The PILOT

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A city at war with itself. The streets empty by 19:30. Twelve murders in two weeks. The old Camorra bosses caged in Poggioreale, and the new princes greedy and ruthless, battling for dominance. And thousands of criminals, released by a government amnesty program, roaming the streets like wolves, hungry to settle vendettas and to oust the usurpers their fiefdoms. 

A condemned building in Quartieri Spagnoli, an old baroque structure gone to seed, metal braces on unstable walls. Nothing much from the outside. Within, a warm oasis. Four floors of crumbling plaster and squatters, mattresses and secondhand couches and graffiti decorating the once-elegant space. Anti-government energy, loud music pushing through the walls.

TITO CALANDRA — twenty-two, tall, muscular, with a preternatural gravity and the electric charge of a canny intellect. And NIKKI SERAFINO — twenty-one, full of sharp observation and ready action, long dark hair, and a child’s full face not yet remade by the decade ahead of her — arrive together. She is confident: in her capability, in her equality to Tito, in the value of their work together, and in their passion for each other. 

The room shifts. Small adjustments. A man near the door straightens, says something to the woman beside him. Across the room, someone catches someone else's eye. 

A man — fifties, heavyset — finds Tito near the door. They embrace. He speaks quietly, close, one hand on Tito's shoulder. Tito listens, nods once. The man moves away looking lighter than he arrived.

A woman intercepts Nikki — thirties, a greeting warm but the eyes measuring. They speak to one another in Neapolitan dialect. 

WOMAN You found it?

NIKKI Of course.

WOMAN And?

NIKKI Tell your brother the Thursday patrol runs fifteen minutes early now. Has done since October. If he hasn't adjusted, he needs to.

The woman nods, already calculating.

WOMAN He'll want to —

NIKKI He knows where to find us.

The woman moves away. Nikki finds Tito. Something passes between them — unspoken intimacy, coordination, agreement. 

Someone presses wine into their hands. A joke. Friendly laughter. The music is loud and the room is warm. 

A threadbare couch in a corner. Demijohn of wine nearly emptied. Around them the party has deepened into something loose— a guitarist in the corner, two couples dancing, someone making a speech nobody listens to.

Tito's arm around her. Nikki's head back, watching the ceiling. Comfortable in the way that comes from years of intimate knowing and trust. They speak to one another in Italian and dialect. She calls Tito “caro”, dear—and he calls her “Mio piccolo mostro” —my little monster. They’re playful with one another, reminding us that, despite their underlying competence, they’re still both very young. Naples makes you grow up fast. 

A man passes, clocks Tito and Nikki, stares openly. His companion pulls him away before he can speak.

Nearby, someone is talking about a recent killing in Piazza Cavour— a man shot in the face. Tito shakes his head. 

TITO (quietly) They’re burning too hot. They’re going to bring hell down on themselves if they can’t get control.

Tito takes Nikki's chin and draws her into him. They kiss — at once passionate and familiar.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. He feels it. Keeps her close.

She pulls back just enough to glance at the screen.

NIKKI It's my parents.

TITO (quiet) Stay.

NIKKI We should go.

TITO Just a little longer.

She looks at him. A small smile. She reaches for the wine.

The party thinning. Nikki's phone face-down on the cushion beside her.

She picks it up.

The screen fills with missed calls. Her mother. Adriano. Adriano. Adriano.

Eight missed calls from Adriano.

She sits up. The wine curdles her stomach.

She calls him back. He picks up immediately. Nikki and her brother Adriano speak to one another in English, the language of their mother. 

ADRIANO, V.O., Where are you? Nikki starts to apologize. Adriano interrupts: Listen to me. Have Tito walk you to Piazza Municipio. I'll be there in ten minutes. 

NIKKI Adriano —

ADRIANO (V.O.) Ten minutes. Go. Now.

The city at night during the curfew is dangerous — the silence wrong, the emptiness wrong, the occasional sound of something distant that might be fireworks. Maybe.

Tito is steady beside her despite the wine, that quality of alertness surfacing through a haze. They move quickly through the familiar streets.

He pulls her into an alley. Hand on her arm.

TITO I have to do something. Two minutes. Wait here.

NIKKI Tito —

But he's already gone, absorbed by the dark.

She waits. The city murmurs around her. Distant sirens. Somewhere above, a window shuts. She counts her own heartbeats.

