Chapter Text
Giorno Giovanna could tell by the sound alone that it was Fugo standing at his bedroom door. Five rapid knocks, loud enough to be assertive but never imposing; the consigliere’s perfectly calculated deference.
The room was muggy, Giorno had woken up in a sweat and had been trying for a while now to will himself to get up and open the balcony doors. Maybe Fugo could get them for him, if he let him in.
“Enter,” Giorno called out, but the doors didn’t open, making him wonder if Fugo had given up and left.
He sat up. Sunlight trickled in between the cracks in the curtains. It was impossible to guess the time, but it had to be very early, Giorno surmised, because his mind was still thick with the dregs of sleep. Had he perhaps dreamt the knocks? But just as he was about to settle back into his pillows, the door opened and Fugo stepped inside.
"Don Giovanna," Fugo said. The door shut behind him softly.
“What’s so important you have to wake me up so…” Giorno began, but his voice trailed off as he glanced at the clock on his nightstand and realized it was already noon.
Being the Don of Passione was, he’d discovered, an exercise in profound monotony. The first few years had been bloody and messy, but now, when everything ran like clockwork – his capos managed their territories, his accountants laundered the money, his enforcers maintained the peace – Giorno found himself with nothing to do but watch it run, this perfectly constructed, frictionless machine.
He often slept late simply because there was no compelling reason to be awake.
He sighed and let his head fall back against the mountain of silk pillows.
“My apologies,” Fugo said, snapping his shoes together, standing ramrod straight. “I’ll come back later.”
It had been five years since Giorno had welcomed Fugo back into Passione, an act of grace which Fugo had never taken for granted. Five years, and Pannacotta Fugo still moved with the cautious air of a man on permanent probation, paying for his sins with flawless work, a relentless, punishing perfectionism. A man trying to erase the ghost of the boy who had once run away when it had mattered the most.
But even for Fugo, this amount of groveling was too much.
Giorno swung his legs over the side of the bed, feet searching for the slippers on the floor. The silk sheets pooled around his slender waist. His hair, a tangled halo of gold, fell into his eyes. He pushed it back and motioned for Fugo to step further inside.
“No, no, you’re already here. Just tell me whatever you came to tell me,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He yawned. “Please. Could you crack open a window for me?”
Fugo seemed relieved to have something to do as he moved to the balcony. The heavy glass doors slid open easily, letting in a gust of wind, and he drew back the thick curtains from the windows, flooding the room with light. His entire persona was quavering with nervousness.
“I’m guessing you’re not here just to act as my valet?” Giorno asked.
"No, Don Giovanna, I have some news.”
Fugo stood in front of the open balcony doors, a slight breeze tugged at his blonde locks, still that same haircut, the one that reminded Giorno of a bygone era. If Giorno asked Fugo to cut it, he was sure he would.
"I gathered as much,” Giorno said, trying to imagine what Fugo would look like with short hair. “What news?"
“Well…” Fugo’s gaze flickered towards the door, like he was looking for an escape. Hesitation was a deeply uncharacteristic trait for Fugo, and it immediately set Giorno’s senses on high alert.
“Fugo!”
"Fine.” Fugo took a deep breath. “Well. It's about… It’s about Mista."
When he later thought back on this moment, Giorno couldn’t remember for certain, but he was sure he must have gasped.
The name had shattered the room's sleepy tranquility. Suddenly, the sunlight pouring through the balcony doors felt harsh, and the air, which had just now been pleasantly thick with the Neapolitan cocktail of city and sea, just smelled foul.
Mista.
They didn’t use that name around him. It was an unspoken rule, perhaps the single most important piece of etiquette in the entire organization.
"What about…” Giorno hesitated. Beneath the silk of his sheets, his heart began beating a frantic beat against his ribs. ”What about Mista?"
“There’s a rumor that he's gotten himself in some trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
"Legal trouble.”
“Legal trouble?” Giorno repeated and exhaled, releasing tension he wasn’t aware he had been holding in.
He let the words sink in and scowled at Fugo for acting like he had come to deliver news about Mista being shot down in an alley or something… Legal trouble. It could mean just about anything, but what it most definitely meant was police, judges, possibly newspapers.
“It’s all here,” Fugo said, holding up a folder.
“A report and everything…” Giorno said coolly, leaning back against the headboard. "Thank you for going through all this trouble, Fugo, but I don't see how any of this is my problem."
“With all due respect, Don Giovanna,” Fugo insisted, his voice firm but careful. “A founding member being dragged through the courts reflects on all of us. It could be seen as a weakness. And it could possibly put a target on Mista’s back.”
A cold knot tightened in Giorno's stomach, a feeling he hadn't experienced in years: worry.
How he had used to worry about Mista.
That had been the basis of all their arguments. Giorno worrying too much, Mista not worrying enough.
“He is no longer a member of this organization,” Giorno stated flatly, transforming his face into an unreadable mask. “Besides… If he really wanted my help, he could’ve asked me myself. Why would he go to you?”
“He didn’t ask for my help,” Fugo said. “I heard it from one of our sources in the Carabinieri.”
