Chapter 13 - The Tribunal in the Shadows
Forty-eight hours later, the Grand Ballroom of the Saint Regis Hotel in Midtown Manhattan was sealed under total tactical lockdown.
The heavy brass chandeliers hung low over an enormous oval conference table carved from black walnut.
Surrounding the table were the Dons and Capos of the Seven Families that controlled the eastern seaboard from Boston to Philadelphia.
Heavy curtains smothered the afternoon daylight, leaving the room illuminated only by flickering tallow candles and reading lamps.
At the far end of the room, chained to a heavy steel chair bolted into the floorboards, sat Salvatore Vitiello.
His immaculate suit was gone; he wore only soiled prison trousers and a ripped undershirt.
His face was bruised, his silver hair wild and disheveled, but his gray eyes still burned with defiant arrogance.
"This is an outrage against the charter!" Salvatore hissed, his voice echoing off the gilded ceiling.
"Dominic is dead in Brooklyn!"
"His enforcers have no standing to convene an emergency tribunal without a sitting Don!"
"Who said the Don of Manhattan is dead, Salvatore?" a voice rasped from the double doors at the rear of the room.
The entire assembly turned in stunned silence as the doors swung wide.
Entering the room was Dominic Vitiello.
He was pale as a marble statue, walking with a slow, deliberate cadence that hid the agonizing pain of sixty surgical staples across his dorsal spine.
He wore a custom black suit tailored to accommodate the thick medical chest binder beneath his dress shirt.
He did not use a cane.
He did not lean on Matteo, who walked three paces behind him with his hand on his sidearm.
Walking beside Dominic, her hand lightly resting upon the crook of his arm, was Madeline.
She was dressed in a high-necked, midnight-blue silk gown that covered her bandages, her copper hair pinned up with silver combs.
In her right ear hung the luminous, pristine pearl earring Dominic had bought her in Paris.
In her left ear hung the twin pearl—its surface permanently scarred and etched by the blood of the sidewalk.
Behind them, flanked by his personal guard, stepped Lorenzo Castiglione.
The presence of the Brooklyn Don in the inner sanctum of Manhattan caused half the council to reach for their concealed holsters.
Dominic raised his right hand, a gesture of absolute command that instantly froze every man in the room.
"Nobody draws steel in this room," Dominic commanded, his voice deep, gravelly, and vibrating with lethal authority.
Dominic walked to the head of the walnut table and pulled out the primary leather chair.
He did not sit down.
He held the chair steady and nodded to Madeline.
Madeline looked around the circle of hardened killers, stepped forward without a tremor in her stride, and sat down in the seat of power.
Dominic remained standing beside her, resting his large, scarred hand upon the back of her chair like a guardian beast.
"The rumors of my demise were premature," Dominic said, his dark eyes sweeping over the stunned faces of the council capos.
"And the war with Brooklyn is officially terminated."
"Dominic!" Salvatore shouted, rattling his iron chains against the chair legs.
"You bring our mortal enemy into the sacred chamber?"
"Castiglione slaughtered your father!"
"My father was slaughtered by a coward who paid a waterfront syndicate through Trident Marine," Dominic answered, his voice dropping into chilling calm.
Dominic tapped the mahogany tabletop, and Elias stepped forward with a stack of forensic financial binders.
He placed a leather-bound dossier in front of every Don at the table.
"Page four contains the wire transfers from Salvatore’s Cayman account to the demolition crew that rigged my father’s limousine five years ago," Dominic announced.
"Page nine contains the radio intercepts from Pier Fourteen two nights ago."
"And page twelve contains the signed confession from Salvatore’s logistics lieutenant, Vincent Corvo, before he met his end at the sugar refinery."
The Dons began flipping through the pages, their expressions hardening from shock into dark, disgusted fury.
Old Don Moretti, the senior patriarch of the Queens faction, slammed his heavy fist onto the table.
"Kin-slaying," Moretti growled, his ancient voice trembling with disgust as he glared across the table at Salvatore.
"You murdered your own blood to take the throne, Salvatore?"
"And then you used your nephew as an attack dog to fight a phantom war against Brooklyn?"
Salvatore thrashed against his chains, his face purpling with desperation.
"The evidence is fabricated! Dominic is being manipulated by his wife and the Castiglione clan!"
"My wife bled three pints of blood on the street outside my home to buy this evidence for me," Dominic said, stepping away from the table.
He walked across the parquet floor until he was standing directly over his uncle’s chair.
Dominic reached down and drew a single silver coin from his pocket—the traditional marker of family betrayal.
He dropped it into Salvatore’s lap.
"The council’s vote is not required for a judgment of high treason against the bloodline," Dominic said, looking down into the eyes of the man who had raised him on lies.
"Your name is stricken from the ledger."
"Your assets are seized and transferred to the Oakhaven Restitution Fund under Madeline’s name."
"And your execution will be carried out tonight at Pier Fourteen."
"Dominic! I am your father's brother!" Salvatore screamed, tears of terror finally spilling over his wrinkled cheeks.
"You cannot do this to me! I raised you!"
"You didn't raise me, Salvatore," Dominic whispered, leaning down until his lips were inches from the old man's ear.
"You created a monster to do your butchery."
"And now the monster has come home to feed."
Dominic straightened his spine, ignoring the fierce pull of his surgical staples, and turned his back on his uncle.
"Take him to the docks," Dominic commanded.
Matteo and two heavy enforcers unbolted the chains and dragged the screaming patriarch out through the service doors into the cold night.
The heavy ballroom doors slammed shut behind them, leaving the council in absolute, respectful silence.
Lorenzo Castiglione stepped forward to the center of the table, looking across the walnut expanse at Dominic and Madeline.
"The Brooklyn perimeters are open to joint transit," Lorenzo stated, extending his right hand across the boundary.
Dominic stepped forward and grasped Lorenzo’s hand in a crushing grip, the blood-feud of five years sealed in steel and honor.
"The northern routes belong to Brooklyn," Dominic agreed.
"And the harbor stays united."
Lorenzo nodded, glanced down at Madeline with a respectful dip of his chin, and turned to lead his entourage out of Manhattan.
The tribunal was over.
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The war was won.
Yet as Dominic looked down at Madeline sitting in the gilded chair, he knew his hardest trial had only just begun.
