Chapter 7 - The Gathering of Ash
At five in the morning, the Valente syndicate’s inner circle gathered inside the subterranean conference room beneath our headquarters on Grand Avenue. Twelve capos sat around the mahogany table, their expressions tense, nervous, and pale. The news of Cassian’s sudden "disappearance" from his penthouse had already rippled through the underworld grapevine, accompanied by rumors of the bloody massacre at the South Side salvage yard.
I entered the room through the rear vault door. I had changed into a clean, black charcoal suit, my tie fastened in a tight Windsor knot. My hair was combed back, and my face was entirely devoid of expression. Mateo walked half a step behind me, carrying an aluminum briefcase.
As I took my seat at the head of the table, not a single man dared to breathe aloud.
“Where is Cassian?” asked Paulie Rossi, an older capo who had managed the northern river terminals since my father’s era. His voice trembled slightly.
“Cassian had an urgent appointment with Lake Michigan,” I said, resting my hands flat on the polished wood.
A collective shiver ran through the men.
“For the past six months,” I continued, my voice steady, measured, and terrifyingly calm, “this organization has suffered from an infection. Some of you believed that because I allowed my private life to become messy, my vision had dimmed. You believed that Lorenzo Moretti offered a more lucrative partnership. You believed that betrayal could be managed through encrypted burner phones and back-alley transfers.”
I gestured to Mateo.
Mateo opened the aluminum briefcase and dumped its contents onto the center of the table. A dozen printed dossiers spilled across the mahogany, each stapled to bank transfer receipts, audio transcripts extracted from Cassian’s encrypted hard drive, and photographs of secret rendezvous at the Calumet railyards.
Three capos at the far end of the table turned the color of chalk.
“Paulie,” I said, turning my gaze to the veteran lieutenant. “You took fifty thousand dollars last Tuesday to ensure the security cameras along the southern rail line would cycle on a twelve-minute delay.”
Paulie’s mouth opened, his hands shaking violently as he pressed them against the table. “Dominic… Dom, listen to me, they threatened my grandson—Moretti said he’d butcher my family—”
“And you,” I turned to Sal Ferrara, our chief logistics manager, “you authorized the false bills of lading that disguised two tons of fentanyl inside our grain containers.”
Sal slumped back in his chair, his eyes glazed with the certainty of death.
“I am not going to kill you today, Paulie,” I said softly.
Paulie blinked, hope flickering pathetically across his weathered features. “Dom… thank you, thank you, I swear on my mother’s grave—”
“You will take your crew,” I continued, cutting through his gratitude like a scalpel, “and you will take point on the assault at the Calumet grain terminals in forty minutes. You will breach the main gates. You will draw Lorenzo’s primary fire. If you survive the morning, you will surrender your assets, take your grandson, and leave this continent forever. If you hesitate, Mateo has four men parked outside your daughter’s house in Evanston right now.”
Paulie bowed his head, tears dripping onto the dossiers. “I understand, Boss.”
I stood up, resting my knuckles against the table. The remaining loyal capos straightened their backs, their faces hardened for war.
May you like
“Lorenzo Moretti thinks he is meeting Cassian to divide my city,” I told them, my voice rising with absolute authority. “He thinks Clara is dead, and he thinks I am broken in a hospital waiting room. We are going to show him that Chicago has only one master. We will take no prisoners. We will burn every warehouse, every railcar, and every vessel bearing the Moretti crest. Move out.”
***
