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“To finish this, we need the Ventresca corridor.”

Need.

That was a word I disliked. Need implied weakness, dependence. But facts didn’t care about my personal preferences and what I liked or disliked.

The Narrows was everything. Three miles of inland road connecting the docks to the freeway. But it lay in private ownership by the Ventresca family. It had been in their control for as long as anyone could remember, maybe forever. Because the Ventresca family were not known to be generous when it came to giving up land.

It had been handed down from one generation to another. And then another. No one crossed it without permission. And Domenico Ventresca refused to sell.

Stubborn old wolf.

I tapped ash into the tray.

“How much are they bleeding?”

Matteo understood the question.

Ventresca’s current debts meant they had to sell something to ease the pressure. The only problem was that Ventresca would sell his own soul before he sold a foot of land.

“Enough to make the old man nervous,” he said. “But it’s not enough to make him desperate.”

That was not ideal. Desperate men did stupid things. Like sell their long held family plots. But nervous men stalled, hoping for a solution that would solve all their problems. In the case of Ventresca, he always seemed to find a way out, somehow.

I stood and walked to the rain-streaked window. The sea below was black. Restless. The city behind us glowed gold and ugly. My city. Or close enough.

Expansion didn’t mean I was greedy. It just meant I was hungry. I was thinking of the bigger picture. Survival of the fittest.

Standing still in our world meant you got left behind. And I had not spent eighteen years building Orsini power to let it stall because of one stubborn piece of inherited dirt.

Behind me, the warehouse door opened.

One of my captains, Nico Ferraro entered. There was blood on his knuckles. I could always trust him to be useful, reliable, and violent.

“Problem?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Alessandro’s men got a little loud outside.”

“And?”

Nico shrugged.

“Quiet as mice now.”

I turned back to the map and looked at the block of Ventresca land. I’d offered money before and been rejected. More money than its value, because the land’s value lay in what it could do for me.

Domenico was old-school. He believed in all the things; honor, legacy, pride. Men like him would lose millions before letting another family claim what their bloodline had built.

That was foolish, if you asked me. Foolish but predictable.

Matteo joined me by the table, watching me cautiously.

“There is another option.”

I looked at him.

He hesitated. Which interested me. Matteo rarely hesitated.