Chapter 6 - The Council of Boardwalk BaronsAt 8:00 AM the following morning, the grand ballroom of the Moretti Boardwalk Hotel was packed with eighty of the most powerful syndicate capos, gaming commissioners, and shipping directors on the Eastern Seaboard.
Capos from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston sat along the u-shaped conference table beneath five tiered Austrian crystal chandeliers, their faces tense, their hands flat on the white linen, waiting for the arrival of the proxy who had ruled in my name.
The heavy double oak doors at the back of the ballroom swung open with a concussive, resonant boom.
I walked down the grand center aisle.
I did not use a cane. I did not lean on a guard.
I wore my midnight-black three-piece suit, my stride long, powerful, and unhurried, my presence commanding such absolute, terrifying authority that all eighty mob bosses stood to their feet in unison, their chairs scraping back in stunned, disbelieving horror.
“The Emperor,” Don Carmine Falcone’s oldest nephew, Marcus Falcone, gasped from the head of the table. “He’s walking.”
Walking at my right side, dressed in an elegant gown of dark navy silk that accentuated her graceful beauty, her dark hair pinned with pearl combs, was Elena Corelli.
And walking between us, holding my massive hand with calm, unblinking dignity, was nine-year-old Toby, wearing his tailored tweed cap and charcoal suit.
I walked straight to the head of the dais.
I did not sit.
I rested my heavy, scarred palms flat against the mahogany table, my slate-gray eyes sweeping across the eighty commanders like an iron battery.
“Gentlemen,” I announced, my baritone booming through the vaulted hall with the weight of an artillery report. “Five years ago, a car bomb tore the floorboards out of my limousine on the expressway.”
I pointed a heavy finger toward the central archway.
Two longshoremen dragged Silvio Moretti forward, dumping him onto the parquet floor before the table. His pinstripe suit was shredded, his face bruised and swollen, his hands secured in heavy steel transport cuffs.
“For five years, this traitor told you that the Marcone family blew up my car,” I continued, each word falling like lead. “He told you that I was a broken ghost who could only sign corporate authorizations from a bed.”
I picked up the oilcloth dispatch pouch from the table, tossing the microfilm receipt directly into Marcus Falcone’s hands.
“Read the ledger, Marcus. Read how Silvio Moretti paid a corrupt surgeon twelve million dollars to clamp my spinal cord so he could steal three hundred million dollars from our casino reserves.”
Falcone scanned the pages, his liver-spotted hands shaking with violent, ancient disgust.
“Silvio,” Falcone rasped, his voice vibrating with absolute fury. “You poisoned Antonio Moretti’s son for a management cut?”
Silvio lay curled on the parquet, weeping in blind, hopeless terror.
“Falcone! Listen to me! Dante was going to hand the casino licenses over to the municipal regulators! He was weak! I protected our profits!”
“You don't protect an empire by crippling its sovereign, Silvio,” Falcone replied with chilling, final condemnation.
May you like
He turned toward me, bowing his silver head with profound, ancient reverence.
“The Commission recognizes the blood debt, Don Dante. The house of Silvio Moretti is stripped of all charters, all territory, and all protection across the Atlantic seaboard.”
Related Stories
