Chapter 6 - The Council of Wolves
The mahogany conference room in the basement of the Lake Forest compound was built to withstand an artillery strike. Soundproofed, swept for listening devices twice daily, it was the room where life-and-death decisions for the Chicago underworld were finalized.
Ten Capos sat around the massive table. Men who controlled racketeering, narcotics, union corruption, and municipal politics. Their faces were carved of stone and scarred by violence, yet today, an uneasy tension rippled through them.
Adrian sat at the head of the table. He wore no jacket now, his white shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, revealing the dark tattoos of his own rise through the ranks. In front of him lay a single object: the severed brass baseboard screw he had picked up from the floor of the Newport mansion.
“You’ve all heard the whispers,” Adrian began, his voice cutting through the heavy cigar smoke. “My wife has been found.”
Murmurs rippled down the table. Luca Rossi, an ambitious Capo who ran the docks along Lake Michigan, leaned forward.
“We’re glad for you, Don Adrian,” Rossi said, though his tone was flat. “Truly. But with all due respect, while you were in Rhode Island handling domestic affairs, two of my shipping containers in Gary were seized by federal agents. Someone tipped them off. We are losing millions every day this instability continues.”
“The instability didn’t start yesterday, Luca,” Adrian replied smoothly. “It started five years ago, when we buried my brother Julian.”
At the mention of Julian’s name, the room fell dead silent. Even the older Capos looked unsettled.
“Julian is dead,” Mateo said softly from Adrian’s right hand. “We all paid our respects, Adrian. We mourned him.”
“Did we?” Adrian asked, his gaze sweeping slowly across every face at the table. “Because my wife didn't spend the last three years in heaven, Mateo. She spent them in the private estate of Alistair Vance, wearing an iron brand forged with Julian’s personal sigil.”
Rossi frowned. “That’s impossible. Julian’s body was identified by Dr. Carver at Cook County Morgue.”
“Dr. Carver retired to the Cayman Islands three months after the funeral,” Adrian noted, his voice dropping an octave. “He bought a four-million-dollar villa with cash wired through a dummy corporation in Panama. A corporation owned by Vance Shipping.”
Adrian stood up, planting his palms firmly on the polished wood.
“Julian did not die in that fire. He orchestrated the hit on himself, sacrificed twenty of our loyal soldiers to sell the lie, and retreated into the shadows to construct the Obsidian Syndicate. And one of you,” Adrian paused, his golden eyes narrowing, “has been feeding him our logistics, our routes, and our family secrets.”
The Capos shifted uncomfortably, glances darting between one another. Accusations of treason within the Commission were synonymous with immediate, summary execution.
“Adrian,” Mateo spoke up, his voice trembling with age and caution. “You are making accusations based on the words of a woman who has been traumatized for three years. Can we truly trust her mind? She may be seeing Julian’s ghost in every shadow!”
Adrian turned his head slowly toward his consigliere.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
“Her mind is clearer than yours, Mateo,” Adrian said coldly. “Because she didn’t mention Julian’s brand until I saw it with my own eyes. And there is one detail she couldn't possibly know unless she heard it directly from the man who took her.”
Adrian reached into his pocket and placed an old, tarnished silver coin onto the table. It was a 1921 Morgan silver dollar, notched on the edge.
Every man at the table stared at it.
“This was my father’s lucky coin,” Adrian said. “Julian stole it the night he allegedly died. Evelyn told me last night that the man who held her captive carried this coin in his vest pocket every single day.”
Adrian leaned down, his face inches from Mateo’s ear.
May you like
“And you, Mateo... you were the only man who had access to my father’s safe the night Julian disappeared.”
***
