Page 13 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
Papa, Vittorio, was among those who orchestrated the retaliations, ensuring that the Salvatores' slow-growing influence was cut out at the root before it could take hold.
But he underestimated them.
For every man we threatened, the Salvatores protected three.
For every worker we tried to bring back in line, four more turned against us.
Not because they were afraid.
But because, for the first time, they were given a reason not to be.
Loyalty bought with money is weak.
Loyalty built on trust is unbreakable.
By the time my grandpapa realized the docks were slipping from his grasp, it was already too late.
The union had been turned against us, the men who had once relied on our family now calling another name when they needed help.
And when the Lombardis fought to regain control, the Salvatores did what needed to be done.
They did not rule solely through kindness, after all.
When Emilio Marchesi, my grandfather's most trusted dock foreman, refused to turn, he vanished.
Two weeks later, his body washed up in the bay, his hands bound, his mouth stuffed with old union ballots.
The message was clear:"We are the future. You are the past."
Some men who were unwilling to bow at first were given choices.
Their families were relocated, given new homes, their children's tuition paid in full, their wives left with more money than they had ever seen.
It was not violence that turned them, but the realization that the Salvatores could give them a better life than we ever had.
By the end of the year, the docks belonged to them.
It was the first time in Nuova Speranza's history that a family had risen to power not just through fear, but through something stronger: through choice.
And once they had the docks, everything else followed.
Papa never forgave them, even though an uneasy but necessary truce followed.
He had spent his entire life watching my grandpapa build an empire, only to see the Salvatores dismantle it, piece by piece, man by man, until there was nothing left but the illusion of power.
The Lombardis had wealth, influence, history, but unfortunately none of that mattered when men no longer believed in their rule.
Because power is not about money, or even how many politicians you own or how many businesses bear your name.
It is about who people turn to when they are afraid.
And they no longer turned to us.
For Papa, it was a betrayal he could never forget.
"Signorina, hold still."
I barely register my maid's soft voice as she laces the back of my gown.
