Chapter 7 - The Council of Twelve
The service elevator carried us straight up to the mezzanine level, bypassing the hotel’s opulent public lobbies where wealthy tourists sipped martinis beneath crystal chandeliers.
The heavy mahogany double doors leading into the Grand Ballroom were shut tight.
Two veteran enforcers belonging to Salvatore Moretti’s personal guard stood outside the entrance, their hands resting casually inside their coats.
When they saw Luca step out of the service foyer followed by Marcus and his tactical team, their hands froze.
“You can't bring armed men into the council chamber, Luca,” the older enforcer, a scarred Sicilian named Barone, snarled, stepping forward.
“The rules of the Commission state—”
“The rules of the Commission died when my father tried to poison me and burn a servant girl’s hand off in my own kitchen,” Luca interrupted, his voice dropping into a register that made Barone step back involuntarily.
Luca didn't slow his stride.
He reached out with his left hand, grabbed Barone by the lapel of his tailored suit, and slammed him against the oak door with a bone-rattling thud.
“Open the doors, Barone.”
“Or I will use your head to do it.”
Barone’s face turned purple, his eyes darting to the barrels of Marcus’s submachine guns pointed directly at his chest.
With trembling fingers, the enforcer reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy brass key, and unlocked the double doors.
Luca shoved him aside like a discarded coat and pushed the heavy wood open.
The Grand Ballroom was a vast, cavernous space lined with gold leaf moldings and towering arched windows overlooking Michigan Avenue.
At the center stood a massive oval mahogany table long enough to seat thirty people.
Seated around it were the twelve most powerful men in the Midwest: the capos, underbosses, and financial architects of the Moretti empire.
At the head of the table sat Salvatore Moretti.
He was dressed in a pristine black tuxedo, leaning heavily on his ebony cane, his silver hair catching the amber light of the chandeliers.
To his right sat Vanessa Bellini, her red silk gown replaced by a severe black pantsuit, her face cold and triumphant.
When the heavy doors creaked open, all twenty-four eyes at the table snapped toward the entrance.
Murmurs rippled through the seated capos.
“You’re late, Luca,” Salvatore’s raspy voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
“And you brought unauthorized guests.”
“A meeting of the Commission is restricted to sworn capos and officers of the family.”
“She is neither.”
Salvatore pointed his ebony cane directly at me.
I stood three steps behind Luca’s left shoulder, my head held high, my eyes locked on the old man who had ordered my murder without blinking an eye.
Luca walked slowly toward the center of the room, his boots clicking rhythmically against the parquet floor.
“She isn't a guest, Father,” Luca said, pulling out a chair halfway down the table and resting his hands on its back.
“She is the primary witness to your treason.”
Vanessa let out a sharp, theatrical laugh, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder.
“Treason?” she sneered, standing up from her chair.
“Luca, have you completely lost your mind?”
“You dragged a hysterical, thieving maid into a high-level council meeting because she burned her hand in the kitchen?”
“Look at her!”
“She’s a nobody from a housing project in Evanston!”
“Her sister is dying of leukemia on our charity dime!”
“She fabricated a wild story about us to save her skin after she was caught stealing shipping manifests!”
The capos at the table began to mutter among themselves.
Old Captain Rossi, his face lined with decades of bourbon and violence, leaned forward, resting his weathered hands on the table.
“Is this true, Luca?” Rossi asked, his voice gravelly and cautious.
“You’re disrupting the Commission over a domestic dispute with a servant?”
“She isn't just a servant, Rossi,” Luca said, his voice cutting through the murmurs like a butcher's knife.
“She is the only person in this room who had the courage to record what your Don Emeritus and his fiancée were planning behind your backs.”
Luca reached into his breast pocket, pulled out the tiny black microSD card, and tossed it across the polished mahogany table.
May you like
It slid across the wood and stopped directly in front of Captain Rossi’s water glass.
“Play it,” Luca commanded.
