Chapter 57 POV MAT

Chapter 57 POV MAT

Power doesn’t settle quietly.
It screams. It resists. It tests the weight of the hands that hold it.
By the third night after Petrov’s fall, New York was already bleeding rumors.
Every whisper carried the same question: Is Costello strong enough to hold what he’s taken?
I stood in the penthouse office overlooking the river, watching lights ripple across black water like fractured stars. The city looked calm from this height.
It never was.
Behind me, the room hummed with tension. Phones rang and stopped. Screens flickered with movement—territories, shipments, faces flagged red.
Louis stood to my left, silent but coiled.
Dante paced like a caged animal.
“They’re circling,” Dante said. “Brooklyn crews are probing our southern routes. Jersey’s holding back shipments. Chicago hasn’t sent acknowledgment.”
“Chicago never sends acknowledgment,” I replied calmly. “They send coffins.”
Louis glanced at me. “There’s more.”
“There’s always more.”
He handed me a tablet.
On it was a video feed—grainy, angled wrong, shot from a distance.
A warehouse.
Not the warehouse.
Another one.
A Costello front.
My jaw tightened.
The feed zoomed in.
Four men hung from chains, wrists bound above their heads. Bloody. Barely conscious.
Costello soldiers.
One of them lifted his head just enough for the camera to catch his face.
Nico.
Twenty-two years old. Second-generation. Loyal. Dumb enough to believe loyalty kept you safe.
A voice crackled through the feed, distorted but amused.
“Message received, Costello,” it said. “But crowns still bleed.”
The video cut.
Silence filled the room like smoke.
Dante swore viciously. “Give me twenty men and a location—”
“You don’t have either,” I cut in. “That’s the point.”
Louis exhaled slowly. “This isn’t Syndicate. It’s coordinated, but not centralized.”
“Good,” I said. “That means it’s afraid.”
Dante stopped pacing. “Afraid people don’t make statements like that.”
“No,” I said. “Desperate people do.”
I turned back to the window.
Petrov was dead.
Rafaele was dead.
But nature hated a vacuum.
And New York was full of men who thought chaos meant opportunity.
“They want to see if I’ll overreact,” I continued. “If I’ll burn the city down proving I’m still standing.”
Louis nodded. “And if you don’t?”
“They’ll assume weakness.”
“So what’s the move?” Dante asked.
I smiled faintly.
“We do neither.”
I visited Lilianna before dawn.
The hospital room was quiet except for the steady rhythm of machines and the faint city noise drifting through cracked windows. She was awake, propped against pillows, dark hair loose around her shoulders, eyes alert despite the pain she tried to hide.
“You’re brooding,” she said without looking up from the tablet in her hands.
“I’m planning.”
“Same thing,” she replied dryly.
I leaned against the wall, studying her. Even injured, she carried herself like someone who refused to be sidelined.
“They took four of my men,” I said.
Her gaze snapped to mine. “Alive?”
“For now.”
She absorbed that in silence.
“Who?” she asked.
“Everyone,” I said. “And no one.”
She tilted her head. “So this is a coalition.”
“Yes.”
“And they want a reaction.”
“Yes.”
She set the tablet aside slowly. “Then don’t give them the one they expect.”
I crossed my arms. “I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good,” she said. “Because fear travels faster than violence.”
I arched a brow. “You’re advocating restraint?”
“I’m advocating control,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”
I stepped closer. “What are you thinking?”
“They’re testing you publicly,” she said. “So you answer privately—but make the result impossible to ignore.”
I studied her face, the sharp intelligence behind her eyes.
“Say it,” I said.
She met my gaze without hesitation. “You take something they can’t replace.”
“Like what?”
She smiled. Cold. Calculated.
“Trust.”
By nightfall, the city had begun to move again.
Not loudly.
Not yet.
I stood in the center of a private dining room beneath a Midtown restaurant that had survived three wars and six owners. The table was long, polished, untouched.
Around it sat representatives from crews that had never shared air willingly.
Brooklyn.
Queens.
Jersey.
Even two from Chicago, faces impassive.
No weapons on the table.
Plenty beneath it.
“You called us here fast, Costello,” one of the Jersey men said. “That makes people nervous.”
“That’s the idea,” I replied calmly.
A Brooklyn captain leaned back in his chair. “You don’t look nervous.”
“I’m not.”
A murmur rippled through the room.
I rested my hands on the table. “You took my men.”
No denial.
No surprise.
Chicago’s representative smiled faintly. “Collateral happens.”
“Not to me,” I said.
The air shifted.
I tapped the table once.
The screens along the walls lit up.
Security footage.
Warehouse interiors.
Basements.
Private rooms.
Faces appeared—dozens of them.
The men around the table stiffened as recognition dawned.
“That’s—” someone started.
“Your accountants,” I said. “Your brokers. Your sons.”
A sharp intake of breath.
I raised a hand. “Alive. Unharmed. Watching.”
The Brooklyn captain surged to his feet. “You don’t have the reach—”
“I have the patience,” I cut in. “And patience wins wars.”
Silence fell hard.
I leaned forward slightly. “You wanted to know if the throne would shake.”
I straightened.
“It won’t.”
I nodded to Louis.
Another screen flickered on.
Nico.
Bruised. Bloody.
Alive.
A shaky breath escaped someone at the table.
“They walk free tonight,” I continued. “So do mine.”
Chicago’s rep studied me carefully. “And if we don’t agree?”
I met his gaze without blinking. “Then tonight becomes the last quiet night you ever have.”
No shouting.
No threats.
Just truth.
One by one, they nodded.
Agreements formed not in words, but in survival instinct.
When it was over, the room emptied quickly.
Louis exhaled once the door shut. “That could’ve gone badly.”
“It didn’t.”
Dante grinned. “They won’t forget this.”
“No,” I said. “They won’t.”
I returned to the penthouse close to midnight.
Lilianna was waiting.
Wrapped in a blanket on the couch, hair still damp from a careful shower, eyes sharp despite exhaustion.
“You’re home,” she said.
“For now.”
She studied my face. “You won.”
“A round.”
She smiled faintly. “Good.”
I sat beside her, pulling her gently against me. She didn’t resist.
“They’ll keep coming,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“And someday,” she added, “they’ll come harder.”
“I know that too.”
She rested her head against my shoulder. “Then promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“When that day comes… you don’t shut me out.”
I tightened my arm around her. “I won’t.”
She tilted her face up to mine. “This life doesn’t scare me, Matteo.”
“It should.”
She smiled, fierce and unafraid. “So should I.”
I kissed her—slow, deep, grounding.
Outside, the city continued its restless pulse.
Inside, I held the only thing that made the crown worth wearing.
Because power could be taken.
Fear could be challenged.
But loyalty?
Loyalty was forged.
And anyone who tried to test it—
Would learn just how deep the Costello blood ran.