“So it’s just a rumor?”
Fugo scoffed, obviously insulted. “Of course not, you think I’d come to you with rumors? No, I’ve done my due diligence. It all checks out.” Fugo stepped forward, placing the thin folder on the nightstand, next to a glass of water. "All the details are in there."
They both looked at the folder like it was some kind of deadly animal, ready to strike. Giorno felt queasy, like he’d been drinking all night, or eaten something that had turned bad.
“He really needs your help…” Fugo started.
“That would be all,” Giorno said, cutting him off. “Thank you, Fugo. You may leave now.”
Following a quick lunch, Giorno found himself wandering the manicured paths of his garden, deep in thought. The sun was sitting high, fierce and white-hot; the forecast had said the temperatures would rise well above 30 this afternoon, with little to no breeze to offer relief. Giorno pushed damp hair away from his face. A trickle of sweat was rolling down the back of his neck even though he was keeping his pace down to a leisurely stroll.
He had read Fugo’s report during lunch, and sure, Mista was in a whole lot of trouble, but nothing the muscles of Don Giovanna couldn’t fix. The lawyers on Passione's payroll could get Mista off the hook in no time. And if they couldn’t, well… Giorno had other professions on his payroll that could make a jury, or even a judge, change their minds. All he had to do was make a few calls, pull a couple of strings – it would be insultingly easy, barely an exertion on his part – and he’d be able to help Mista out, all without Mista ever knowing.
So why then was he hesitating?
A barely-there breeze made the trees above him rustle, made the flowers bend. Giorno stopped and closed his eyes, relishing in the cool wind against his skin.
Mista, he thought, and his heart vaulted in his chest like someone had suddenly shocked it alive. He opened his eyes and said the name out loud. “Mista.”
The taste of the name on his tongue, a phantom sensation of metal and gunpowder and something sweet, almost like blood. Mista. A name he had whispered so many times, moaned into sweat-damp pillows, choked on in moments of grief. For ten years, he had starved himself of it, and now he couldn’t stop tasting it.
“Mista,” he said again. He licked his lips, a thrill shot through him like he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. “Guido Mista.”
It was funny how he rarely dwelled on their big moments – like their first real kiss, or the passionate, desperate way they had first come together. Instead, his mind always returned to the inconsequential details.
Like the exact weight of Mista’s hand. He could conjure the feeling of it with perfect clarity: the dry warmth of Mista’s palm, the shooter's calluses on his index finger and thumb. He remembered the comforting weight of it resting on his stomach as they lay in bed, like an anchor in the dark, grounding him. And he still remembered the way Mista would quickly squeeze his hand as they walked through a crowded market, a rare and risky public gesture, and when he’d look at Mista’s face, he would see the tiniest hint of a smile, making butterflies flutter in his belly.
Small things like that, adding up to a whole.
For the first few months after it had ended, Giorno had kept tabs on Mista.
This was long before Fugo had rejoined Passione, so Giorno had found one subordinate that he trusted, a low level soldato, one of the grey men, utterly replaceable, whose name Giorno never bothered to learn. He never saw the man’s face, but every Friday, a plain manila envelope would appear on his desk.
Sometimes the words on the typewritten pages were agony. Mista shacked up with a woman for a while, then a few weeks later it was some man, then another woman, and another, until Giorno realized Mista must have figured out he was being watched, and that each new lover was an act of defiance, a message aimed squarely at Giorno.
Giorno had taken the not-so-subtle hint.
Besides, Mista was becoming a distraction, a weakness the newly made boss of Passione could not afford. So, with great resolve, Giorno had forced himself to let Mista go.
But Fugo’s news today had brought the ghost of Mista back to life.
Giorno stopped walking, the memory of their last fight hitting him like a kick to the gut. It hadn't been one thing, but a hundred small things culminating into that fight. Of course it had ended dramatically – was anything with Mista ever lowkey and subtle? The slam of a half-packed suitcase on the marble floor. Mista’s voice, raw and ragged, shouting, 'What's the point of being a king if you live in a fucking cage, Giorno?!' And his own voice, cold and clipped in reply, a voice he barely recognized, saying things he’d always regret. And then Mista had stormed off. And Giorno had been sure he would come back. He always came back.
Only, this last time, he didn’t.
And he still hadn’t.
It hurt Giorno that Mista hadn’t come to him, and perhaps it was his pride that made him consider doing nothing to help. Pride, and the fear of being hurt again. He had cut Mista out of his life once because the pain had been too much to bear; was he ready to invite it all back in?
But as he weighed that fear, a more terrifying thought surfaced. The memory of their last fight was agonizing, and yet, it was also the last time he had truly felt anything. The last ten years had not been peaceful; they had been silent. Not calm, but numb. He had mistaken the lack of feeling for peace.
The taste of Mista’s name on his lips lingered, and he realized that the universe had opened itself up to him, revealing a tear in the fabric of his controlled world: a point of entry back into a life that had once mattered. He couldn’t throw that chance away, could he?
He turned and walked briskly back towards the villa. His decision was perfectly clear, there really was no other option: he would travel to Rome himself to help Mista.