Act X – Chapter 28 "The Legend"
10 months later.
The doors of Nevada State Prison opened onto an ordinary morning.
Léo walked out without ceremony, a light bag over his shoulder, eyes squinting in the outside light. Nobody was waiting for him. He hadn't needed anyone.
He stood on the sidewalk for a second, breathed in the Las Vegas air, then got into the car waiting at the end of the drive.
He had one visit to make before anything else.
High Desert
High Desert Penitentiary was forty minutes away.
Léo knew the drive by heart.
He dropped his things at the front desk, passed through the checks, and took his seat behind the glass.
A few minutes later, Gregorio appeared on the other side, hands in his pockets, unhurried, like someone who had learned to inhabit a place without letting it inhabit him.
He picked up the phone.
Léo did the same.
"So. You're free, kid."
"Yeah. How much time do you have left?"
"Nine more years in this rat hole. But don't worry, I'm settled in fine. Got decent company."
"Good then."
Gregorio looked him over, slowly, with the gaze of someone who assesses without bothering to hide it.
"I'm guessing you're not here to talk about my cell situation."
Léo hesitated a moment.
"Actually… I don't know if I'm going to be up to what my father built."
Gregorio laughed — open, without cruelty.
"You think your father felt up to it when he started?"
"I don't know."
"Not at all, my friend. It's precisely because he was never sure of himself that he climbed as high as he did. You should've seen him when he was young. Full of dreams, full of ambition, throwing himself into things like an idiot. He wasn't sharp like you, you know. He took hits. Mistakes. Awful situations, believe me. But God… that man never quit."
"I see."
Léo rested his forearms on the ledge in front of him.
"The problem is I can never solve the company's problems the way he did. That would go against my code."
Gregorio burst out laughing — a real one, loud enough to make two guards turn around.
"Man. In nearly twenty years with the company, he was never able to bend investors the way you did. What do you think? He yelled at you, yeah. But if you only knew how much you stunned him. In private, all he ever talked about was you."
Léo exhaled, nostalgic despite himself.
"What a bastard. He never stopped yelling at me."
"We're hardest on the ones we love, kid. And he was never as hard on anyone else as he was on you."
"Should I take that as a compliment?"
"Take it as a fact."
Gregorio leaned slightly toward the glass.
"Whatever your code is… never forget who you are. Look at yourself. You wanted to be a superhero and everyone laughed at you. Today your name is spoken with respect. Did you know the kids on Stewart Avenue tag 'the hero' on the walls?"
Léo paused.
"I figured that was just kids playing around."
"No, my friend. That's your legend. The legend of the one who brought investors to their knees without using the same methods as everyone else."
"Come on, you're exaggerating."
"Not one bit, kid."
Gregorio leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, gaze straight.
"Despite your age, you went further than your father. You're not just a symbol of fear to rival companies. You're a symbol, full stop. They fear you as much as they admire you. You've got the power. Now it's on you to figure out what you do with it. And me…"
He gave a rare, genuine smile.
"I believe in whatever path you'll take. Whatever you choose."
"Visit over," the guard announced from the hallway.
Gregorio stood without rushing, picked up the receiver one last time.
"We'll see each other again, kid. So until then… give me something to dream about."
Léo hung up.
He looked at the empty glass for a moment.
Then he stood, collected his things from the front desk, stepped out into the Nevada light, and got in the car.
Las Vegas was waiting.
Coming Home
The reconstruction work was nearly finished.
Léo stepped out of the car and looked up at the hotel facade. Scaffolding still clung to the sides, but the structure was there — solid, recognizable.
The guards posted at the entrance stopped dead when they saw him coming.
Then the first one smiled.
Then the second.
And before he reached the door, a large banner unfurled from the first-floor balcony.
Welcome back, boss.
Léo stopped, looked up at it, and couldn't help but exhale with a smile.
Don Javier's men gathered around him — noisy, happy, ready to celebrate. Léo thanked them with a look, then raised one hand.
"There's only one thing I want right now. Rest."
One of the men shouted:
"The hero needs rest!"
