Chapter 16 - The Dying Patriarch's Final Decree
The bitter winter of the Midwest had turned the Chicago skyline into an empire of gray stone and razor-sharp ice.
Deep inside the guarded estate in Lake Forest, Don Anthony Moretti lay dying beneath heavy silk quilts.
The heart monitor beside his four-poster bed emitted a faint, erratic pulse that signaled the imminent collapse of an era.
Surrounding the dying lion were the senior Caporegimes, men who had spilled oceans of blood, now whispering like vultures over a fresh carcass.
With Vincent rotting behind federal prison bars in Terre Haute and disinherited from the bloodline, the succession was a ticking bomb.
Standing at the foot of the bed was Marco Moretti, Vincent’s ruthless thirty-two-year-old cousin who commanded the syndicate's northern narcotics and armed extortion rackets.
Marco possessed all of Vincent's ferocity, but none of his restraint or strategic intellect.
Don Anthony slowly opened his clouded eyes, his trembling hand pointing weakly toward the ceiling.
"The family is bleeding from every vein," the old man rasped, his voice whistling through phlegm and regret.
"Our shipping terminals are seized, the feds are crawling through our offshore ledgers, and our European buyers have vanished."
"Because of Claire Bennett," Marco hissed, stepping forward with his dark eyes ablaze with hatred.
"Vincent let a woman dismantle seventy years of our grandfather's legacy because he was too soft to put a bullet in her chest."
"Claire did not destroy us, you arrogant fool," Don Anthony coughed, spitting a fleck of blood onto the white linen.
"We destroyed ourselves when we allowed poison and betrayal to sit at our dinner table."
"She took the maritime logistics corridors that fed our families, Grandfather," Marco countered, leaning over the brass railing.
"Hayes International is launching their unified Mediterranean shipping hub in Genoa next month."
"They are choking our remaining transit lines across the Atlantic."
"Leave her be, Marco," Don Anthony whispered, his breathing growing shallow and irregular.
"She is protected by sovereign treaties, Swiss banks, and men who do not play with street weapons."
"If you touch Claire Bennett, the heavens will fall upon Chicago."
Those were the last coherent words Don Anthony Moretti ever spoke before his cardiac monitor flatlined into a continuous, deafening tone.
The room plunged into absolute silence as the family physician stepped forward to pronounce the patriarch's death.
Marco Moretti stood tall, adjusting the lapels of his custom velvet suit, a terrifying, predatory smile spreading across his lips.
He looked around the room at the hardened killers who controlled the city's dark corridors.
"The old man's era of restraint is dead," Marco declared, his voice echoing with absolute menace.
"Vincent disgraced our name from a Swiss hotel room, and Claire Bennett made fools of us on international television."
"I do not care about Swiss treaties or Hayes International's billions."
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"Send our best hit squad to the Mediterranean."
"If we drown Claire Bennett in the port of Genoa, the world will remember that no one steals from the Moretti family and lives to tell the tale."
