Chapter 5 - ECHOES OF A DEAD NAME
The crime boss of Brooklyn stood entirely motionless beside the luxury dining table.
The color had drained so completely from Rico Moretti's face that he looked like a statue carved from gray stone. His dark eyes were wide, filled with an uncharacteristic, staggering terror—a look so profoundly foreign on the face of the feared mob leader that even Dante, turning back from the kitchen disturbance, froze in sheer disbelief.
"Boss?" Dante whispered, his voice laced with rare, genuine concern as he stepped beside Rico. "Rico... what is it? What did the kid say?"
Rico didn't answer Dante. He couldn't.
He stared down at his five-year-old son as if the boy had just spoken the name of a phantom—a name that had been buried in six feet of earth, a name that belonged to someone who should not exist anymore in this world, or any other.
The name hung in the heavy, invisible air between Rico, Leo, and Clara.
Clara slowly stood up from the marble floor, her knees slightly trembling as she rose to her full height. She kept her fingers gently wrapped around Leo’s small hand, but her gaze remained fixed on Rico’s pale, shattered expression.
"You know that name," Clara said softly, her voice carrying a heavy, terrifying weight in the quiet room.
Rico’s chest rose and fell in a sharp, shallow rhythm. He slowly turned his head to look at Clara. The cold, impenetrable crime boss who controlled millions of dollars, commanded dozens of armed soldiers, and ruled entire districts with an iron fist looked utterly undone by a single whisper from a child.
"Where..." Rico rasped, his voice rough and broken, barely audible over the hum of the fountain. "Where did he hear that name?"
"He didn't hear it tonight," Clara whispered back, her eyes shining with sudden, intense clarity. "He didn't hear it in this restaurant."
Dante took a half-step closer to Clara, his massive chest expanding as his intimidation instinct returned. "Lady, you better start talking right now. What name did the boy say?"
"Dante! Back off!" Rico suddenly roared, his voice exploding through the quiet restaurant with such raw, terrifying violence that every guest in Il Destino flinched.
Dante froze instantly, his jaw dropping in shock at being barked down by his boss in public.
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Rico took a slow step toward Clara, stopping just twelve inches from her face. His hands were shaking—a subtle, violent tremor in his fingers that he desperately tried to hide by balling them into tight fists at his sides.
"Clara," Rico said, his voice dropping into a desperate, pleading whisper that no living person had ever heard from Ricardo Moretti. "Tell me exactly what my son told you."
