Six Months Contract With The Mafia God

POV: ANTONIO

The call came at 11:23 PM, Rome time.

Antonio was in his study at the estate, reviewing pharmaceutical research reports from the Prometheus Laboratory when his personal line rang. Not the business line. Not the operational line. The personal line, the one only a handful of people had access to.

Lorenzo Russo.

Antonio picked up immediately.

”What is it?” Antonio said, no greeting attached. After decades of doing business with each other, they’d moved past pleasantries.

”I’m hearing things,” Lorenzo said without preamble. ”My people are reporting that The Covenant is moving. That they’re targeting one of your sons.”

Antonio’s hand tightened on the phone.

He’d been expecting this call in some form, had understood that news of The Covenant’s involvement would eventually reach Lorenzo. The question was what Lorenzo would do with that information.

”They’re targeting Dimitri,” Antonio said simply. ”Yes.”

”Why?” Lorenzo asked. ”What did he do?”

”He destroyed one of their facilities months ago,” Antonio said. ”Killed forty-seven people. Destroyed years of research. The Covenant is extracting payment.”

There was a pause on the line as Lorenzo absorbed this.

”And what are you doing about it?” Lorenzo asked.

”I’m handling it,” Antonio said. ”Dimitri is coming to Rome next week. We’ll discuss strategy in person.”

”And until then?”

”Until then, Dimitri is more than capable of protecting himself,” Antonio said. ”He’s proven that already.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

”Hope history isn’t about to repeat itself,” Lorenzo said quietly, and the weight of that question, the specter of Claire’s death hanging between them, made the silence deeper.

Antonio closed his eyes for a moment. Claire, gone because of The Covenant. Gone because he’d chosen strategy over vengeance, patience over war.

”It won’t,” Antonio said, and his voice turned into something harder, colder, more absolute. ”I won’t allow it.”

”Have you forgotten who your son is?” Lorenzo pressed. ”Have you forgotten what he’s capable of?”

”No,” Antonio said. ”I know exactly who Dimitri is. I know what he’s capable of. The only thing that scares me is who he’ll become during this war. Who he’ll have to become to survive it.”

”How sure are you, Antonio?” Lorenzo asked, and now his voice carried something that sounded almost like pleading disguised as challenge. ”Have you forgotten what clashing with The Covenant cost you? it cost you Claire. And now they’re after your son. Don’t you think it’s time to fight back?”

Antonio leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting across the study, across the reports still scattered on his desk. The Prometheus Laboratory. His laboratory. The one that did exactly what The Covenant did, except under his control, with his ethics, with his authority.

He’d built it as insurance. As a failsafe. As a way to level a playing field that had always been tilted against him.

He’d never thought he’d need to use it like this.

”You know about Prometheus,” Antonio said. It wasn’t a question.

”I know you own a laboratory capable of extraordinary things,” Lorenzo said carefully. ”I know it rivals The Covenant’s capabilities.”

”It surpasses them,” Antonio corrected. ”In every meaningful way.”

Another pause. This one felt like understanding crystallizing on the other end of the line.

”Can you take them down?” Lorenzo asked quietly.

”Yes,” Antonio said. And saying it out loud, this truth he’d carried in silence for years....felt like breaking a chain. ”If I choose to, I can dismantle The Covenant completely. Destroy their infrastructure. Eliminate their research. Everything they’ve built.”

”Then why haven’t you?” Lorenzo’s voice was sharp now, urgent.

”Because,” Antonio said slowly, ”I was afraid of what it would cost. I was afraid of becoming like them. I was afraid that if I went to war, I’d lose another son to it. I was afraid that Dimitri would inherit a war he never asked for, and it would destroy who he is.”

He listened to Lorenzo breathing on the other end, the weight of decades between them, the weight of Claire’s death, the weight of a mother Lorenzo had also lost, in different ways.

”But history is repeating itself,” Antonio continued, his voice quiet but absolute. ”They came for me through Claire. Now they’re coming for Dimitri directly. And I’ve realized something, Lorenzo.”

”What?”

”Running doesn’t protect anyone. It just delays the pain. It just gives them more time to rebuild, to strike again, to take more.” Antonio’s hand moved to the window, looking out across Rome, across his empire, across everything he’d built on the foundation of loss. ”So yes. It’s time to fight back. I have waited long enough.”

There was relief in Lorenzo’s voice now, and something else, the recognition of a man watching another man finally step into his own power.

”You said Dimitri is coming to Rome next week?” Lorenzo asked.

”Yes,” Antonio confirmed. ”Next week.”

”How is Isabella?” Antonio asked.

”She’s okay now,” Lorenzo said. ”She’ll be coming to the estate when Dimitri arrives.”

Antonio smiled....a small, sharp thing. ”That’s good. It’s time to start bringing them together. This issue has dragged on for long enough. We have to bring Dimitri and Isabella togethe, So that when hen The Covenant comes, they’ll find something they weren’t expecting.”

”Yes,” Lorenzo agreed, and there was a new iron in his voice, a new certainty. ”It is time. I’ll have her ready and fit by the time he comes back.”

”One more thing,” Antonio said. ”When Dimitri gets here, I want him to see the laboratory. But what scares me is what he would think of it. I want him to understand what we’re capable of, but i also don’t want him to think that i am the as same as The Covenant.”

”He’ll understand,” Lorenzo said. ”He’s your son.”

After they hung up, Antonio remained at the window for a long time, looking out at Rome glittering below him.

The line he’d been aftraid to draw for years has finally been drawn, The line he’d been afraid to cross...had finally been crossed. There was no stepping back now.