who got into trouble with Rosso for killing his brother, or something like that," Clemenza murmured. "Only that... he didn't die. And that's what screwed him."
When they opened the heavy iron door, the stench hit them like a wall.
Chained to a beam, surrounded by rats, empty bottles, and darkness, there was a man as tall as a wardrobe, covered in scars. One eye was swollen shut, but the other burned with undiminished fury.
"What's your name?" Giovanni asked.
Silence.
"Do you know who I am?"
"I know you don't stink like Rosso. That's a relief," the chained man growled.
Giovanni smiled.
"I'm Giovanni Moretti. This neighborhood no longer belongs to Rosso."
The man raised his head. His cracked lips barely curled.
"So... am I dead or free?"
Giovanni gestured. Greco pulled out a set of keys. He unlocked the shackles. The man fell to the floor but rose on his own.
"Name?" Giovanni insisted.
"Luca. Luca Brasi."
The name rang a bell. Don Salvatore Moretti had mentioned it once, years ago. "A beast without a master. If someone can tame him, he'll be their best weapon… or their last curse."
"Rosso killed my brother. He left me here to die. But I didn't. Every day I swore I'd make him pay," Luca said, his voice dragging like stones.
Giovanni looked into his eyes without blinking.
"Work for me, Luca. I'll give you a bed, weapons, respect… and Rosso's neck."
Silence. Then a hoarse laugh rose from deep in Brasi's throat.
"Only if you let me tear his heart out with my own hands."
Giovanni extended his hand.
Luca gripped it firmly. For the first time in weeks, he felt like he was breathing again.
Two nights later, Mott Street neighborhood.
The information came from a snitch: a group loyal to Rosso had barricaded themselves in a tavern disguised as a butcher shop. Six men, all armed, collecting "taxes" from merchants still faithful to the old regime. A clear message: Little Italy still breathed for Rosso.
"Let's put out that hope," Giovanni told his men.
But that night, Clemenza wouldn't go. Nor Tessio. Nor Greco. Giovanni took only Luca Brasi—freshly bathed, dressed in black clothes, his face shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
"This is your test, Luca. Prove to me I haven't wasted my time on you," Giovanni said from the car, watching the entrance.
Luca didn't answer. He just got out, a knife at his belt and a steel bar wrapped in cloth in hand. He carried no firearms. He hadn't asked for any.
He walked in like he didn't care if he died.
Four minutes later, silence reigned.
Giovanni entered with two men to inspect. What he found chilled him: five bodies with their throats slit, another hanging from a butcher's hook, his revolver's bullets still unused. Luca was wiping blood off his arm with an apron.
"One tried to pray," he said flatly. "But I don't like empty prayers."
"And the cops?"
"I threw two bundles of bills to the crossing officer. He won't say a word."
Giovanni stared at him.
"Welcome to the war, Luca."