Power wasn't something Leon Moretti had to ask for.
It bowed to him.
He stood at the edge of a private rooftop in downtown Milan, overlooking a city that never slept, never judged, never cared. His city. Beneath him, a deal was being closed—two men from rival families forced to shake hands under his command. A peace built on fear.
Inside, his men waited for his approval. They always did. But Leon remained outside, letting the cold wind bite through his suit jacket. The silence was better than the applause of cowards.
He lit a cigarette, the flame flickering briefly against the darkness. Somewhere below, a life was ending—someone who talked too much, owed too much, or simply mattered too little. Leon didn't need to know which.
He exhaled slowly.
This was what power tasted like: smoke, silence, and blood.
⸻
The world knew Leon Moretti as a ghost. Whispers followed him—rumors of how he took over his father's empire after the man's mysterious death, how he left his brother's corpse as a message on the marble steps of an enemy's estate.
But Leon remembered the boy he once was—just a scared son in a war of men. That boy had died long before the world named him a king.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown Number. One word: "Incoming."
He dropped the cigarette onto the rooftop gravel, crushing the ember under his heel. Then he turned and walked back inside, where the table waited, where silence meant power, and everyone already knew the ending.
No one played games with Leon Moretti and lived to tell the story.
⸻
In the shadows of his penthouse later that night, he stood alone in front of an old painting. A woman's silhouette in oil—delicate, faceless. Her memory pressed against him like a bruise that never faded.
"You were the only one who called me human," he whispered.
The city kept breathing below him.
But Leon Moretti stopped feeling anything years ago.