Chapter 6 - The Council of Great Lakes CaposAt 11:30 PM, the grand council chamber in the subterranean vault of the Moretti river estate was locked down under supreme syndicate martial law.
The heavy iron blast doors were sealed with four-inch titanium deadbolts. Sixty of the most powerful syndicate capos, deep-water port commissioners, and rail directors from Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee sat along the sixty-foot mahogany conference table beneath soaring oil paintings of early trade barons.
Every man sat in rigid, disciplined silence, their hands resting flat against the polished wood, their faces grim and unreadable.
At the head of the raised marble dais sat Alexander Moretti.
He wore an immaculate bespoke charcoal three-piece suit, his presence commanding such terrifying, undisputed gravity that not a single capo dared to speak above a whisper.
Sitting in the high-backed velvet armchair directly to his right—the sovereign seat that had remained vacant since the death of Don Antonio Moretti—was Donna Francesca, draped in a regal gown of dark emerald velvet, her silver falcon signet ring gleaming on her hand.
And sitting beside Alexander, dressed in an elegant gown of dark navy silk that Mrs. Gable had altered for her, her dark hair swept up in a dignified chignon, her hazel eyes clear and steady, was Maya Vance.
The heavy iron doors of the chamber swung open with a concussive boom.
Frank and four tactical operators dragged Charles Sterling—sixty-five years old, the billionaire chairman of the Sterling Industrial Trust—into the center of the room.
His bespoke tuxedo was shredded at the lapels, his face bruised and pale as wet paper, his hands bound behind his back in heavy steel transport cuffs.
Alexander did not raise his voice.
He tapped the table.
Maya stepped forward, placing the aluminum dispatch box recovered from vault 44-Omega directly before Charles Sterling’s knees.
She opened the lid with a crisp, metallic snap.
Inside lay thirty-two unredacted corporate ledgers, a dozen encrypted digital drives, and a signed promissory note for five million dollars dated October 14, 2014, payable to an underworld demolition expert in Montreal:
CONSIDERATION: PERMANENT TERMINATION OF ANTONIO MORETTI. LAKE SHORE DRIVE.
Charles Sterling looked down at his own signature, and all the blood drained from his face until he looked like an unburied corpse.
“Alexander... please!” Sterling wept, his knees collapsing onto the concrete floor, his voice breaking into a ragged, pathetic shriek. “Antonio was going to dissolve the foundry trust! He was going to turn sixty percent of the rail berths over to the longshoremen's union! I did it to protect our profits!”
Don Carmine Falcone slowly pushed his heavy armchair back from the table.
The eighty-year-old capo stood tall, leaning on his carved ash walking stick, looking down at Sterling with ancient, pitiless disgust.
“You don't protect profits by putting a bomb under a Don's car, Charles,” Falcone rasped, his gravelly voice echoing off the vaulted rafters. “You brought dynamite into our brotherhood. You desecrated our sacred ground.”
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The old underboss turned toward Alexander and Donna Francesca, bowing his silver head with profound, sovereign respect.
“The Commission recognizes the blood debt, Don Alexander. The house of Sterling is extinguished. Every foundry, every railcar, and every terminal operating under their name belongs to the Moretti throne.”
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