Ch 2: Silas Vane

Don De Santis couldn’t handle the fury of the North. Nobody can. He spent a year trying to steal my shipments and take over my streets, and all he got for it was a pile of body bags.

He finally realized that you don’t play games with the Vane family. We have owned this city for decades. We are old money built on silence and iron. He is new money, built on noise and chaos. So, he did what all cowards do when they are losing. He crawled to me and begged for peace. 

He offered me a treaty in the most unlikely way: a marriage. He wanted to tie our bloodlines together so I wouldn’t finish what I started. I’m not entirely sure why I agreed to this charade, but I am a man of my word. If a wedding stops the bloodbath for a while, I will take the deal. But I don’t believe in peace. Peace is just a quiet moment between two wars. It is the time a man takes to reload his gun. 

I stood at the altar of St. Anne Cathedral, my back a straight line of iron. I didn’t feel like a groom. I felt like a general waiting for a surrender. The church was freezing cold, the way I prefer it. The smell of incense and old stone filled the air, but all I could think about was the last time I stood in a place like this. 

Fifteen years ago, I was a different man. I was thirty years old, and I thought I knew how the world worked. I married Claire because it was expected of me. She was a woman of high standard, a perfect queen for the North. She was soft, elegant, and never asked questions about the blood on my shirts. We were the perfect pair until a car bomb meant for me turned her Mercedes into a ball of fire on Lake Shore Drive. 

I remember the heat of that day. I remember the smell of burning rubber and the way the glass looked like diamonds on the pavement. I didn’t cry at her funeral. I didn’t scream. I just became cold. I spent the next ninety days hunting down every single person involved in that hit. I didn’t just kill them; I erased them. Claire’s death taught me the only lesson that matters: softness is a liability. 

Love is a weakness that people use to destroy you. Since that day, I haven’t let anyone close enough to hurt me. I lived in a fortress of my own making, alone and satisfied.  

And now, here I was again. A widower at forty-five, standing in a church waiting for a boy who wasn’t even born when I started running this city. 

I looked out at the pews, analyzing the church like a tactical map. The divide was clear. On the left sat the North. My people. They were dressed in charcoal and black, sitting perfectly still. They didn’t whisper. They didn’t move. They were statues of discipline. On the right sat the South. The De Santis clan. They were a nightmare of bad taste. They wore bright gold chains, loud silk shirts, and too much cologne. They were restless, shifting in their seats and whispering like children. They were trash wrapped in expensive labels. 

Don De Santis sat in the front row, looking proud of himself. He thinks this marriage is a victory. He thinks he has bought his safety by giving me his son. He is a fool. He hasn’t bought peace; he has just given me a hostage. Once the boy is under my roof, the Don will be on a leash. I will own his most precious asset, and I will use that asset to dismantle the South from the inside out.  

The organ music started to play. It was a deep, heavy sound that felt more like a warning than a celebration. The massive doors at the back of the church opened, and the air shifted. 

I checked my watch. 02:28 PM. He was late. That was the first strike. I don’t tolerate lateness. It shows a lack of respect and a lack of control. 

Then, I saw him. 

I saw him, the bratty spoiled prince of the south, taking the aisle towards me. He looked drunk or something, and for a minute, he looked like he wanted to run. Not only was the southside chaotic. They are cowards, too. This is gonna be quite an adventure. 

He was wearing a beige suit, which was a ridiculous choice. He was small, barely over five feet tall, and he looked like he was drowning in the ceremony. He was wearing dark Ray-Bans inside a dim church, which was the height of arrogance. He stumbled slightly as he walked, his movements hazy and unfocused. I could tell immediately that he was medicated. I’ve seen enough addicts and nervous wrecks to know the look. His father probably had to drug him just to get into the car. It was pathetic. 

As he reached the altar, the space between us felt electric. I am six-foot-five and built like a wall; he was a tiny, trembling bird in comparison. He stopped a few feet away, swaying on his feet. He looked like he might pass out right there on the marble floor. I didn’t reach out to steady him. I don’t help people who can’t stand on their own. 

He slowly reached up and took off the sunglasses. 

I expected to see glazed, empty eyes. I expected to see a boy who had completely given up. But I was wrong. When he looked up at me, his eyes were red and tired, but they were burning with a fierce, violent hatred. He didn’t just dislike me; he wanted me dead. He looked at me with more fire than any of the soldiers I had faced in the last year. 

Interesting, I thought. Maybe there was something under the surface after all. 

“You’re late,” I said. My voice was low, meant only for him. 

He blinked, his breath smelling of wine and chemicals. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he leaned in just an inch. “And you’re old,” he whispered back. His voice was messy and slurred, but the insult was sharp. 

I felt a tinge of a smile pull at the corner of my mouth. Almost. Most people are too afraid to breathe in my presence, and this drugged-up boy was insulting me at his own wedding. This was going to be more entertaining than I thought. 

 The priest began to speak, his voice shaking. He knew this wasn’t a marriage of love. He knew he was presiding over a business transaction between two monsters. He hurried through the words, his eyes darting between the North and the South pews as if he expected a riot to break out at any second. 

I kept my eyes on Luca. He was vibrating. I looked at his hands; they were soft and manicured. He had never worked a day in his life. He was a doll, a pretty thing used to settle a debt. I wondered how long he would last in the North before the cold broke him. 

“If anyone has an objection why these two should not be married,” the priest said, his voice rising in pitch, “speak now or forever hold your peace…”

The silence that followed was heavy. It was the kind of silence that happens right before a bomb goes off. I could hear the wind howling outside the cathedral, battering against the stained-glass windows. 

Then, it happened.  

A cough. 

It was sharp and sudden, coming from the South side of the church. In my world, a cough is never just a cough. It is the sound a man makes to tell his friends to get ready. My brain immediately went into combat mode. I didn’t look at the crowd. I didn’t look at the Don. I analyzed the sound and the timing. 

In one fluid motion, I reached inside my tuxedo jacket. My hand found the cold, familiar grip of my 1911. I drew the weapon with a speed that made the priest gasp. I didn’t point it at the ceiling. I leveled the barrel directly at the row where the cough had come from. 

Screams broke out. The North side stood up in unison, their hands growing to their own holsters. The South side scrambled, knocking over pews in their panic. The priest dove behind the altar like he was seeking cover in a trench. 

But I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking at Luca. 

He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t screamed. He didn’t even look surprised. He stood there, swaying slightly, staring down the barrel of my gun with a look of total exhaustion. He didn’t look like he was afraid of dying. He looked like he was disappointed that I hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. 

“Finally,” he mumbled, his voice so quiet I almost missed it. “Do it.”

I stared at him over the sights of my pistol. My finger was steady on the trigger. I realized in that moment that this boy wasn’t just a bratty prince. He was suicidal. He was a tragedy wrapped in white silk, and he wanted me to be his executioner. 

For the first time in over a decade, I felt a jolt of genuine curiosity. I wasn’t bored anymore. 

“Nobody moves,” I shouted, my voice booming through the church, silencing the chaos. “Or I shoot the groom first.” 

I watched the light in Luca’s eyes. He didn’t blink. He just waited. And for the first time, I wondered what kind of hell he had been living in to make a man like me look like an escape.