Chapter 13 - The Purge of the Elders
The dining room had transformed into a courtroom where the sentence was already determined.
The six district captains remained frozen, their hands flat on the table, their eyes fixed on Damian to signal their absolute neutrality and submission.
Vincent Russo slowly backed away from the head of the table toward the private balcony doors.
"It’s a forgery!" Vincent screamed, his voice turning shrill and cracked like thin glass.
"The girl is lying! She’s an outsider! A clerk! Her father owes millions across the city—she’s framing me to save her own skin!"
Damian did not raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out Declan Walsh’s silver-plated Colt .45.
He placed the heavy pistol on the center of the white tablecloth with a deliberate, heavy thud.
Beside it, he placed the brass casing etched with the three-leaf shamrock.
"Declan Walsh is currently lying on an abandoned runway in the Bahamas," Damian said softly.
"His fingers are broken, his knee is shattered, and before I cracked his skull, he sang an entire opera for me, Uncle."
"He gave me the audio recordings of your meetings at the marina in Jersey City."
"He gave me the access codes you provided to bypass Cobble Hill's security grid."
Damian took two slow, measured strides toward his uncle.
Vincent lunged for his waistband, reaching for a snub-nosed revolver concealed beneath his jacket.
Before his fingers could even clear the fabric, Leo was behind him.
With a sickening crunch, Leo drove an iron baton into the back of Vincent’s right knee.
Vincent shrieked, collapsing heavily onto the polished parquet floor, clutching his shattered joint.
The snub-nosed revolver clattered across the room, spinning until it came to rest against Khloe’s polished leather heels.
Khloe did not look down at the gun.
She looked only at Vincent, her expression cold, detached, and utterly merciless.
"You called me a common secretary, Vincent," Khloe said quietly, her voice cutting through his groans of pain.
"A common secretary keeps the calendar."
"A senior forensic risk analyst maps the architecture of failure."
"For twelve months, every time you skimmed five percent off the fuel surcharges at the Red Hook terminal, I documented it."
"Every time you met with the Salazar cartel representatives in Miami, I logged the tail numbers of your rental cars."
"I didn't just audit Damian's books, Vincent."
"I audited yours."
"And you have been running a deficit for three years."
Damian knelt beside his uncle, grabbing a handful of Vincent’s silver hair and yanking his head backward until his neck was strained tight.
Vincent whimpered, saliva and blood bubbling on his lips.
"Damian... please... I'm your father’s brother," Vincent choked out, his eyes wide with animal terror.
"Blood... we share the same blood..."
"My father died with honor on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway," Damian whispered against Vincent’s ear.
"You sold our family to an Irish junkie and a Mexican drug cartel because you couldn't stand taking orders from a man half your age."
"You broke the ancient code."
"You brought violence into a woman’s home."
Damian let go of the silver hair, standing up and smoothing the lapels of his charcoal suit.
He turned to the six district bosses seated at the table.
"Does any man at this table disagree with the sentence of the council?"
The six captains did not hesitate.
They bowed their heads in unison.
"The Russo name belongs to you, Don Damian," the eldest captain, Salvatore, said firmly.
"The traitor must be purged."
Damian nodded once.
"Leo."
"Take my uncle to the Long Island City facility."
"Put him in the refrigeration container with Arthur."
"Let the two fathers who sold their children keep each other warm until sundown."
"Then dispose of the trash."
Leo grabbed Vincent by his coat collar and dragged him across the parquet floor like a sack of damp grain, Vincent’s pathetic screams echoing down the hotel corridor until the heavy oak doors clicked shut.
Silence returned to the penthouse dining room.
The city outside was fully awake now, the morning sun blazing against the glass towers of Manhattan.
Damian turned to Khloe.
Her composure remained rigid, but he noticed the subtle, microscopic tremble in her left hand—the delayed physical reaction to seventy-two hours of sustained terror.
He walked over to her, closing the distance between them until he could smell the faint trace of vanilla and jasmine perfume that still lingered beneath the antiseptic.
"It’s over," Damian said, his voice dropping into a register meant only for her ears.
Khloe looked up at him, her dark eyes softening for the first time since she had thrown that crystal vase in Cobble Hill.
"It’s not over, Damian," she whispered.
May you like
"The books need to be balanced."
"And we have a wedding to arrange."
