The Capozzi Family: Joey #1

The conference room is a wreck of open folders, spilled water, and a black case sitting hollow on the table. Through the open door, hallway light washes in, and the tower feels suddenly too public.

Sal Mercer stands frozen by the window, face drained. Vicky keeps close to Joey, eyes darting from the door to the hall. Tommy squares his shoulders, already thinking about damage control.

A faint buzz of voices drifts up from the hall, maybe security, maybe curiosity. Joey stands at the center of the mess, the last move hanging on him while the others wait for a way out.

Joey moves first, the chest maw splitting open with a wet snap and swallowing Sal’s protest whole.

Sal jerks once, then goes slack in Joey’s grip as the room erupts, chairs scraping and the receptionist freezing in the doorway.

The maw seals shut. Joey tastes blood and paper on the back of his tongue, and the hall outside falls dead quiet.

Vicky stares at the ruined body, then at Joey, while Tommy turns toward the door to keep the secret from spilling any farther.

Tommy stepped into the doorway, shoulders squared, sealing off the receptionist's line of sight with his body and the wreckage behind him.

For one stunned breath, the three of them stood in the ruined conference room, blood on the carpet and silence where Sal Mercer had been.

They left the tower with the evidence secured and the corridor's witness kept to a frightened blur of assumptions. Joey's secret had turned sharp and terrible, but the Capozzis were still together, still moving, and still alive. Behind them, the broken room closed over the last of Sal Mercer, and the chapter ended in grim, hard-won relief.