Chapter 7 - A Scent of Sea Salt and Burning PineI stepped off the raised dais, walking slowly down the center aisle until the toe of my leather oxford rested against Silvio’s ribs.
“You asked me to stay a broken king, Silvio,” I whispered, my voice quiet enough that every soul in the vast room leaned forward to hear.
Silvio looked up through swollen eyes, trembling like a wet dog.
“Dante... please... have mercy... I gave you thirty years of my life!”
“My mercy, Silvio,” I said softly, “is that you will spend the next forty years in a federal penitentiary at ADX Florence, watching the sun rise through a four-inch slit in a concrete wall, knowing that the boy you called a gutter rat sits at the head of my table.”
I looked at Frank Russo.
“Deliver Silvio Moretti and Marco to Assistant United States Attorney Marcus Vance at the federal building on Pacific Avenue. Hand over the unredacted ledgers.”
Silvio shrieked, clawing at the floorboards as two armed longshoremen dragged him backward down the aisle, his pathetic, echoing cries fading into the roar of the ocean surf outside until the heavy oak double doors clicked shut forever.
Silence returned to the grand ballroom.
Pure, clean, and vast.
I turned back to the eighty syndicate commanders standing along the table.
“From this day forward,” I declared, my voice echoing across the vaulted ceiling, “the Moretti-Corelli Syndicate does not operate on poisoned contracts, backroom kickbacks, or the exploitation of our workers. We build the boardwalk. We protect the gaming floors. We defend the families who sweat on our docks.”
I looked down at Elena, then at Toby.
“Elena Corelli is appointed Executive Trustee of the Board of Overseers, with full veto power over every commercial license in this state. Her word is my law in this territory. Anyone who fails to treat her and her son with the honor due to the sovereign seat will answer directly to my barrel.”
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Marcus Falcone raised his heavy crystal glass into the air, his gravelly voice leading the assembly in a thunderous, room-shaking roar that rattled the chandeliers overhead:
“To Donna Elena! To young Toby! To Don Dante! Long live the Boardwalk Emperor!”
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