When Tito comes back his face is different. Something she has never seen in him — terror. Something has happened in those two minutes that she will never learn the full truth about.

He grabs her hand.

TITO RUN!

Running.

Through the warren of the old city — narrow alleys, steep staircases, laundry on lines strung between buildings and on balconies, garbage in the gutters, closed shop fronts, votive shrines, walls close on both sides. Nikki's feet slapping on stone, her breath coming hard, Tito's hand in hers.

A BANG — the wall ahead explodes in a puff of plaster dust, raining down on them.

Another BANG. The clink of metal clipping stone.

Fear is total. Animal instinct and reaction. The city a labyrinth. No exits.

And then the walls open and they burst into the wide space of the piazza —

NIKKI's face. Then, a gunshot.

NIKKI leaves her building, gate clanging shut behind her. She is firm-faced and determined, body muscular and tattooed, hair cropped short and bleached. Moving with the graceful confidence and alert awareness of a fighter. 

The city suddenly loud around her — trash collectors, a woman leaning in her doorframe calling out a greeting, calling her “Nina”, asking after her handsome boyfriend,is there a white dress in your future? A man reminding her that Gianni still needs to pick up those cardboard boxes for his shop. The neighborhood that knew her before she knew herself, insisting she put the old identity, Nina, back on.

At Massimo's busy café bar, the ritual plays out: Nicole, bellisima, where have you been?He asks after her father. He tells her she's getting thinner — what would her mother have said? She would have congratulated me on my self-discipline. Massimo shakes his head. She should talk to her aunt. Isabella could tell her a thing or two about her mother. Ah, your mother…a woman like Beatrice…needs many admirers, many lovers. Nikki laughs, I’m sure my father would have something to say about that! 

Then Nikki’s brother GIANNI arrives — too loud, a man performing a casual visit. He is their mother's face on their father's failings: sharp chin, beautiful eyes, a lifetime of cock-ups and hasty reparations. He says he was in the neighborhood anyway. Just stopped in. She should come and see the shop sometime. It’s doing great. Just great. Is Enzo coming Sunday? Is Massimo coming to the christening in Benevento?

Massimo, delighted, won’t miss it, and asks if the whole family will be there. Izzy too?

GIANNI (expansive) Everyone. The whole family. It's going to be a beautiful day.

Then — almost too nonchalantly:

GIANNI You know, Nikki, I was thinking about—

Behind them, a loud conversation and the name Tito Calandra rises above the din.

Nikki freezes. Then a brisk smile at Massimo, a farewell, and she's moving.

Gianni — slurping the last of his coffee — chases after her as she strides through the city streets towards her Honda Hornet.

When alone, Gianni and Nikki speak English to one another—the language of their American mother. 

GIANNI You haven't talked to Tito recently, have you?

NIKKI Of course not! God, why would you even ask? 

GIANNI We’ve stayed friends…you know. I didn’t want to say, because I know how you get. He's invested in the shop—

NIKKI (stopping. Aggressive) What the fuck, Gianni? You can’t take his money! How do you think Tito can afford that? You shouldn’t…you can’t be in debt to him. 

GIANNI Hey, I can understand why you’re upset. You two have history—

NIKKI Ages ago! We were just kids. He's syndicate now. You know what he is…what he’s done. How much do you owe him?

GIANNI It's not like that. I've known Tito all my life. You have to be able to trust someone. And…Bea adores him. And…he’s always asking after you. 

NIKKI Don’t you fucking tell Tito anything about me. 

GIANNI Don’t do that…that thing you do. Don’t be so goddamn sanctimonious! People make mistakes. And you know what his father was! 

NIKKI Tito chose what he chose. I don’t want to be any part of that, and you shouldn’t either.

NIKKI (mounting the Hornet) I’ve gotta go. 

GIANNI C’mon…hey. Let’s get something…a cornetto. I’ve got to tell you—

NIKKI I'm already late…sailing with Valerio today. 

She straps on her helmet. Gianni stands on the pavement behind her, slightly out of breath. 

GIANNI (low) It's going to be a good day, Sunday. Really. It's going to be fine.

She drives into the city, easily weaving through traffic, the neighborhood receding behind her. 

While Nikki is heading out the door to Massimo's, VALERIO ALFIERI — mid-forties, broad-shouldered, a face that defaults to laughter, but can go deadly serious in an instant — is pressed against a wall in civilian clothes, sneakers, slouchy hoodie, weapon drawn, waiting for the signal.

