The lounge was dim, drowned in the kind of smoke that never cleared. Shadows clung to the velvet walls, broken only by the amber glow of whiskey glasses catching firelight. Men sat scattered across leather chairs and low tables, brokers, killers, and dons with blood under their fingernails. And at the center of it all, he sat.

Relaxed. One leg crossed over the other. Fingers curled lazily around a crystal glass. The rival. He didn’t need to speak much. His silence was command enough. Every laugh that echoed, every glass that clinked—was only because he allowed it. Tonight, there was talk. The kind that traveled fast through smoke-filled corridors of the underworld.