Chapter 8 - THE SHIFTING LINES OF WAR
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The rain had returned to Chicago by mid-morning, washing over the limestone facades of Michigan Avenue like sheets of gray glass.
Outside the historic Palmer House Hotel, the curbs were lined with forty armored black luxury vehicles.
Armed security teams wearing matching charcoal overcoats and tactical earpieces stood stationed at every arched entryway and revolving door.
This was not an ordinary business meeting.
This was an emergency convocation of the Chicago Commission—the supreme governing council of the Allied Families.
Inside the vast, gilded Grand Ballroom, sixty senior capos, underbosses, and district bosses sat around a massive oval mahogany table.
At the center of the eastern wing sat Salvatore Bellini, flanked by his four remaining captains and two high-priced defense attorneys.
Salvatore looked haggard, his silver hair uncombed, his expensive suit rumpled, his eyes darting frantically toward the doors.
He had spent the morning trying to access his offshore accounts, only to discover that Carlo Vitale’s banks had frozen his assets across Europe.
Across the table sat Don Falcone, an eighty-two-year-old mafia patriarch who had ruled the northern rail yards for four decades.
Beside him sat Don Lucchese, the head of the western transport unions.
“Where is Luca Moretti?” Salvatore barked, slamming his palm against the mahogany table to conceal his shaking hands.
“He canceled his wedding, locked my daughter in a basement, and seized my dock workers without a formal council vote!”
“He has broken Article Four of the Sacred Charter!”
Don Falcone did not look up from his small porcelain cup of espresso.
“Article Four only applies to honorable men, Salvatore,” Falcone rasped, his ancient voice cutting through the murmurs in the room.
“If Luca summoned the entire Commission on four hours’ notice, it means he has the steel to back his play.”
At exactly twelve o’clock, the massive carved double doors at the back of the ballroom were thrown wide open.
The room instantly fell into a suffocating, dead silence.
Walking through the entrance was Luca Moretti.
He looked every inch the supreme sovereign of the Midwest underworld—tall, commanding in a bespoke three-piece black suit, his long wool coat sweeping behind him.
Walking on his right, holding his head high with proud dignity, was Michael Moretti.
And walking on his left, her hand held securely in Luca’s large, scarred palm, was me.
I wore an immaculate midnight-blue silk dress that Luca had personally chosen from a private boutique that morning.
The dress was modest, elegant, and cut with regal precision, flowing around my ankles like dark water.
My dark hair was swept into an intricate, elegant chignon, secured with an antique pearl hairpin that had belonged to Luca’s mother.
I did not look like a maid who had scrubbed floors twelve hours ago.
I looked like a woman who stood beside a king.
Every capo and syndicate elder stared in utter, dropped-jaw shock as Luca led me to the head of the oval table.
Salvatore Bellini leaped to his feet, pointing an accusing, trembling finger across the room.
“What is this mockery?!” Salvatore screamed, his voice cracking with hysterical rage.
“You drag a common housemaid into the sacred assembly of the Five Families?!”
Luca did not break stride until he reached the high-backed leather chair at the head of the table.
He pulled the chair out with effortless grace, waiting until I was comfortably seated before turning to face the room.
He placed both hands flat on the polished mahogany, leaning forward until his shadow swallowed Salvatore’s face.
“This housemaid speaks more truth in one sentence than your entire bloodline has spoken in thirty years, Salvatore,” Luca said, his voice echoing off the high frescoed ceiling.
He reached into his overcoat and tossed the blue-backed legal deed from his father’s safe into the center of the table.
The heavy parchment slid across the wood, stopping directly in front of Don Falcone.
May you like
“Read it, Don Falcone,” Luca commanded calmly.
“And tell the Commission who truly owns the southern docks of Chicago.”
