Would Forlenza kill his own godson? No.

Would Michael Corleone kill his new hotshot capo? Who could imagine?

That left Chicago.

Michael had managed to hit Chicago without killing a single one of Russo’s men. Michael would thus not have to worry about Russo seeking revenge. The only tangible loss Russo would suffer was that now he’d come to the peace table dealing from a position of weakness. But that was all Michael needed.

The most difficult decision Michael had made was to kill Geraci.

Without question, Geraci had done a brilliant job with the drug business, but his aggressiveness was an issue. His ambition was boundless, larger than even he himself understood. Though he’d been unswervingly loyal, his connection to Forlenza would always be a concern. He’d always be sore about Tessio. And when Michael had made Fredo sotto capo, Geraci had asked him, in public, if he’d lost his mind. They’d been at dinner at Patsy’s. No one else had been at the table. No one else had heard. Geraci had apologized. But few Dons would tolerate such disrespect. It might have seemed petty, but it convinced Michael Corleone that all the smaller concerns about him were well founded and destined to grow more severe.

Still, only the last justified having Geraci killed. Even that might have been forgiven. There had been no betrayal. Geraci’s assets easily outweighed his liabilities. Michael liked him.

Sacrificing Fausto Geraci, Jr., was not what Vito Corleone would have done.

It was, rather, the act of a marine who’d seen at least a thousand good men die, seemingly at random: a necessary evil swapped for the chance to achieve a greater good.

It was a perfect plan, unless it was true that one of the men had survived.

Clemenza had lied, too.

Michael’s initiation was not the only time he’d seen the Don like that. Still frail from his own gunshot wounds, Vito had returned home from burying Santino so wracked with grief it haunted everyone who’d seen it. Michael hadn’t seen it. The people who had-Michael’s mother, his sister and her husband, his brothers, Tom and Fredo, and Pete Clemenza, who, soon after the sobbing started, embraced his friend and went home, leaving the family to themselves-carried with them the image of that broken man and the sounds of his horrible wails. They had never spoken of it, not to one another and certainly not to anyone who hadn’t been there, not even Michael.

Several people who’d been at the Fontane show made an appearance in the rotating ballroom. A reception, that’s all it seemed to be. There was no discernible mass exodus of the union officials, orchestra members, or women. As far as any of the thirteen new men might have been able to tell, one moment those other people were there. The next, made members of the Corleone Family were carrying two long tables, already covered with white linen tablecloths, to the center of the parquet dance floor, and every single one of the outsiders was gone.

Someone hit the lights.

Throughout the room, men put hands on the shoulders of the inductees and in hoarse whispers congratulated them (there would have been fourteen if Fredo hadn’t made Figaro miss his plane). These were men the new guys had looked up to for years-running their neighborhoods, dressed in tailored suits and holding forth in barbershops and at lunch counters and on empty peach crates in front of certain garages, driv-ing fancy cars and fucking fancier women, dispensing favors and looking out for their own, running a court of last resort for a maligned people who needed one, operating in a world that, back then, had seemed mysterious, powerful, and unattainable. Outside the dark ballroom, oblivious tourists swam in the rooftop pool.

When the ballroom lights came back up, the table was set: thirteen place settings, each with a votive candle, a holy card, a dagger, and-in a gesture meant to denote the Family’s expansion into the Wild West (Fredo’s idea, in other words)-a gleaming, unloaded Colt.45.

The thirteen new men were shown to their places. The others-fifty-two of them were able to make it, some who’d been at the show, some who’d slipped into town and into the Castle in the Sand just for this-sat in the chairs around the circle.

