The strike did not come from New York.
It came from Washington.
Luke felt it before he saw it—an old pressure, familiar from history books and grainy black-and-white footage. The kind of pressure that didn't need warrants to ruin lives, only microphones.
The leak broke on a Tuesday morning.
Not explosive.Not dramatic.
Methodical.
Folders from the late 1950s and 1960s—committee memos, half-redacted testimonies, handwritten annotations—surfaced across three major newspapers at once. The framing was identical, down to the phrasing.
"Is the Vito Corleone Foundation a Sophisticated Money-Laundering Front?"
The articles reached backward in time with surgical precision, dredging up names from the Hoffa era, dock unions, construction firms that no longer existed, and men long dead but still useful as ghosts.
The implication was clear.
A tiger doesn't change its stripes.
If the Corleone money once moved through blood and concrete, then surely—surely—it still did.
The goal was not prosecution.
It was contamination.
Luke watched the reaction ripple outward.
Morning news programs speculated loudly.Evening panels argued "both sides."Late-night hosts joked nervously.
And beneath it all, a quieter maneuver unfolded.
A Vatican intermediary paused communications.A ceremonial schedule shifted—tentatively.The word delay appeared where confirmation had been expected.
The Papal Knighthood was not revoked.
It was… reconsidered.
Luke smiled faintly.
So this was the play.
The enemy logic was old, reliable, and lazy.
Charity is camouflage.Legitimacy is a costume.Men like Michael Corleone only learn better manners, not better morals.
They wanted him to defend himself publicly.
To deny.To explain.To argue.
Because argument meant doubt.
And doubt meant rot.
The System surfaced.
[Karma Store — Tactical Cognitive Enhancement Available]• Genius-Level Analytical AbilityCost: 400 KarmaEffect: Pattern Deconstruction, Ledger-Based Truth Modeling, Probabilistic Counter-Exposure
Luke didn't hesitate.
He purchased it.
The world reorganized.
Not emotionally—structurally.
Luke no longer saw accusations.
He saw flows.
Money trails.Time gaps.Statistical impossibilities.
The attack wasn't about the Foundation's present.
It was about the absence of absolute proof in the past.
So Luke decided not to argue about morality.
He would argue about math.
The move shocked everyone.
Michael Corleone's legal team announced—without fanfare—that the family's 1970–1979 tax returns would be opened voluntarily to an independent audit.
Not government.
Not congressional.
A "Big Four" firm—fictionalized for the era, internationally respected, obsessively conservative.
No limits.No redactions.No deadlines.
The announcement was one paragraph long.
There was no press conference.
The media didn't know how to react.
They had expected outrage.
Denial.
Litigation.
Instead, they received… paperwork.
Mountains of it.
Ledgers.Invoices.Bank reconciliations.Cross-border transfer justifications.
Week after week, the auditors worked.
And found nothing.
No laundering.No circular flows.No unexplained gaps.
What they did find was boring.
Painfully boring.
Legal structuring.Overpayment of taxes.Conservative reporting.
The image war stalled.
But it wasn't over.
Because the real battlefield had never been public.
The meeting happened at night.
No aides.No phones.No record.
A dark room in a government building that prided itself on forgetting things.
The Senator arrived first—gray-haired, composed, furious beneath the surface. A veteran of moral performances, a man who had once admired the televised certainty of the 1958 hearings.
Michael Corleone entered quietly.
No jacket.No tie.
He sat across the table.
They did not shake hands.
"You've embarrassed powerful people," the Senator said.
Michael nodded once. "That was not my intention."
"Your foundation is a provocation."
Michael looked at him calmly. "It is a hospital."
The Senator scoffed. "You think numbers absolve history?"
Michael did not answer.
Instead, he slid a thin folder across the table.
Just one.
The Senator did not touch it at first.
Then he did.
And his expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Subtly.
A man recognizing his own reflection in a mirror he did not expect.
Offshore accounts.Shell trusts.Timing discrepancies.
Nothing illegal.
Everything unethical.
Michael leaned forward slightly.
His voice was quiet.
"I am trying to be a better man," he said.Then, almost gently:"Are you?"
Silence filled the room.
Not tension.
Recognition.
The Senator closed the folder.
Pushed it back.
"There will be no further inquiry," he said.
Michael stood.
He did not thank him.
He did not threaten him.
He simply left.
Two days later, the investigation dissolved.
No announcement.No victory lap.
Just a quiet retraction buried beneath international news.
The Vatican confirmed the ceremony would proceed as scheduled.
The press moved on.
The image held.
The System chimed softly.
[Image War Resolution: SUCCESS]• Public Trust: Preserved• Papal Knighthood: Secured• Political Hostility: Neutralized via Strategic Silence
Karma Gained: +260(Truth Without Performance, Moral Asymmetry)
Luke exhaled slowly.
This was the difference between power and legitimacy.
Power crushed enemies.
Legitimacy forced them to confront themselves.
Michael Corleone had not argued his innocence.
He had outgrown the argument.
And in doing so, he had passed another invisible threshold.
The enemies would still come.
They always did.
But now, they would come carefully.
Quietly.
Afraid not of what Michael Corleone might do—
—but of what he might already know.