Chapter 6 - The Council of the Lakefront SyndicateAntonio’s fingers opened.
Mrs. Vane hit the stone floorboards like a sack of wet salt, coughing violently, gasping for air as she scrambled backward on her hands and knees until her spine struck the wall beneath the window.
Antonio did not look at her again.
His trembling right arm reached out, resting his heavy hand on Clara’s shoulder, using her steady, courageous frame as his balance as he took a single, unhurried step forward.
He looked down at Dante, who remained frozen in the center of the room.
“The key,” Antonio rasped, his voice gaining strength and resonance with every breath he drew into his long-dormant lungs. “The key... in Clara’s hand.”
Dante dropped to both knees on the floorboards before his father, his head bowed, his hands trembling against his thighs.
“Father... I swear on my life... I was told you were gone... Vance showed me the brain scans every month—”
Antonio’s left hand shot down, catching Dr. Marcus Vance by the silk lapels of his tailored coat, hauling the terrified physician forward until Vance’s nose was three inches from the old Don’s burning gaze.
“Marcus,” Antonio whispered, his baritone deadly and quiet. “You took eight million dollars from the Detroit syndicate to keep the iron clamped over my neck.”
Vance’s bladder gave way, a dark stain spreading rapidly across his bespoke gray trousers as he began to shriek in sheer, unadulterated terror.
“Antonio! Please! They had my family—they threatened to sink my clinic in Zurich—I didn't harm you, I only gave you the sedatives!”
Antonio turned his head toward Frank.
“Take this butcher down to the meat lockers in the sub-basement,” Antonio commanded, his voice cold as the blizzard outside. “Hang him from the ceiling hooks by his thumbs until the federal prosecutors arrive. If he faints, throw salt water in his face.”
Two armed commandos seized Dr. Vance by his arms, dragging him backward down the spiral stairs, his frantic, echoing screams fading into the wind until the heavy lower doors clicked shut.
Antonio turned his gaze back to Clara.
The terrifying, murderous mask that had made thirty syndicate bosses wet themselves melted away, replaced by an ocean of profound, ancient reverence.
He took the silver cross from her palm.
He did not put it in his pocket.
With slow, reverent care, Antonio Bellini placed the heavy silver chain around Clara’s neck, letting the roaring lion rest directly over her pregnant belly.
Then he looked at his son.
“Dante.”
“Command, Father,” Dante choked out, lifting his tear-stained face.
“This girl carried beef broth up four flights of stairs on swollen feet while your men were drinking sixty-year-old cognac in the parlor,” Antonio said, each word falling like lead into the room. “She bought my socks with her grocery money. She washed my face when your servants left me in cold filth.”
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Antonio’s eyes locked onto Dante’s with absolute, undisputed sovereignty.
“She is not a servant in this house, Dante. She is the mother of the Bellini bloodline. You will put your mother’s emerald on her finger before the sun sets, or you will leave this city without a name, an empire, or a single dollar to your grave.”
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