The others picked it up in chorus, and the party started without him in the lobby, laughter echoing through hallways still under construction.
His Room
His room was exactly as he'd left it.
Simple. Functional. Nothing unnecessary.
He put down his bag, walked to the window, and looked out at the Las Vegas skyline spread before him. He recognized the angle. The exact spot where they'd stood together, her and him, looking at the city like it belonged to them for one night.
He let the memory come without trying to hold it back.
Then his phone buzzed.
"Boss. The two packages are ready for delivery. Are you really sure about this one… You actually asked the rest of the seven great families to gather for a new meeting?"
Léo smiled faintly, Gregorio's words still fresh somewhere inside him.
"Yes. I'm sure. But I need to go somewhere first."
He hung up, set the phone on the bed.
The Shower
He took a shower.
Hot water, silence — and inevitably, the memory of her voice humming behind the half-open door, or showing up in the bathroom without warning with that smile that never asked permission.
He could almost hear her I love yous whispered softly, as if the words had left a mark in the walls.
He opened his eyes.
Dried off.
Pulled his dreadlocks — much longer now — back with a precise gesture.
He put on a black suit. Plain. No ornament.
And he left.
The Cemetery
The cemetery was quiet at that hour.
Léo moved between the rows with flowers in hand, unhurried, like someone who knows a path by heart even if he's never walked it before.
He stopped in front of two graves, side by side.
*Gwen Harper.
Enzo Alvarez.*
There were already many flowers. Recent bouquets, some still fresh. Their deaths had been framed as sacrifice — two officers who'd worked to the end for justice. Gwen had become a model for new recruits: young, determined, fearless in the face of crime.
At least, that's what people said.
Léo set his flowers down gently, then laid his hand flat on the cold stone.
He stood in silence for a moment.
"Well… you've grown up nicely, Léo."
He turned slowly.
"Hmm. Then again, you were already tall back then."
A woman standing one meter sixty-eight stopped a few paces from him. An eye patch. One sharp green eye that didn't blink. Beside her, a young man, roughly one seventy, blond, pale blue eyes, hands in his pockets.
"Madame Virtanen…"
Léo looked at her, then his gaze shifted to the young man.
"What are you doing here?"
A pause.
"What is he doing here?"
The woman raised her hand slightly.
"You can call me Illona — we've been through hell together. Don't worry. He's not going to turn into a massive destructive beast. Your little sister already taught him a lesson he won't be forgetting anytime soon. During the Battle of Los Angeles."
"What guarantees me that?"
Illona smiled.
"Bastien?"
The young man bent forward, blond hair falling over his face, shoulders low.
"My sincere apologies. I've made progress on controlling my ability. I won't harm anyone again."
Léo clenched his fist for a second.
Then, faced with the sincerity of the gesture, he simply said:
"Forget it. Stand up."
Bastien straightened.
Léo extended his hand. Bastien did the same. They shook — brief, clean, no excess warmth but no hostility either.
Léo turned to Illona.
"Why are you here? Still investigating Programme Zero?"
"I'm here to honor an old acquaintance."
She stepped toward Enzo Alvarez's grave and laid roses there, with the care of someone who had rehearsed the gesture in their mind long before doing it.
"You knew him?"
"He was just a kid when I did. I knew him briefly. But I feel I bear some responsibility for what happened to him."
"It wasn't your fault. He made his own choices."
"I should have put out the fire of vengeance in his head before letting him go down that road."
"I see."
Léo didn't answer further.
He looked at the two graves one last time, gave a slight nod, and walked back between the rows in silence — hands in his pockets, black suit dissolving into the shadow of the trees.
The meeting of the seven great families could begin.
The Seven Families
Night had fallen over Las Vegas.
After the welcome-home celebrations, the Javier family's men had transformed into reception staff — tense, precise, aware of what this meeting meant. The last time chairs like these had been arranged in a room, it had ended in open war in the heart of Las Vegas.
Nobody had forgotten.
The arrivals followed one after another in the freshly renovated lobby.
Sofia Almeida. Rio de Janeiro.
Viktor Dragunov. Moscow.
