Don Lonely

The skyline of Manhattan is a jagged crown of glass and gold, and from the sixty-fourth floor, it belongs to me.

I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Most people look at New York and see chaos—the frantic hive of yellow taxis, the press of bodies, the relentless, grinding noise. Dante hates it. He says the city smells like decay and greed. But I love it. I love the way the concrete seems to vibrate with ambition, the way the lights of the skyscrapers mimic the stars we used to watch from the hills of Tuscany.

When I moved the operations from Arizona to New York five years ago, I felt like a god stepping into his kingdom. I had big dreams then. I wanted to take the Moretti name from a desert secret to a global powerhouse. I wanted to be the center of the world’s pulse. And I succeeded. I’ve reached every milestone I set for myself. My ledgers are full, my rivals are buried, and my name is a prayer or a curse, depending on who is speaking it.

Yet, as the sun dips below the Hudson, casting a bruised purple hue over the city, the silence in this office is absolute. It is a heavy, expensive thing that settles in the corners of the room like dust. I am one of the most powerful men in the city, but the only person who has entered this room today without an appointment or a weapon is my own reflection in the glass.

The digital chime of my security system breaks the quiet. A small, blue light pulses on my desk. Subject has entered the lobby.

I check my Patek Philippe. 5:15 PM.

He’s late, of course. Dante has never respected the clock, probably because he’s the only Moretti who actually has time to waste. I pour a glass of neat scotch from the crystal decanter, the amber liquid catching the dying light. I should be angry. I should be preparing the verbal execution I’m about to deliver. Instead, I find myself standing still, listening to the hum of the air filtration system, waiting for the only person left on this continent who shares my blood.

While I wait, the ghosts of our past begin to pace the room.

I close my eyes for a second and I can almost smell the lemon trees of our villa in Tuscany. We are “Irish twins,” barely a year between us, two halves of a dangerous whole. Growing up, I was Dante’s shadow. I was the younger one, the one who followed him through the tall grass, the one who copied the way he held a fork or kicked a ball. He was the sun and I was the moon, reflecting his light. I didn’t mind it. There was a safety in being the shadow; it meant someone was always standing in front of me, taking the wind.

Then came the Arizona years. Papa moved us to the desert to “Americanize” us, a tactical camouflage that felt more like a prison. We were the foreigners, the boys with the strange accents and the clothes that cost more than the teachers’ cars. We were a two-man army. I remember Dante standing up for me when the local boys tried to test us. I remember him sitting on the hood of his car after high school, his eyes already fixed on the horizon, while I was already sitting in our father’s study, learning how to count the cost of a human life.

The shadows shifted then.

Dante was the firstborn. By the laws of our blood, the crown was his. He was supposed to be the Don. He was the one who was meant to sit in this chair, sign the death warrants, and hold the world in his palm. But Dante looked at the throne and saw a coffin. He didn’t want the weight. He wanted the brushes, the canvas, and the salt air of a coast I’d never seen.

So, he walked away.

I remember the day he told Papa he wouldn’t take it. We expected fire and brimstone. Instead, our father just looked at me. He saw the ambition in my eyes—the hunger that Dante lacked, the coldness that made me the perfect heir. I was twenty-one when they placed the ring on my finger. I was ambitious, eager to prove I was more than just a second-born shadow. I moved us to New York, built this glass fortress, and expanded the empire until it was untouchable.

But there was a price I didn’t calculate.

As soon as the power was consolidated, our parents did something I never expected: they left. They saw the business was in capable hands, and they decided they’d had enough of the war. They packed their bags for a retirement villa in Italy, fleeing the very world they’d raised us to dominate. They left me here to hold the walls up. They left me to be the Don, and in doing so, they left me entirely alone. They send postcards from the Mediterranean while I sit in a triple-paned sanctuary, breathing recycled air.

The elevator pings. The digital hum of the security scanners in the hallway vibrates through the floor.

Dante is here. He’s here because he was reckless. He’s here because he went into Romania like a hero in a movie to save his roommate, Caroline. He played the part of the Don for a girl, using my resources, my signature, and my tactical teams to stage a bloodbath in the Carpathians. He brought the light into my house, and now Interpol is pulling on the threads he left behind.

