“You moved it well,” he says.
“I moved it.”
A pause.
“Yes,” he agrees.
We walk in silence for a few steps.
“Giulio won’t let it go,” he continues. “He’ll test the alliance.”
“Yes.”
“And your son.”
“Yes.”
Salvatore glances at me. “You’re confident the marriage will stabilize him.”
“No.”
That earns a longer look. “Then why proceed?”
I don’t slow. “Because leaving him unbound guarantees escalation,” I say. “This introduces consequence.”
“And if he resists it?”
“He will.”
“And then?”
“Then the system responds.”
Salvatore studies that. “That’s not confidence,” he says.
“It’s calculation.”
We reach the end of the corridor. He stops.
“And if the calculation is wrong?” he asks.
I pause. Not because I don’t have an answer. Because the answer doesn’t require discussion.
“Then it will be corrected,” I decide to say.
“How?”
I look at him. He already knows. Correction, in our world, is not theory. It’s action. It’s removal. It’s whatever is required to restore balance.
I don’t answer. Salvatore nods once—he understands. We continue walking.
The system holds.
For now.
Chapter 3
The Killing