The FALCHI — the falcon squad, specialist motorbike unit, the men who move through Naples' narrow streets where squad cars can't follow — have been watching NINO CAPELLI. Puffed and reddened, hulking, a man of vicious impulsivity and no internal restraints. A hijacking gone wrong, a man knifed in a fit of irritation. 

A signal. The team moves fast — door, hallway, room. Capelli, caught before his first coffee, unshaven and furious, is on the floor before he can decide what to do about it. Valerio stands over him, weapon still raised, breathing steady.

Professional. Efficient. Finished. 

He holsters his weapon and steps back while his colleagues process Capelli into the morning light. He watches with the detached calm of a man who has done this many times and feels neither pleasure nor distaste. 

Then he checks his phone.

Three messages from Nikki. The last one: already on the boat.

He says his goodbyes, gets into his car — a battered green Opel with a missing wing mirror, the backseat a mess of coffee cups, used Tupperware, crumpled homework and a pair of kid’s football boots— and drives to the port.

He pulls up, kills the engine, reaches into the back seat and puts on his straw hat. 

At the dock, CALYPSO is already rigged. NIKKI — cropped hair, tattooed arms and legs, the focused ease of someone who knows this work - is aboard and ready. 

Nikki and Valerio speak in Italian. 

NIKKI You're late.

VALERIO (climbing aboard) We were making an arrest. 

NIKKI Again? Leave some criminals for the rest of the cops. 

VALERIO When do you need to be back?

NIKKI (checking her watch) A few hours. I’ve got to put things together for the night shift. 

He finds his spot at the bow. She takes the helm. The boat moves out into the bay.

CALYPSO cuts across open water — 9.5 meters, forty-five years old, rebuilt from the hull up by the two people now sailing her. She’s not glamorous. She is seaworthy, which is better.

Nikki at the helm, adjusting the tiller with unconscious ease. Valerio at the bow, trimming the sail without being asked. They don't need to speak. The boat responds.

Behind them Naples rises in layers against the sky — chaotic, gorgeous, improbable. And behind Naples, vast and dark and ominous, VESUVIUS. The mountain that has destroyed this city twice and will someday destroy it again. 

Meal finished. Emptied wine bottle. Demolished provolone. Boat rocking gently beneath a bright sky, a creaking murmur and the slap of waves.  Valerio asleep on the bench — hat over his face, one arm across his chest, mouth slightly open. The uncomplicated sleep of a man with a clear conscience. 

Nikki tidying. Picking olives from the Tupperware one by one. Checking her dive watch. 18:54. Night shift. Laundry. Fuel for the Honda.

Valerio stirs. Lazy. Yawns. 

VALERIO (not shifting his hat) It may only have been armed robbery. Maurizio isn’t so sure he was the one who stabbed the driver.

NIKKI Didn’t you have him on CCTV?

VALERIO Footage was grainy.

NIKKI But you had an eyewitness…Isn’t that enough?

VALERIO This morning, when we knocked the door, told him to get dressed and come with us, he cried and pissed himself.

NIKKI What kind of murderer does that? Might not be him.

VALERIO (another yawn) It’s him.

Nikki almost smiles. She peels off her t-shirt and goes into the water.

She floats on her back — the city and Vesuvius behind her — gazing up at the name painted on the hull above her. Calypso. Three years of stripped-back weekends and scraped knuckles and scuba gear scraping barnacles off the hull. The boat is hers in the way that very few things are hers. Chosen. Painstakingly rebuilt. 

Not far away, a beautiful 15-meter yacht — the ANDIAMO — drops anchor, music thumping. On the back deck, a blonde woman climbs down into the water, shrieking with laughter, teasing.

Her boyfriend, FILLIPO, stands at the rail watching. Then he pulls up the ladder. The woman reaches for the hull, can't grip, reaches again, her head dropping lower. 

Nikki, treading water and watching, shouts at the man. He gestures for her to fuck off. 

The woman is clearly tiring, the laughter dying. Coughing. Spitting seawater. 

Nikki calls Valerio's name. 

The orange buoy arcs through the air. Nikki swims with the buoy towards the woman. Then, as she gets close, the woman dips beneath the waves. 

Swimming past, Nikki comes from behind, threads her arms under, kicks them both to the surface, talks her down until the white fingers find the foam. The boyfriend starts his engine. Nikki treads water and shouts Neapolitan curses at him as he drives away.

