Negotiations stretched long into the night.
Coffee replaced liquor. Cigarettes burned down to filters. Voices rose, then softened again as numbers replaced grudges.
Luke engaged them one by one.
With the Chicago Don, he spoke of unions, pensions, and generational wealth.With the New York families, he spoke of legal insulation and legacy.With the Miami representatives, he spoke of expansion—Caribbean routes, tourism, plausible deniability.
Every argument was tailored.
Every concession calculated.
This was not Michael Corleone the executioner.
This was Michael Corleone the architect.
Tom Hagen would have admired it.
At one point, Barzini's man leaned forward. "And what do you get, Michael? You give up too much."
Luke didn't answer immediately.
He looked around the table—at men who had ordered murders as casually as meals, who had buried sons and brothers in shallow graves for profit.
"I get out," Luke said finally.
That was the truth.
And they could hear it.
The final holdout was the oldest Don in the room, a man whose hands trembled slightly as he lifted his glass.
"You really believe this lasts?" the old man asked. "That the world lets men like us go clean?"
Luke met his gaze without flinching.
"No," he said. "I believe the world stops noticing us."
That was better.
The agreement was signed before dawn.
No blood spilled.
No helicopters falling from the sky.
Just ink.
As the men departed one by one, Luke remained seated, alone at the table.
The System flickered faintly at the edge of his vision.
[World of Remorse — Major Narrative Deviation Detected]Outcome: AcceptedReason: Higher-order stability achievedKarma Accrual: Pending (Long-Term Resolution)
Luke exhaled slowly.
Michael Corleone's original story had ended in isolation and regret, his power hollow and his family broken.
This version bent another way.
The underworld had been bought off—not with fear, but with inevitability.
Outside, the sun rose over the Atlantic, glinting off casino glass and restless water.
For the first time since entering this world, Luke allowed himself a small, private thought:
This might actually work.
And somewhere deep in the machinery of fate, something dangerous began to realize it was losing its grip.