Chapter 13 - The Judgment of the Commission
The silence in the ballroom stretched until the tension became unbearable.
Vincent looked at the four enforcers he had brought with him, his face twisted in desperation.
“Kill them!” Vincent screamed, lunging backward while clawing at the snub-nosed revolver concealed in his shoulder holster.
Before his fingers could even clear the leather holster, the three captains standing behind him stepped away, leaving him completely exposed.
His own men knew the math of survival; you do not open fire in a room surrounded by fifty rifles to save a dead man walking.
Gabriel moved with blinding, lethal speed.
He caught Vincent’s drawing arm at the elbow, spun him around against the mahogany conference table, and drove his face down onto the wood with a sickening crunch.
Vincent’s nose broke instantly, blood pooling across his forged legal documents and the pristine white linen napkins.
The revolver clattered harmlessly across the parquet floor, stopping against the toe of Don Carmine’s shoe.
Carmine did not even look down; he simply kicked the weapon under the sideboard with the heel of his boot.
Gabriel held Vincent pinned to the table with one forearm pressed against his neck, his knee jammed into the small of Vincent’s back.
Vincent choked on his own blood, groaning in muffled agony.
Salvatore did not flinch.
He leaned on his olive-wood cane, looking down at his brother’s child without a single trace of hatred or pity in his pale eyes.
“Fifty years ago, I showed mercy to Bernardo because he chose honor over wealth,” Salvatore said softly in the Palermo tongue.
“I showed mercy to my brother, Carlo, because we shared the same mother’s milk.”
“That mercy cost my family fifty years of peace.”
“I will not make that mistake a third time.”
Salvatore raised his eyes to the heads of the other three families sitting around the mahogany table.
“Don Carmine,” Salvatore asked in the formal cadence of the Commission.
“Don Francesco.”
“How does the council judge a man who brings hemlock to his Don’s table and tries to sell the Four Families to the prosecutors?”
Carmine Lucchese stood up, adjusted his silk tie, and buttoned his jacket.
“Under the laws of 1974, the punishment for poisoning the cup is the erasure of the branch,” Carmine pronounced without hesitation.
Frank Costello nodded in grim agreement, resting his heavy palms on the table.
“He belongs to the Rossi house,” Costello said.
“Let the Rossi house clean its own floor.”
The council rose as one man, turning their backs on Vincent Moretti in total, unanimous condemnation.
One by one, the family heads and their bodyguards filed out of the ballroom, leaving the heavy doors to swing shut behind them.
Only the Rossi family remained inside the grand hall.
Gabriel maintained his iron grip on Vincent’s neck, his breathing steady, waiting for the final command from his father.
Vincent sobbed against the blood-stained table, his arrogant swagger reduced to pitiful wails.
“Uncle... please,” Vincent wept, his words muffled by the wood.
“I’m your blood.”
“I’m Carlo’s son.”
“You promised my mother you would protect me.”
“I promised your mother I would raise you as my own,” Salvatore replied, his voice breaking slightly with an old man’s grief.
“I did not promise her I would let you butcher my family.”
Salvatore turned his back on Vincent and looked directly at me.
“Take him to the cellar under the carriage house, Gabriel,” the Don ordered quietly.
“When the sun sets behind the hills, make sure his name is removed from the corporate registries, the docks, and the living earth.”
“Yes, Father,” Gabriel answered cleanly.
Gabriel hauled the weeping, bleeding traitor to his feet and shoved him through the private service doors into the waiting arms of Marco and four tactical guards.
The ballroom was suddenly empty, save for the old Don, myself, and the smell of spilled blood and cold tea.
Salvatore’s shoulders suddenly slumped, the terrifying posture of the mafia king collapsing under the immense weight of his eighty-two years.
He swayed slightly, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the ivory skull of his cane to keep from falling.
I rushed forward, catching him under his frail arm before his knees could buckle.
“Sit down, Don Salvatore,” I urged gently, guiding him back into the burgundy leather armchair.
He collapsed into the soft cushions, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as he closed his eyes against the afternoon light.
“It is finished, Tessa,” the old man whispered, his chest heaving beneath his wool waistcoat.
“The ghost of Bernardo has finally had his say.”
I knelt beside the chair, taking his cold, trembling hand between mine just as I had done for Bernardo Cosenza on Forty-Eighth Street.
“Rest now, Don Salvatore,” I murmured in the mountain dialect.
“The wolves are gone.”
The old man squeezed my fingers with the last reserve of his fading strength, a faint, peaceful smile touching his pale lips.
May you like
“The wolves are gone,” he echoed softly, his eyes fluttering closed as the long-delayed exhaustion finally claimed him.
“Now let the girl from the kitchen have her peace.”