I feel a sudden, sharp ache in my chest—a phantom limb of the brotherly bond we used to share. For a fleeting moment, I want to drop the scotch glass, walk across the marble, and pull him into a hug. I want to ask him if he’s okay. I want to be the younger brother again, the one who didn’t have to carry the world.

But those kids from Tuscany are dead. The boys from Arizona are gone.

I take a slow sip of the scotch, letting it burn my throat. I straighten my silk tie, ensuring the knot is centered to the millimeter. I smooth the front of my charcoal jacket, feeling the familiar weight of the armor I’ve spent five years perfecting.

I turn my back to the door, looking out at the skyline once more. I want him to see the silhouette of the power he abandoned. I want the room to feel as cold as I do.

The double mahogany doors groan open. I don’t turn around. I listen to his footsteps—the heavy, rhythmic stride of a man who doesn’t care about the price of the floor he’s walking on. He stops in the middle of the room. I can feel his gaze on my back, a mixture of that old defiance and a lingering, irritating pity.

I let the silence stretch. I let the pressure in the room build until the air feels thin.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Dante?”

My voice isn’t a shout. It’s a low, dangerous rasp, a blade drawn slowly from a leather sheath. I finally turn around, my stormy hazel eyes locking onto his.

Dante is leaning against my expensive desk, meeting my gaze with a bored indifference I know is a mask for his own guilt. He’s wearing leather and denim, looking like a man who belongs in the grit of a street corner, not in this glass cage.

“Missed you too, fratello,” (brother) he answers, a sharp smirk tugging at his lips.

“Don’t,” I snap, my voice like a whip. I just stand there, vibrating with a terrifying, controlled stillness. “You’re supposed to be out, Dante. Brushes and canvas, remember? But the second your little friend gets into trouble, you reach into my pocket and pull out a private army without so much as a phone call? You used family resources without my consent. You compromised my entire Eastern European network.”

“It was time-sensitive, Enzo,” he says, his voice dropping the sarcasm. “Caroline was being held by a lunatic who was going to broadcast her execution. I did what I had to do to save her.”

I take a step toward him, closing the distance until we are chest-to-chest. I am the Don, and he is a liability.

“You did what you had to do to look like a Don,” I counter. “Because of your stunt, Interpol has flagged the shell companies we use for logistics in Bucharest. They aren’t just looking at the bodies you left in the woods; they’re looking at the flight manifests of the private planes you used to move them. They’re looking at the digital signatures of the encrypted comms you hijacked. You’ve handed them a map to our offshore accounts on a silver platter.”

The air in the room is electric. I look at my brother, the only person left in the world who truly knows me, and I see the distance between us is wider than the ocean our parents crossed.

“They’ve found the shells, Dante. Because you were sloppy, Interpol has a thread. And they are pulling on it.”

“I was saving a life, Enzo. Speed was the priority over stealth.”

“And now the priority is survival,” I counter. I walk slowly around the desk, my movements predatory. “You wanted to be a ghost? Fine. But ghosts don’t leave DNA and satellite pings across the Carpathian Mountains. You brought the light into my house. Now you’re going to help me put it out.”

I stop inches from him. I am the king of a glass cage, and right now, I am going to make sure my brother stays in the cage with me.

“You’re staying in New York,” I state. It isn’t a request. “You’ll be at the office by eight every morning. You’ll sit in the legal briefings. You’ll sign the depositions that say you were here, in Manhattan, overseeing a merger during the dates in question. You will play the role of the loyal Moretti heir until every last file at Interpol is redacted or burned.”

“And how long is that supposed to take?” he asks, his jaw tight.

“As long as it takes,” I reply. I don’t blink. “Could be a month. Could be a year. You don’t leave this city until I say the air is clear.”

Dante looks at me with a mixture of resentment and shock. I turn my back on him again, returning to the view of the city I love. I wait for him to leave, for the silence to return, knowing that even with him here, the cold isn’t going anywhere.