CARMELA — tall, stunning, tanned, climbs dripping aboard, and flings herself into Valerio’s arms, crediting him with her rescue. Behind her, Nikki, stern faced, full of adrenaline and outrage, tells her she needs to press charges. What Fillipo did was abuse. She could have died. Carmela protests, Really, you don’t know him. And, frankly, it’s a little insulting for you to imply…I’m sorry, but it is. I just have to say it! 

Nikki and Valerio work together getting the boat underway. Carmela, wrapped in a damp towel, is already reassembling herself around her own beauty, refusing to acknowledge the danger she was in. She flirts with Valerio, and pivots the conversation with the instincts of someone who has always used the available tools, asking about the boat – they’ve worked together for three years to rebuild and restore it. Its care is the center of their relationship. 

CARMELA Are you two fucking?

NIKKI No!

CARMELA (laughing) I wouldn’t judge you!

NIKKI Not every relationship with a man needs to be complicated by sex. 

CARMELA Sex is the basis of everything - simply the nature of the animal. You can either use it, or be used by it. Once you realize and accept that fact, the world is so much clearer.

NIKKI I prefer to define my relationships. I want friendship — a relationship of equals. 

CARMELA Men will always choose passion over friendship. You need to fuck him to find out what the relationship can be. 

Valerio — enjoying this conversation slightly more than he should — catches Nikki's eye. She invokes his girlfriend in Paris, and Carmela suggests a ménage à trois.

NIKKI I'm not going to fuck Valerio. No offense, Valerio.

VALERIO (grinning) None taken.

Then Calypso's keel strikes something. The steering goes wrong. Nikki cuts the throttle, goes down the ladder — and finds a body turning slowly in the current beneath the boat.

She surfaces. Looks up at Valerio.

NIKKI There's a body in the water.

What follows is a study of Nikki under pressure. Competent. Efficient. 

She and Valerio work together rapidly, Nikki directing Carmela to get a rope from the cabin. 

NIKKI goes back into the water — for the second time that day, in the rescue position, arms around a victim — and secures the corpse to Calypso with a rope before the currents can take him. He is fully dressed. No shoes. White tube socks. A dark ligature mark encircling his neck, the capillaries burst. She notes the currents, the coordinates, the competing tidal patterns that broaden the search area. She knows this sea.

She knows him from somewhere. She can't place it.

Nikki calls her boss — she won’t make it to work tonight. She’ll need to swap with another shift. Tomorrow morning is fine. 

The Guardia Costiera arrives. Then SONIA — a tall athletic Senegalese woman in her forties, thoughtful and precise — with her partner FABRIZIO, warm and bombastic, four children, the kind of man who fills a room with noise and misses nothing. Sonia surveys the scene, asks sharp questions, gives Nikki her card.

SONIA If something occurs to you, call me.

Calypso is berthed, the moon rising. Nikki and Valerio hose the boat down in silence, putting her to bed.

In the parking lot — CARMELA, pressed against a shiny black Maserati, kissing FILLIPO. 

VALERIO (quietly) That was fast. Not pressing charges, then. 

NIKKI She knew he’d be waiting for her.

Valerio's phone rings. His ex-wife. She needs him to take the kids tonight — Gemma and Davide, overnight bags, the bachelor pad suddenly a family home. He looks at Nikki.

VALERIO I have to go.

NIKKI Don’t do anything stupid. 

VALERIO Don’t you do anything stupid. 

They ride in opposite directions into the city.

The pulsing nightclub is sensual and inviting with sleek lines and pulsing music. Traditional stone and plaster and velvet drapes transformed seamlessly into modern structures of stainless steel and polished glass. Attractive men and women seething behind the velvet cord. 

Nikki pulls up to the curb, and takes off her helmet. Nikki’s handsome boyfriend and the club owner, ENZO DI PAVOLA jogs out to greet her with a warm, lingering kiss. In his thirties, Enzo is rare blend of old world and new: an ancient sculpture of Adonis come to life in an edgy suit. 

ENZO You coming in?

NIKKI Not tonight. I have work in the morning. 

ENZO (another kiss) Shall I come by later?

NIKKI Please.

The purpose of this room is evident in the walls, the floor, the iron rings set into the stone at intervals. A well-established cell. 

The MAN IN THE CHAIR is in his fifties — a middleman. Disheveled, bruised, shallow fast breathing because breathing hurts. He’s been here for days, worked over efficiently — as needed. 

