Chapter 6 - The Council of Atlantic ShippersA collective, shuddering intake of breath hissed through the forty syndicate capos seated around the table.
Men who had spent thirty years moving contraband through the Atlantic corridor leaned forward, their eyes locking onto Charles Sterling with lethal, sudden comprehension.
In the maritime underworld of New England, turf wars were fought with iron. Smugglers were drowned when they broke contracts.
That was the code of the docks.
But cutting the sea-cocks of a sovereign Don's yacht, attempting to slaughter an eight-year-old girl in her cabin, and stealing forty percent of a family's shipping empire through a forged probate charter—that was an atrocity that crossed every sacred law of the Atlantic Council.
Charles Sterling backed away toward his two attorneys, his chest heaving beneath his silk vest.
“Nathaniel, listen to me!” Charles stammered, his aristocratic voice cracking into desperate, high-pitched panic. “This is a grotesque misunderstanding! The yacht explosion was an industrial accident! Julianna was reported dead by the harbor police!”
Nathaniel tossed the unredacted 2001 dry dock manifest across the table.
It glided across the polished teak, coming to a dead stop against Charles’s polished leather shoes.
“Read the authorization on line four, Charles,” Nathaniel said, each word falling like lead. “The purchase of sixty pounds of magnesium thermite, billed to Sterling Marine Logistics, delivered to the dry dock where my father’s yacht sat forty-eight hours before it cleared the harbor.”
Don Salvatore Falcone, the oldest and most respected capo from the North End, slowly pushed his chair back.
The elderly Don stood up, leaning both hands on his carved ash cane, looking at Charles with ancient, unyielding disgust.
“Charles,” Falcone rasped, his voice cutting through the room like a cold foghorn. “Arthur Vance was your partner for twenty years. You stood at his empty grave and cried real tears. You took his son into your boardroom and called him your nephew.”
Charles turned frantically toward the assembly.
“Falcone, you know the business back then! Arthur was going to open the harbor accounts to federal audit! If the grand jury had pierced our container manifests, every man in this room would have spent thirty years in federal penitentiaries!”
“You don't drown children to hide your books, Charles,” Falcone replied with absolute, icy finality.
May you like
He looked toward Nathaniel.
“The Council recognizes the blood debt, Don Nathaniel. The house of Sterling is stripped of all charters, all berths, and all protection.”
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