The body belonged to Leo "Fingers" Mancini, a low-level runner for the Morano family. Found face-down in an alley off Mulberry Street, a single bullet lodged behind his ear—clean, deliberate. No cash missing. No signs of a scuffle. Just a message written in blood on the brick wall behind him: “Traitors bleed.”
Alessandro saw the photo
By the time Alessandro returned to their hiding spot—a cramped apartment above a shuttered tailor’s shop—Sophia was already pacing, her eyes raw from fear and the cold wind off the Hudson.
“You were late,” she said, voice low but sharp.
“Marco found me,” he said, peeling off his coat. “But he didn’t pull the trigger.”
She blinked. “Why not?”
“Because for a moment, he saw me as something other than a Morano.”
They sat on the floor, backs to the wall, knees touching. There was nothing glamorous about this part of love. The city was closing in, and the list of people they could trust was shrinking fast.
Alessandro held her hand.
“They’ll come for us both.”
“Then let them,” she whispered.
But that night, while the city slept and trains howled down distant tracks, betrayal found them not with a bullet—but with a phone call.
A warning, laced with desperation.
“They know where you are,” came the voice on the line. It was Emilio, one of Alessandro’s oldest friends from childhood—now a foot soldier in the Morano ranks. “I bought you twelve hours. Maybe less.”
They ran again.
Through Chinatown alleys and across tenement rooftops slick with frost. They found shelter in the old meatpacking district, in a walk-up above a bar that reeked of sweat and whiskey. Time blurred. Sophia dyed her hair. Alessandro burned his last few ties. They were ghosts now, clinging to each other like flame to wick.
But something was unraveling in Alessandro. The weight of what he’d left behind—his family, the blood, the empire—was cracking his resolve.
“I killed a man last year,” he confessed one night. “A Bianchi courier. I didn’t know his name until after.”
Sophia said nothing. She simply took his face in her hands, rested her forehead against his, and whispered:
“You’re not that man anymore.”
But she was wrong.
The city wouldn’t let him forget.
Meanwhile, Don Morano was building something quiet and deadly. Not a war—but a purge. Anyone sympathetic to Alessandro’s escape was cut loose. Those who knew where he’d gone were found in gutters or at the bottom of the East River. Marco watched silently, the guilt growing like mold behind his eyes.
Across the city, Riccardo Bianchi sharpened his knives. Sophia’s disappearance was more than shame—it was insult. He sent word to Don Morano:
“Give us the girl, and the blood stops flowing.”
But Don Morano had already disowned his son. “He’s not my blood anymore,” he told the messenger. “Do what you will.”
For the first time in decades, two crime families stood on the brink—and neither cared who struck first.
Back in the shadows, Alessandro and Sophia found one final option.
A boat.
A smuggler’s vessel out of Red Hook, heading for Havana. They needed one favor, one ride, one chance.
The night before they were to leave, they made love like the city was dying around them—because it was. The streets had turned to ash and secrets, and there was no going back.
As dawn broke over the East River, they walked hand in hand down to the docks. The fog hung low. The boat engine rumbled to life.
And then came the scream of tires.
Gunfire.
Sophia spun. Alessandro pulled her behind a crate. Splinters flew. Shouts erupted.
It wasn’t the Moranos. It wasn’t the Bianchis.
It was both.
An ambush—each family had followed its own trail, unaware the other would come.
And Alessandro realized in that moment: this wasn’t about him anymore.
It was about pride. About vengeance. About cleansing the bloodline with fire.
He kissed Sophia hard.
“Run to the boat. Don’t look back.”
“I won’t leave you!”
“You already saved me, Sophia. Now save yourself.”
He stood, pulled the pistol from his waistband, and disappeared into the smoke.
Stay tuned for the last part.
Thank you.
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