Chapter 33 - Ashes of the Grand Council
The silence that fell over the ballroom was heavier than the gunfire that had preceded it.
The surviving syndicate delegates—men who governed territories stretching from Detroit to New Orleans—watched from the perimeter with terrified fascination. They had come to Chicago to see Luca Moretti bend the knee or die. Instead, they were witnessing the resurrection of the oldest bloodline in the country, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the house they thought was crumbling.
Luca slowly lowered the revolver, though his thumb remained resting on the hammer. He turned his head to look at the room full of syndicate bosses.
"The meeting is adjourned," Luca announced, his voice echoing through the hollow, ruined hall with absolute authority. "Any man who leaves this room through that door answers to the Carbone-Moretti alliance. If you remain loyal to the old charters, your families will be protected. If you wire a single dollar to Zurich, we will hunt you down, your lieutenants, and your bloodlines until there is nothing left of your names but grease on the sidewalk."
He paused, gesturing to the tactical team.
"Take Corrado to the deep vaults beneath St. Jude. Strip him of his phone, his rings, and his teeth if necessary. He stays alive until I say otherwise."
"Understood, Boss," two Phoenix operators responded, hauling the screaming old man to his feet and dragging him out through the shattered oak doors.
Luca exhaled a long breath, wiping a smear of blood from his cheek with the back of his cuff. He looked at Mrs. Moretti. "Mother. You brought an army."
"I brought what was necessary to save my fool son," she replied, her eyes softening as she reached up to brush a strand of hair from his forehead. "Though you can thank Clara. If she hadn't served you that soup, if she hadn't preserved the seal on the ledger, Lorenzo and I would have arrived to find your corpse."
Luca turned back to me. His eyes were wide, dark, and filled with a profound gravity that stripped away the lingering adrenaline of the battle. In front of fifty hardened criminals, his private guards, and my resurrected father, the formidable Don of the Moretti family closed the distance between us, took my right hand, and brought it to his lips.
His mouth was warm against my skin, kissing the calluses that scrubbing his floors had left behind.
"You kept your promise," he murmured, his voice thick with unmasked devotion. "You saved my house."
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"You made me a promise too, Luca," I reminded him, my voice barely above a whisper, though my chest burned with fierce pride. "You promised that once the house was cleaned, we would set the table together."
Lorenzo cleared his throat, an amused smirk tugging at the scar on his jaw. "Touching as this reunion is, we have less than six hours before the European markets open. If Corrado’s transfer protocol goes through, we won’t have a table to sit at."