Michael Corleone sat with the rest of his men. He milked the silence. He was not a superstitious man, but he worked with superstitious men and he knew that they were counting and recounting the number of men in the middle and not liking it that the number kept being thirteen. But the risk of letting them dwell on that pointless coincidence seemed worth the reward of letting the men at the tables stew in their barely concealed anxiety. To a person, they were transparently trying, and failing, to look as if this were just another moment in their lives. They knew who he was and that he was in charge of this, and so it was comical to watch them try not to look at him. He could hear the voice of Sergeant Bradshaw, his old DI: Your fool deniiiies fear. A maRINE is unafraid to admit fear. Your fool scoffs at danger. Your fool ignorrrrrres danger. In the face of danger, a… MARINE… IGNORES… NOTHING.

At last Michael stood.

“Let me tell you the story of a boy,” he said, approaching the tables. “He was born one thousand, one hundred and forty years ago in the Sicilian countryside, near the town of Corleone. His childhood was one of wealth and happiness, until, at the age of twelve, the Arab hordes, on their way north through the mountains, slaughtered the boy’s parents. The boy, hiding in a clay pot, peeked out and saw the blade of a scimitar decapitate his mother, and from the dead lips of her severed head she shouted words of love to her only son. These murders were acts of savagery. The Arabs were protecting nothing, avenging nothing. They did not so much as pick a tomato from the vine, a grape from the field, or an olive from the grove. They killed for the sake of killing and proceeded north toward their objective, Palermo.”

Michael took a cigar from the breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket. More than one of the men at the tables rubbed their damp palms against the sides of their thighs.

“The boy’s name,” said Michael, “was Leolucas.” Michael paused to light the cigar and let the importance of the name sink in. “Though only twelve years old, he managed not only to run his family’s estate but also to work the land as long and as hard as someone twice his age. But as the years passed, he heard, in the solitude of the fields, a summons to his one true destiny. He sold his assets, gave his money to the poor, and became a monk. After many years, he returned to the village of his youth, where he performed countless selfless acts and was beloved by all who knew him. He died peacefully in his bed at the age of one hundred.”

“Cent’anni!” shouted Clemenza. Every man who had a drink knocked it back.

“Five hundred years later,” Michael said, circling the men at the tables, “the intercession of Leolucas protected the town of Corleone from an outbreak of the Black Plague. And in 1860, more than a thousand years after his death, Leolucas avenged the murders of his parents by appearing as a tower of white flame before the occupying army of the Bourbon French, spooking them from Corleone and into the hands of Garibaldi, who drove them from Sicily altogether. These miracles, and many others at the site of his tomb, were affirmed by the Holy Father in Rome. Leo-lucas is now and forever-” Michael took a regal puff of his cigar, strode to one of the tables, and took the holy card from in front of Tommy Neri, who was one of the thirteen. He kissed the card and set it back down. “-the patron saint of Corleone. Gentlemen?”

He made a sweeping motion with his hand. Each of the thirteen kissed the pasteboard image of St. Leolucas.

“Only a few years after the terrifying appearance of Saint Leolucas in the tower of flame,” Michael said, “in a cottage adjoining the fields once owned and tilled by the sainted Leolucas, another boy was born. His childhood was also happy, until, also at the age of twelve, men came to kill his father. The murder was accomplished with three blasts from a lupara. His mother was stabbed. Gutted, like an animal. Mortally wounded, she, too, managed to shout words of love to her son. The boy escaped. The murderers came after him, knowing that someday he would try to kill them. That man’s name-” Michael took another long draw off the cigar. He felt his own destiny flow through him. “-was Vito Andolini. He immigrated, alone, to the cold shores of America, where, to keep the murderers from finding him, he changed his surname, adopting the name of his hometown. It was one of the few sentimental gestures he ever made, all having to do in some way with la famiglia”-and here he smacked his chest with his fist-“with his beloved figliolanza”-and here he touched his chin. “He worked hard, helped his friends, built an empire, and never harbored an immodest thought. One day he did indeed return to Sicily and avenge the death of his parents. Vito Corleone, who earlier this year died peacefully in his beloved garden, was my father. I, Michael Corleone, am his son. But”-and he indicated the men in the outer circle-“these men of honor, too, are la famiglia Corleone. If you wish to be with us, we invite you to be reborn as such.”