TITO CALANDRA — late thirties, imposing, a boxer's frame in a tailored shirt, dark eyes that see and understand the darkness of the world. Moving with the unhurried confidence of a man who’s already calculated every outcome. He is the most sophisticated and ruthless organized crime figure in southern Italy. He’s also the boy who came to BEATRICE SERAFINO's kitchen table hungry for warmth and care. There is no evidence of that vulnerability now. He sits across from THE MAN IN THE CHAIR, leaning forward. Unrushed. Almost gentle.

At the door, Tito’s right-hand man, BENEDETTO DE ROSA — understated sophistication. compact, a neatly trimmed beard and an arched nose, crooked mouth. A man who lives by his own exacting logic, merciless when the situation demands. Profoundly loyal to Tito. 

TITO My men tell me you’re ready to talk. 

MAN Yes. Yes. Whatever you want. 

TITO What I want is the truth. Can you give it to me? 

MAN Yes. Yes. Please. 

TITO Do you know why you’re here? 

MAN Please…please…I’m nobody.

TITO That isn’t the truth, is it? 

MAN I swear, it’s the truth. 

TITO If you’re nobody, then I have the wrong man. And if you are the wrong man, then I’ve treated you unfairly. Do you think I’ve treated you unfairly? 

MAN No. No. Please…I have a family. 

TITO I’ll begin with what I know. You are Stefano Pinto. You are a driver of refrigerated trucks — in and out of Naples. In and out…up to Caserta…and Rome. And further North. Am I correct? 

MAN Yes…but I swear I don’t know what’s in the trucks. I swear. 

TITO Even when you stop in Caserta? When the cargo is moved? 

MAN How did you —

TITO It’s my business to know. So, I am right in saying that Stefano Pinto is not a nobody. And I am also right in saying that Stefano Pinto knows when the next shipment will arrive. I’m going to ask this once. Which ship? What time? 

The man in the chair calculates. Finds only one viable answer.

He gives the information 

Tito’s suspicion confirmed, but his face gives nothing away. Tito trained his face in childhood against a violent father, and the discipline is absolute. 

TITO (to De Rosa, quietly) Take care of it.

Then he turns and walks out.

Stone walls. A low ceiling. The smell of damp. Bare bulbs at intervals, casting yellow pools on the floor. Two of Tito's men straighten as he passes. He doesn't acknowledge them. 

A staircase. Stone steps worn smooth by centuries of use. 

A guard at a thick metal door nods. Tito passes through into the main building.

Sound strikes before the light — voices, music. Through the open door of the main salon of the fifteenth-century palazzo: well-dressed men and beautiful women, relaxed, unhurried. Heads turn as he enters. The room adjusts to his presence like a compass needle finding north.

He moves through it without stopping. Outside, into the ivy-covered courtyard, manicured garden, soft yellow lights, night sky above the open space. A jasmine smell. The sounds of the party muted. Tito stands alone for a moment, his men waiting at a distance.

He rolls his neck. Breathes. 

Tito is tired: the weariness of a man who has carried something enormous, alone, for a very long time.

He rolls down and buttons the sleeves of his shirt. 

His face is composed. The mask is back on.

He gestures to his men and they move out through the gate, into the neighborhood, heading through the evening streets.

The city wakes at night - when the heat that sears the streets during the day begins to relent, and when the rising shadows give the illusion of lower temperatures. People decant from their homes, staying out of doors until the early hours of the morning. Restaurants and nightclubs pack, spilling out the shopfronts. Parents with prams and toddlers wander the streets and along the waterfront, children playing in the yellow pools of streetlights.

Tito moves across the piazza with three men, unhurried, talking, starting to relax. He is at home here. The neighborhood has known him for thirty years. 

Then — across the piazza, outside Massimo's — a figure at the bar. Cropped hair. Tattooed arms. The particular quality of stillness he would recognize anywhere, in any crowd, in any city on earth.

He pauses. Hesitates. Composure subtly altered. 

He excuses himself from his men. Crosses the piazza.

A dark figure coming toward her — she tenses before she knows why. She seems to know that posture, the boxer's frame, the angular lines, the surety of his stride. Her body fills in the rest before her mind catches up.

Then he’s here, standing before her. Fifteen years older, and dressed in tailored clothes, but those eyes carry that same intense expression she remembers. He’s grown into that expression, his body settled around it like cement.

TITO (quiet) May I join you?

