Chapter 8 - The Tribunal at the Drake
The Grand Ballroom of the Drake Hotel was shrouded in thick cigar smoke.
Fifty syndicate capos and council elders sat in a crescent around a massive oak
tribunal table.
At the head sat Don Carmine Lucchese—the seventy-year-old chairman of the
Commission.
Don Alberto Bellini sat across from him, his face heavily bandaged from the
lakehouse fight, flanked by his lawyers and lieutenants.
Beside him was Vanessa, trembling in an oversized prison jumpsuit provided by
Moretti guards.
“Moretti has gone rogue!” Bellini shouted, banging his fist on the table.
“He attacked my private residence! He kidnapped my daughter on the night of
their engagement! He broke the sacred peace of Chicago!”
Don Lucchese raised a hand, silencing the room.
“We will hear Luca Moretti speak.”
The heavy double doors of the ballroom swung wide.
Luca walked in.
Tailored charcoal suit.
Pristine white cuffs.
Behind him walked Marco and four armed soldiers carrying the child-sized piano
bench.
And walking beside Luca was me.
I wore a simple navy wool dress, carrying the velvet case containing the ivory
comb and the diary.
The room erupted into mutters.
“A maid at the high council?” an elder scoffed.
May you like
“This woman holds the evidence that will sentence the Bellini bloodline to
death,” Luca proclaimed, his voice cutting through the room like a broadsword.
