Chapter 7 - The Interrogation in the Great Hall
The heavy oak doors at the back of the great hall groaned open.
Two armed guards dragged Victoria Delacroix down the center aisle.
The arrogant, untouchable socialite who had sneered at me in the corridor twenty-four hours earlier had ceased to exist.
Her chinchilla fur was gone. Her designer gown was soaked in black sludge from the root cellar, torn at the knees, smelling of rotting potatoes and brine. Her bare feet were blue with cold, her face pale as a corpse, her hands shackled behind her back in heavy steel transport cuffs.
Behind her walked her father, Don Henri Delacroix—the patriarch of the Montreal syndicate—flanked by four of Dante’s enforcers with submachine guns trained on his spine.
Henri Delacroix was sixty-two, his silver hair disheveled, his expensive bespoke coat wrinkled from a frantic midnight flight across the border.
He stopped at the foot of the dais, his eyes widening in pure, unadulterated horror as he looked upon the man sitting on the throne.
“Salvatore...?” Henri whispered, his knees trembling beneath him. “My God... it’s impossible. You were catatonic for five years!”
Salvatore leaned forward, resting both hands on his gold-topped cane, his gaze cutting through the Canadian Don like a straight razor.
“I was poisoned, Henri,” Salvatore said, each syllable dropping like an anvil onto the marble floor. “By your daughter. With digitalis bought through your private medical accounts in Quebec.”
Henri Delacroix swayed on his feet, all the color draining from his face.
“Salvatore, listen to me! I knew nothing of this! Victoria acted alone! She was ambitious—she wanted total control of the northern ports!”
“Liar!” Victoria shrieked from the floor, spitting blood and saliva onto the marble. “You planned the whole thing, Daddy! You told me that if Salvatore stayed asleep, Dante would be forced to marry me to keep the shipping lanes open! You told me to starve him!”
The fifty syndicate bosses around the table erupted into a low, murderous roar.
Don Carmine Falcone, the oldest capo from Brooklyn, slammed his fist onto the mahogany table.
“Treason!” Falcone bellowed, his weathered face twisted in ancient disgust. “A blood pact was sworn thirty years ago between New York and Montreal! You poisoned our founding father and threw his name into the mud!”
Dante stepped forward from behind my chair.
He walked down the three steps of the dais, stopping two paces from Henri Delacroix.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't raise his fist.
He pulled a manila folder from his coat and dropped it onto the floor at Henri’s feet.
“The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York received those files at six o'clock this morning, Henri,” Dante said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. “Every container manifest, every money laundering transaction, and every wire transfer for your digitalis shipments.”
Henri dropped to his knees beside his weeping daughter, clutching Dante’s trousers in desperate supplication.
“Dante... please! Spare our family! Take the Montreal docks! Take our shipping lines, our real estate, our private banks! Take everything, but let us leave the country!”
Dante looked down at the groveling Don with cold, absolute detachment.
“You threatened to take an unborn baby from this house, Henri,” Dante whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal finality. “You wanted to sell Nora’s child into private adoption across the border to clear fifty thousand dollars of street debt.”
He looked at his lieutenant, Marco.
“Deliver Henri and Victoria Delacroix directly to the federal marshals waiting at the Albany perimeter,” Dante commanded. “Their trials begin on Monday. And by the time the judge bangs the gavel, the Delacroix name will be completely extinguished from North America.”
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Victoria screamed as the guards hauled her toward the service doors, her nails tearing against the stone floor, her cries echoing down the long corridor until the heavy oak doors slammed shut forever.
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