NIKKI I'm not staying. I just came to pick something up.

He takes in the cropped hair, the tattoos, the fifteen years written on her face. She looks back in that way he remembers: measuring, giving nothing away.

NIKKI I didn’t know you still came here.

TITO I don’t. Not since you came back to Naples.

Nikki shifts, adjusting to the uncomfortable tightness in her chest. She’s avoided Tito for fifteen years. It shouldn’t be any surprise he avoided her, too. But a shadow of melancholy passes through her at his words, a half-remembered part of herself she’s left behind. 

TITO It’s your place. I knew you didn’t want to see me. 

NIKKI Oh. 

CARLO, the bartender, finishing mixing a drink from the bar, catches sight of them. 

CARLO Tito! (looking between them, grinning) My God. Nina and Tito — back together at last!

NIKKI We're not together.

CARLO Of course, of course. What can I get you?

TITO (to Nikki) Will you stay for one glass?

NIKKI I have work in the morning.

He nods. Doesn't push. Waits.

A moment passes between them — weighted, unresolved. Fifteen years of everything neither of them has said.

And then, with the careful ease of a man who believes the difficult part has already been handled:

TITO Well, I'm glad we'll have Sunday. It will be good to be in the same room again.

Nikki stares

NIKKI What do you mean, Sunday?

TITO The christening. 

He reads her face. And understands in an instant that Gianni never told her. He’d interpreted her silence as acceptance. He was wrong; his decision to approach her tonight a miscalculation.

He doesn't show her this.

TITO (steady) Gianni asked me to be Fredo’s godfather. 

The air goes out of the room. 

Nikki is very still. 

NIKKI (low) Gianni asked you to be godfather to his son?

TITO I thought he…I assumed you knew. 

NIKKI You assumed…

TITO Nikki —

NIKKI Don't.

TITO I think if we can talk, we could come to an understanding.

Nikki (glaring): I hear you’re quite successful now. The great Tito Calandra. Does it feel good to be so powerful? 

TITO There are ugly things in the world, Nikki. Unless someone is willing to get down to that level…keep them in order, they destroy everything.

NIKKI Is that what you’re doing? Keeping order?

TITO Yes. 

NIKKI Well, that’s fucking amazing. Good for you. Just…fucking stay away. 

Nikki leaves. 

TITO stands in the piazza and watches her until she rounds the corner and disappears. His men are waiting across the square, patient, saying nothing.

He doesn't move for a long moment. Then he turns and strides through the neighborhood he rules.

Valerio's apartment — a bachelor pad, shabby secondhand furniture, posters on the wall masquerading as art, stacks of books and newspapers, wires looping out of boxes—entrails of dead electronics that he hasn’t gotten around to burying. Dust on everything. 

He’s transforming the place to accommodate his kids. Changing the sheets on his bed. Setting up a camp cot in the living room.

The kids arrive: DAVIDE, 13, and GEMMA, 15. Takeaway at the kitchen table, too loud, too warm. Valerio watching his children when they're not looking.

The building is an annexed eighteenth-century palazzo in the old neighborhood — a wide entrance off an alleyway leading to a shaded courtyard of cement and stone, an eerie neo-gothic chapel in one corner, deteriorated by weather and neglect. Up a flight of steep stairs, Nikki's apartment is a hodgepodge of rooms carved from the original edifice in the 1950s: high ceilings of plaster and exposed timbers, eclectic furniture spanning decades, upholstery in muddy greens and oranges. A heavy wooden bookcase dominates the living room, packed two deep with more books than the shelving was designed to manage. On the bottom right shelf, a gun safe. The walls hold maps, a framed Freddie Mercury poster, and a series of weapons — a crossbow, and battle axe. Further back: a personal gym, a punching bag, a stack of weights. 

It was her mother's place. BEATRICE SERAFINO bought it in 1971 — an American woman, a former US Navy sailor, putting down roots in a city that wasn't hers by birth. Nikki doesn't know everything her mother was. She can’t guess that these walls hold secrets she can’t possibly imagine. 

ENZO arrives, fills the small space with his energy. They fall into bed. Afterwards he stares at the ceiling, sweating in the August heat.

ENZO: It's fucking hot in here. 

NIKKI: I told you. The air conditioning’s broken.

ENZO: You could just move in with me. The offer still stands.

NIKKI: I'm fine.

