by ThePaperWarden
Nicky Rizzo was fifteen when he learned that the most dangerous man in the room didn’t have to throw a punch. Brooklyn, 1977. Nicky’s father owes eight thousand four hundred dollars to men who have stopped believing his promises. When Frank Rizzo takes his son into the back room of a neighborhood social club, Nicky watches him beg, bleed, and humiliate himself while the men beating him talk about dinner like it is any other Tuesday. Vincent D’Amato never touches Frank. He barely raises his voice. When he finally lifts one hand, everyone in the room stops. That is what stays with Nicky afterward. Not the blood. Not his father crying on the floor. The obedience. From then on, Nicky starts finding reasons to go back. An envelope here. A message there. A collection nobody important wants to make. He listens. He learns. And piece by piece, he begins to understand the rules of a world his father was never important enough to teach him. Money can buy comfort. Violence can buy fear. But Nicky wants what Vincent has. And he has already decided which side of the room he intends to end up on.
