Chapter 6 - The Council of Wolves
The Sovereign Club was not a club at all; it was a subterranean fortress built beneath an 1890s bank building in the heart of the city’s financial district.
We arrived in a motorcade of three identical armored Suburbans. Snow swirled through the alley as heavy iron gates swung open, allowing the vehicles to descend a concrete ramp into a private underground garage. The moment the tires touched the polished concrete, twenty armed guards in matching black overcoats snapped to attention, their weapons held at low ready.
Martha was already there, having arrived twenty minutes earlier via a private subway tunnel. She whisked Wren’s bassinet into an elevator bank guarded by two men carrying submachine guns.
I watched the steel doors close on my daughter, my heart tearing in two.
"She is safe," Julian said, offering me his arm.
I looked at the crook of his elbow, then up at his implacable face. I slipped my gloved hand through his arm, feeling the rock-hard muscle beneath the cashmere overcoat. We stepped toward the gilded bronze elevator that led up to the executive dining room.
When the elevator doors parted on the fourth floor, the noise hit us: the murmur of low voices, the clinking of heavy silverware against porcelain, the aroma of roasted meats, expensive cigars, and vintage wine.
The room fell dead silent the instant Julian Crane crossed the threshold.
It was an enormous room paneled in dark walnut, lined with oil paintings of nineteenth-century robber barons. A banquet table of polished mahogany stretched fifty feet down the center, surrounded by thirty men and half a dozen women, all dressed in formal evening attire. Every single one of them was a boss, an underboss, or a consiglieri from the five syndicates that carved up the eastern seaboard.
At the head of the table sat Don Bernardo Caruso—a withered old man in his eighties with sunken, liver-spotted cheeks and dead, yellowed eyes, seated in an antique wheelchair. To his right stood his nephew, Matteo: a man in his late thirties with slicked-back oil-black hair, a sharp, rodent-like nose, and an arrogant sneer that looked permanently stamped onto his face.
"Julian," Don Bernardo rasped, his voice sounding like dry paper rubbing together. "You honor us. We were beginning to think the snow would keep you in your fortress."
"Snow only stops the weak, Bernardo," Julian replied, his voice ringing through the vaulted room with effortless authority.
He did not walk to an empty seat. He walked directly to the opposite end of the table, pulling out the massive high-backed leather chair at the foot of the mahogany expanse. He held it out for me.
Every eye in the room followed the movement.
I did not flinch. I held my head high, the heavy emerald necklace catching the chandelier light, the fur-lined cape draping behind me like a royal mantle. I sat down smoothly, arranging the emerald velvet over my knees with deliberate calm.
Julian did not sit. He remained standing behind my chair, his hands resting on the carved lion heads of the walnut backrest, claiming the space, claiming me, daring anyone in the room to question her presence.
"And who is this?" Matteo Caruso spoke up, leaning forward over his plate, his eyes crawling over my skin with greasy familiarity. "I didn't know you were bringing your catering staff to the high table, Crane. Did she bring more champagne, or did she just come to drop another tray?"
A few nervous chuckles rippled down the table, quickly silenced by the dead, cold glare Julian directed toward them.
"This is Clara Vance," Julian said, his voice dropping into that chilling, quiet register that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Sister to Caleb Vance. Sole beneficiary of his estate, and under the absolute protection of the Crane family."
Matteo’s sneer widened. "Caleb Vance? The mercenary who bled out like a stray dog in the Mediterranean? You bring his charity case to our quarterly summit?"
I felt the blood roar in my ears, but I remembered Julian’s words in the mirror. I did not blink. I picked up the heavy crystal water goblet before me, took a single, measured sip, and set it down without making a sound against the linen cloth.
"My brother took two bullets meant for Julian Crane," I said, my voice clear, steady, and loud enough to penetrate every corner of the silent hall. "Which means Julian is alive, and the men who hired those shooters are dead. I wouldn't boast about that contract, Mr. Caruso. It seems to have had a very poor return on investment."
A dead, breathless silence descended upon the room.
Across the table, two of the older bosses exchanged glances, their eyebrows lifting in grudging respect. Matteo’s face flushed an ugly, mottled red, his fingers clenching into fists on the mahogany table.
"You insolent little bitch—" Matteo snarled, half-rising from his chair.
"Sit down, Matteo," Don Bernardo commanded, his dry, wheezing voice cutting through his nephew's temper like a dull razor. The old man turned his yellowed eyes toward Julian. "A bold declaration, Crane. But Caleb Vance was a ghost. He belonged to no family. His blood holds no claim at this table."
"His blood does not need a claim at this table," Julian said, stepping forward until he stood at the edge of the mahogany, towering over the room. "Because Clara Vance is not Caleb’s proxy."
He reached out, his hand resting flat on the center of the table, his signet ring gleaming under the crystal lights.
May you like
"She is my betrothed," Julian declared, the words dropping like lead weights into the silence. "And any man who looks at her with disrespect will answer to the full might of the Crane syndicate before the sun rises."
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