Page 12 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
For decades, no one in Nuova Speranza moved a single dollar without our family getting their cut.
When the Salvatores first arrived, they were nothing more than an afterthought, a family without old money, without legacy, without the deep-seated roots we had spent generations cultivating.
They were outsiders, war-born men whose lineage was written in blood rather than ink, and in the beginning, my grandpapa barely spared them a glance.
He believed in history, in the power of reputation, in the kind of loyalty that was inherited rather than bought.
But the Salvatores were not there to play by the rules of the old world.
They understood something my family, in our arrogance, had overlooked: that power is never given. It is only ever taken.
They did not challenge us openly.
There was no declaration of war, no single act of defiance that signaled their arrival as a real threat.
Instead, they planted their seeds quietly, moving through the cracks we had left in our wake, turning the men we had ignored into weapons aimed at our own foundation.
My family saw the workers as a means to an end, as nameless hands unloading shipments, faceless bodies standing watch over warehouses, necessary but replaceable.
We paid them just enough to keep them loyal, just little enough to ensure they would never rise beyond their station.
If they wanted more, they knew better than to ask.
The Salvatores, however, saw an opportunity.
At first, it was nothing more than whispered rumors in the bars near the docks, the kind of talk that most men dismissed as the drunken ramblings of those with little power and too many dreams.
"You hear about the Salvatores?"
"They're paying men under the table, real money—not just scraps."
"Word is they've got a doctor who fixes broken ribs, busted hands, doesn't ask questions."
"They take care of their own."
It started small, insignificant enough that my grandpapa didn't see it for what it was.
The Salvatores began by offering better wages to the men who worked the hardest, the ones who had given their lives to the docks only to be discarded when they were no longer useful.
They paid the medical bills of injured workers, ensuring that no man was left unable to provide for his family.
When a longshoreman was crippled by an accident that should have left his family destitute, the Salvatores sent his wife an envelope thick with cash and his sons a promise that they would always have work, no matter what.
And when the time came for the next union vote, men who had spent their entire lives fearing my family suddenly had a choice.
For the first time, they had an alternative to the Lombardis, one that did not demand their loyalty in exchange for fear, but rather, through something far more powerful.
Security.
Stability.
A future.
It should have been a warning. Instead, my grandpapa responded the only way a man like him could—with force.
Lombardi enforcers were sent to remind the workers where their loyalty belonged.
Men were beaten, threats were issued, families were warned that there would be consequences for forgetting their place.
