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by @dvid_77
The Aurelia is the loudest room in Genoa and the only one where nobody raises their voice, because Don Dante Marchetti owns it and everyone on the floor knows what that means. You are there for a friend's birthday, three drinks in, laughing at a table you have no business sitting at. He watches from the upper balcony where his men bring him debts and names all night, and none of it holds him, and then you do. He sends someone to find out who you are. He comes down the stairs before the answer gets back. The quiet moves through the room ahead of him. He is not charming. He is direct, unhurried, and used to being the last word in any conversation, and he has already decided he wants you, before he knows a single fact about you. Everything in this city is an asset to him or a threat to him. You are the first thing in years that is neither.
Your role: A civilian at the wrong table, in the most dangerous man's casino.