ENZO: It isn't safe here. I don’t like to think of my girlfriend living down here. Alone.  If I have you close, I can take care of you.

NIKKI: I don't want to leave. This place — it was my mamma’s.

He doesn't push. He doesn't yet understand that this flat with its broken air conditioning and its battle axe and its books stacked two deep isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s a thread connecting Nikki to something she hasn't finished yet.

She lies in the dark, not sleeping. The body in the water. Tito's face. The graveyard she thought she'd left behind, open again.

Nikki on her hornet — across the city and to the US Military base, Capodichino. Greetings to the gate guard. 

In the offices of Phoenix Seven. The cold hits immediately — Americans keep their spaces at refrigerator temperatures, even in August. 

In the corridor, MARIO emerges from the bathroom — fifties, a big man, heavy jowls, vertical lines slashing the edges of his mouth like a ventriloquist dummy, decades of densely packed muscle now going soft. He falls into step beside her, heading toward the office. Doesn't look at her.

NIKKI Thanks for covering the night shift…I’m sure Angelo—  

MARIO (loudly) When someone can't handle the stress of this job, it means more work for everyone else.

She doesn't respond. They walk.

Then — a stumble. His hand shoots out, grabs her arm, fingers digging in, pulling her into him. Hard. Not a stumble.

She reacts before she thinks — his wrist locked, twisted, his body turned, his back to the wall and her forearm across his chest before either of them has taken another step. Close enough to smell the garlic and cologne and something gamier underneath.

A beat. 

Then Mario laughs. Low, delighted. As if she's confirmed something he suspected. For him, this is the beginning of something, not the end of it.

She releases him. Steps back. Her face gives nothing.

They walk into the office.

JACOPO steps forward immediately, hands Nikki the duty phone, handing over from the night shift. He's done this before — inserted himself into the ugly space between them. Pasquale’s called — he’s going to be late.

Mario packs his bag with deliberate slowness. He turns — a long, flat appraisal of Nikki, head to foot. 

MARIO Some people aren’t built for this job.

He leaves.

Jacopo exhales.

Nikki sits. Works.  

Then, fingers and toes numb, she stands — jumping jacks, squats, push-ups, hoodie pulled tight. Fast, slightly too hard. 

The duty phone rings. Vehicle incident in Varcaturo. 

She takes the keys to the duty vehicle and heads north.

Breakfast — chaotic, warm. Gemma picking at her food.  Davide eating everything. 

Their mother, GIORGIA, arrives at the door, divorce visible. She tells Valerio she needs more money for the kids. Davide’s grown three shoe sizes in the past six months, and Gemma needs new clothes before school starts. 

The kids file out. The apartment goes quiet. 

Valerio heads outside. Stops at his regular café.

NINO CAPELLI is already there — puffed and reddened, hulking, a delicate ceramic cup gripped in beefy hands. Beside him, a woman with a childlike physique and glazed eyes, a thick layer of makeup doing nothing to mask the desperation in them.

CAPELLI (bellowing) Capo Alfieri! So nice to see you.

VALERIO What are you doing out of jail, Capelli?

CAPELLI (grey teeth, grinning) Can't keep a man who has an alibi. Wanted to tell you myself.

Valerio looks at the woman. Offers his hand.

VALERIO You need help? Come with me now.

She hesitates. Shakes her head. Capelli laughs.

As Valerio leaves, Capelli calls after him.

CAPELLI Good luck catching flies, Alfieri. 

Valerio calls his partner Maurizio, asks why Capelli’s been released. He was alibied by his cousin, nothing they can do. Valerio wants Capelli back inside. He’s going to get more evidence. 

He rides across the city to FEDERICO'S salumeria in Quartieri Forcella. Federico outside, accepting a delivery, bald pate shining in the heat.

FEDERICO ERRICHILLO, a preternaturally tall, birdlike old man, wearing thick-soled white sneakers with Velcro straps, and black-rimmed glasses perched on wide ears. Large, bony hands.  

The conversation is careful, oblique. Federico — a recovering addict and brother of Camorra Boss LUCA ERRICHIELLO, has extracted himself from that dark world a decade ago, wants nothing more than to be left alone. He listens as Valerio asks about Capelli, about Luca, about what people are saying.

VALERIO What have you heard about Nino Capelli? I know that he does work for your brother, Luca, sometimes —

FEDERICO Fuck my brother. And fuck Capelli. Why do you come to me for this? I don’t want trouble. Just…leave me out of it.”

