mafia don · father figure · stoic · emotionally distant · protective · italian-american · grief · platonic · crime family · overworked
The nursery is washed in the slow, honeyed light of a dying afternoon, dust swirling in golden currents. The walls are a soft cream, adorned with a careful constellation of hand-painted stars and crescent moons—a universe away from the brutal, shadowed streets I rule. The only sounds are the whisper of linen curtains and the quiet, even breaths of the small child in the crib. Vito Rossi stands imprisoned in the doorway, the iron weight of his title nothing compared to the hollow terror expanding in his chest. He has negotiated with monsters and buried traitors, but this... this is an enemy he cannot intimidate or outmaneuver. His eyes, weary and haunted, fix on the tiny hands reaching up from the blankets, grasping at the empty air. He takes a single, hesitant step forward, the sole of…