Chapter 13 - The Syndicate Votes Against Luca: A Hostile Takeover Masked as a Wedding Gift
At two o'clock that afternoon, the private vault beneath Continental Illinois Bank gave up its four-decade-old secrets.
Inside Safe Deposit Box 742, nestled alongside fifty-million-dollar maritime stock certificates bearing my mother’s and grandfather’s names, lay the golden prize: the certified, original footprint card and birth registration of baby Leo Moretti, stamped with the seal of St. Vincent’s Home for Children in Rockford.
Luca held the tiny, ink-stained card against his chest, his eyes shining with a father’s fierce, desperate determination. He looked at Catherine, who was clutching the document like holy scripture.
“Matteo has already deployed four covert units to Rockford,” Luca said, his voice brimming with tactical focus. “Leo is living under the guardianship of an elderly Catholic couple—Thomas and Margaret Brennan—who took him in as a foster infant four years ago. They have raised him with love, completely unaware that he is the heir to the Moretti dynasty.”
“We don't bring guns to that boy’s home,” Catherine said firmly, placing her hand over Luca’s heart. “We don't storm in like monsters. When this is over, we will go to Rockford together, as parents, with tears and truth.”
“First,” Teresa spoke from the leather interior of the bank’s private conference room, “we have a wedding to attend.”
Today was supposed to be the public wedding of Luca Moretti and Vanessa Bellini.
Two hundred and fifty high-society guests—senators, federal judges, billionaire real estate moguls, and every capo from the five syndicates of the Chicago Outfit—were currently gathering under the vaulted stained-glass ceilings of the Cathedral of the Holy Name on State Street.
Vanessa’s allies had not spent the morning weeping over Arthur’s arrest.
Driven by desperate survival, the remaining corrupt capos of the North Side commission—led by Underboss Salvatore Riggio, an old rival of Luca’s father—had moved the wedding schedule forward by three hours.
Riggio had convened an emergency, closed-door conclave of the syndicate’s ruling council in the cathedral’s private rectory. Utilizing forged proxy voting documents and claiming that Luca had suffered an emotional breakdown following the engagement dinner, Riggio was preparing to declare Luca “unfit for command” and vote Vanessa Bellini into legal stewardship of the Moretti family’s territorial holdings.
They believed Luca was trapped in Lake Forest, fighting state police warrants.
They had no idea that Commander Hayes had already resigned in disgrace, or that the federal prosecutor’s office was currently reviewing thirty-four sealed indictments delivered personally by Sophia Moretti.
At three o'clock sharp, a sleek convoy of six identical black Mercedes Maybachs pulled up quietly to the rear service entrance of the Cathedral of the Holy Name.
The iron gates of the courtyard were locked, guarded by four of Riggio’s heaviest enforcers, armed with suppressed pistols beneath their silk suits.
The front passenger door of the lead Maybach opened.
I stepped out onto the cobblestones.
I was no longer wearing my faded black housekeeping dress and frayed apron.
Sophia had dressed me in an exquisite, emerald-green silk crepe gown tailored to perfection, with a diamond pendant resting against my collarbone and my hair swept up in an elegant, modern chignon. On my right index finger gleamed the heavy gold Moretti signet ring—the roaring lion beneath the iron crown.
The lead guard stepped forward, sneering with crude amusement. “Hey, sweetheart, the church is closed for a private family service. Go around to the public chapel on Superior.”
I didn't answer him.
I simply held up my right hand, catching the midday sun against the heavy gold lion of the Moretti seal.
The guard’s smirk vanished instantly. His eyes went wide as saucers, his jaw dropping open.
Before he could utter a single word, the side doors of the remaining five Maybachs flew open in absolute unison.
Thirty heavily armed tactical operators—Luca’s elite personal security cadre, clad in midnight-blue suits with ballistic vests beneath—poured into the courtyard like a tidal wave of steel.
Within four seconds, Riggio’s four guards were disarmed, forced onto their knees against the stone wall, and zip-tied with cold, military efficiency.
Luca stepped out of the center vehicle, followed by Catherine, Teresa, and Sophia.
Luca adjusted the cuffs of his bespoke charcoal three-piece suit. He looked at me, his eyes gleaming with dark, aristocratic brilliance.
“Hannah,” Luca said, offering me his right arm with the courtly grace of a Sicilian nobleman. “Would you do me the honor of escorting me into my own wedding?”
I smiled, feeling the immense, crushing power of truth and justice radiating from this family.
I took his arm.
Beside us, Catherine took Luca’s left arm, her head held high, looking like an empress returning from exile. Sophia and Teresa walked directly behind us, flanked by Matteo and twenty armed men.
We walked through the arched oak doors of the cathedral rectory, where the twenty-four highest-ranking mob bosses of Chicago were sitting around a massive mahogany conference table, raising their glasses to toast Salvatore Riggio’s newly declared leadership.
Luca didn't knock.
Matteo drove the heel of his combat boot straight through the double oak doors, sending both panels crashing inward against the walls with the concussive boom of a cannon shot.
The twenty-four mob bosses froze mid-toast, their crystal glasses hovering in the air like statues in a museum.
Salvatore Riggio, standing at the head of the table holding a forged parchment decree, turned white as a freshly bleached shroud.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Luca said, his voice echoing through the vaulted stone rectory with terrifying, silky smoothness. “I hear you were having a vote on my empire.”
Luca stepped into the center of the room, pulling Catherine gently into the golden beam of sunlight streaming through the stained-glass window.
May you like
“Before you cast your final ballots,” Luca murmured, his dark eyes sweeping across the twenty-four terrified men, “allow me to reintroduce my wife.”
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