Kenji Sato. Tokyo.
Malik Rahman. Dubai.
Arturo Valdez. Miami.
They took their seats in the prepared room, settled without a word, and waited.
Kenji checked his watch.
"He's late."
"I wonder what he's prepared for us this time," Viktor murmured.
Sofia folded her hands on the table.
"Have you heard what happened to the New York and Chicago operations?"
"Completely wiped out," she said. "Exactly as he claimed last time."
"We can't underestimate this kid anymore," Malik added. "He's a real threat."
The door opened.
Léo entered calmly, sat down in his chair without apologizing for being late, without any introduction. He looked each of them over, slowly, without smiling.
Malik tried to speak.
Léo simply opened his hand.
He went quiet immediately.
Léo raised one finger, counted them one by one, then said calmly:
"There are only five of you."
They all looked at each other.
"We'll fix that."
He gave a discreet nod to one of his men.
The man went pale, knowing exactly what was coming. He left quickly, then returned with a colleague pushing two wheelchairs.
*Giovanni Moretti. Chicago.
Salvatore Romano. New York.*
A shiver ran through the room.
They were there, yes. But what sat in those chairs barely resembled the men the great families had known. Gaunt, nails gone, open sores, barely able to produce anything beyond grunts. Alive, certainly — but with a narrow, humiliating, undignified kind of life.
The young Moretti, beaten down at the previous meeting, was in better shape than either of them today.
Léo looked at them.
"Ah. Now we're all here."
A thick unease filled the room.
Nobody dared speak. Léo waited, patient, for someone to say something.
Nobody moved.
So he spoke.
"As you know, Moretti and Romano unfortunately chose not to heed my warnings at our last meeting. I was forced to push them into early retirement."
Silence.
"Oh, don't worry. Their retirement home takes very good care of them. They get cleaned up, attended to when they can no longer manage on their own. Really, I'm sure no one has ever taken such good care of them."
A nauseating smell briefly drifted through the room.
Moretti let a tear of shame fall.
Léo sighed.
"Ah… the old man had an accident."
He looked at one of his men.
"Take him out and clean him up. He's showing no class whatsoever."
The man wheeled Moretti out without a word.
Sofia, trembling slightly, dared ask the question everyone had been holding back since the start:
"What are you going to do… now that you're at the head of the largest criminal families in the world?"
Léo looked at her.
A shiver.
He thought of Gregorio and what he'd told him about power. He thought of Emilio, of their conversation on Gwen's birthday, of what his father had explained to him that night about each person's role. And against all expectation, at the absolute top of the food chain, facing the most feared names in international crime, he said simply:
"Step away."
Total silence.
"I beg your pardon?" said Viktor.
"You heard me. The Javier family is withdrawing from illegal markets."
They all looked at each other, stunned.
Léo nodded to one of his men, who distributed tablets around the table.
"Pulling out abruptly would cause conflicts, and I have no interest in that. I'm a businessman first and foremost. And I don't want any more war in my city."
He let them look over the tablets.
"You'll find the illegal markets and their revenue figures on your screens. The only war you'll wage is over your bids, right here in this room."
He leaned back slightly.
"If, by some unfortunate accident, you involve the Javier family in a new battle… early retirement always has room for one more."
He signaled his remaining man to wheel Romano out.
"The floor is open. Gentlemen."
That night, Léo had succeeded where his father had failed.
He had stepped away from the criminal world without a single gunshot, without war, without death. The fear his name carried was such that none of the families present seriously considered retaliation. Nobody wanted to end up like the two bosses and lose everything in a single night.
He had followed his father's advice: don't shut it all down, because evil unfortunately has its place in the world, and wiping it out by force only brings more chaos. Selling was the better option.
The proceeds from those sales were methodically redirected to associations for victims of the Las Vegas open war. Others funded the renovation of Stewart Avenue and several low-income neighborhoods. Discreet negotiations with the city's political figures allowed a significant share to be reinvested in police infrastructure.
The successive donations didn't go unnoticed.
The media started talking.
The hero.
Léo had become, on his own, a legend.
To be continued.