In a back booth of a 24-hour diner in Newark, two hours before dawn, sits Rocco. He is 52 years old, 240 pounds, and looks like a leather couch that has been set on fire and then put out with a tire iron. He is drinking black coffee from a chipped mug and reading a worn paperback copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

He looks at the sky over Newark. For a moment, he looks tired.

He taps the steering wheel.

He won’t name names. But the scars tell the story. A thin line across his knuckles from a shattered wine bottle in São Paulo. A burn mark on his neck from a cigar pressed there by a jealous financier in Monaco. He’s guarded tech CEOs, deposed ministers, and one pop star who thanked him by naming a hamster after him.

He lives in a studio apartment with a concrete floor, a punching bag, and a single photograph: his late mother. No wife. No kids.