Chương 7 - The Gathering of the Families
By 9:00 a.m. the following morning, the Moretti estate had transformed into an armed encampment.
Dozens of sleek black SUVs lined the gravel driveway. Heavy-set men in dark suits with earpieces stood at twenty-foot intervals along the iron perimeter fence. In the skies above the Hudson River, the distant chop of a private helicopter echoed as high-ranking capos from across the state arrived for an emergency summit of the New York Commission.
In the grand ballroom on the ground floor, a long mahogany table had been set up beneath the crystal chandeliers.
Seated around the table were seven men—the heads of the major families controlling the docks, the unions, the construction syndicates, and the import routes of the Northeast.
At the head of the table sat Don Alessandro Moretti.
Beside him, in an elegant black suit with a gold falcon pin pinned to her lapel, sat Rosaria Mendes.
On the table in front of them lay the original maritime land deeds of Lisbon, certified by the Portuguese embassy in Manhattan just two hours earlier, along with the official bloodline verification documents proving Rosaria’s identity as the sole legal heir of the Mendes estate.
The elderly Don Lucchese, a silver-haired man who had served on the Commission for forty years, adjusted his glasses and looked at the documents, then up at Rosa.
"Incredible," Lucchese muttered, shaking his head in awe. "We thought Gabriel Mendes’ lineage was wiped out in Lisbon. And all this time, the girl was sitting in upstate New York."
"She was keeping her child safe," Alessandro stated firmly, his voice echoing across the quiet ballroom. "And she was waiting for the right moment to reclaim her birthright."
"And Vincent Romano?" asked Don Barzini, a sharp-eyed man from New Jersey. "Romano left for his estate in Westchester last night. Word on the street is he’s mobilizing two hundred soldiers from Chicago. He considers your rejection of his daughter an act of war, Alessandro."
Alessandro leaned back in his leather chair, crossing his arms, a cold, dangerous smile touching his lips.
"Vincent Romano is a fool who thinks he can fight a war on two fronts," Alessandro said smoothly. "He thought he could bully my family into giving up our ports. Now, he realizes that with Rosaria’s deeds, the Moretti family owns the very waters his shipping containers must pass through."
"He won't accept it, Alessandro," Lucchese warned, leaning forward. "Vincent is old-school. He’s desperate. A desperate man with two hundred guns will make the streets run red. The police... the Feds... they are already watching the borders."
Rosaria stepped forward, placing her slender, elegant hands flat on the mahogany table. Every eye in the room shifted to her.
"Then we don't give him a war in the streets," Rosaria said, her voice filled with a calm, lethal authority that stunned the hardened mob bosses sitting around her.
Alessandro looked up at her, a look of profound, quiet admiration in his eyes. "What are you proposing, Rosaria?"
"Vincent’s entire power base relies on the Chicago Transport Union," Rosaria explained smoothly, her dark eyes flashing with cold intelligence. "Without those unions, his containers can't move ten feet out of the docks. My father held seventy percent of the union pension funds through a proxy trust in Geneva. I activated that trust three hours ago."
She pulled a sleek tablet from her leather folder and slid it across the table toward Don Lucchese.
"As of eight o'clock this morning," Rosaria continued, "the Chicago transport unions have frozen all Romano shipments. Vincent Romano doesn't have a war chest anymore. He has thirty million dollars in perishable cargo rotting on the piers, and his own lieutenants haven't been paid since yesterday."
The ballroom went dead silent.
Don Lucchese stared at the tablet screen, then let out a low, booming laugh that rattled the crystal chandelier above.
"Mamma Mia," Lucchese laughed, looking at Alessandro. "You didn't just find a wife, Alessandro. You found a general."
Alessandro stood up, his eyes never leaving Rosaria. He reached out, taking her hand in his, raising it to his lips to press a soft, respectful kiss against her knuckles.
May you like
"The Commission stands behind the Moretti-Mendes alliance," Alessandro declared, looking around the table at the six remaining Dons. "Is there any dissent?"
Not a single man moved. One by one, the leaders of the New York underworld stood up, bowing their heads in deep respect to Don Alessandro and the new Queen of the Eastern Seaboard.