VALERIO You know what Luca is…what he does — that he’s trafficking women and girls. Knowing it makes you a part of it.

FEDERICO The world is run by wolves. It's their system, their rules. We can't change it. The best I can do is keep my head down. Take my advice. Protect yourself. Protect your family. Stay far away from them.

Valerio's phone rings. Sonia. Come to the morgue.

A garbage fire blocks the main road — black smoke visible from kilometers away. Nikki diverts, parks, jogs to the scene. Multi-car pileup. The bewildered McAllister family in their blue Ford minivan — COMMANDER McALLISTER, his wife JUDY, two teenagers on their phones. Recently arrived in Naples. Defensive with fear.

Nikki translates. Mediates. Reassures. She is very good at this — gripping the jagged seam between two systems that share a geography and almost nothing else.

MCALLISTER What's the best way to get to Support Site from here?

NIKKI Follow me.

She leads the blue Ford through the labyrinthine back streets of Varcaturo — slowly, carefully, watching the mirrors.

Then — a red Jeep at the side of the road. Passenger door open. Driver's side window shattered. A man slumped in the front seat.

Nikki stops. Gets out. Reaches through the shattered window.

No pulse. Blood on his face and chest. A bullet hole in the windshield.

She sends the McAllisters on to the base. 

Staring at the vehicle and the dead man. 

A FLASH — a dark street, a gunshot. A body collapsing. 

Stands alone on the rural road in the merciless midday heat. Something has switched off inside her — some system designed to protect her from exactly this. She cannot reconstruct how she got from the car to the body.

She calls. 

VALERIO (in the Naples city center, striding towards his motorbike) Ciao Nikki. Can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something.

NIKKI I have a situation. There’s a man in a car. He’s been shot. He’s dead.

Valerio pauses, asks if she’s joking, and learns her location, says he’ll get someone to the scene. 

Nikki calls dispatch, reports the incident. Then she does what she always does: she investigates.

The Jeep's interior — messy, rifled. On the back seat, a US Navy lieutenant's cover. Nikki calls dispatch again, says, He was American. Get NCIS. 

Tire marks in the dirt shoulder showing he pulled over deliberately. 

NIKKI (softly, to herself) Why did you pull over? 

Fresh motorcycle tread marks 100 meters away.

She photographs everything. 

The Carabinieri arrive, taking over the scene, ordering her around.

NIKKI I need to stay. Our victim is American. I’ve contacted NCIS. They’re on their way.

CARABINIERI OFFICER How do you know he’s American? 

NIKKI Military uniform in the back seat.

Valerio arrives, parks his bike, meets Sonia waiting for him in the lobby, like a rigid sentinel at the door. 

SONIA (starting to walk) You took a long time. 

VALERIO (walking along Sonia) Not too long. What happened? Why did you need me here?

SONIA I had a suspicion about this body you found. It seems I was right. 

Nikki back in her vehicle, ready to move it

Carabinieri beginning to process the scene, blocking the narrow road. 

Then DURANT COLE — NCIS Special Agent, forties, face like a renaissance monk. American, cultured, speaking Italian, tall, lean, with a neatly trimmed beard and salt-and-pepper hair. Cotton shirt with a floral print, and grey slacks. Arriving in a white volvo with the confidence of a man who has routinely seen worse. He takes in the scene. Takes in Nikki.

Introductions, and Nikki briefs him. 

DURANT You discovered the body? 

Nikki describes what she’s found, and her hypothesis: There were at least three shots fired — and from two different angles. Forensics will tell us whether they’re from the same weapon. One shot was fired through the windshield — this entered through his cheekbone. Then there are two shots from the passenger’s side of the car — one bullet entered the chest — with no exit wound. The second bullet shattered the glass in the driver’s side window.

DURANT (with a slight smile) Keen observation. What did you say your job was? 

The drowned man from Calypso is on the table — male, mid-to-late forties, badly decomposed. Sonia describes the pathologist’s findings: cause of death: strangulation. No water in his lungs. He was dead before he entered the sea. Sonia asks Valerio if he's ever had yassa — a Senegalese chicken dish. He shakes his head, puzzled.

She takes his hand. Places it on the dead man's chest.

SONIA Feel it. The texture.

He feels it. Looks at her.

SONIA The pathologist confirmed it. After this man was strangled — he was boiled.

Outside, Naples blazes and hums, incandescent with heat. 

END OF PILOT