Chapter 19 - The judgment of the table
A suffocating silence fell over the dining hall. The only sound was the muffled crying of Noah, who was still clinging to Sarah at the far end of the room. Sarah gently covered Noah's ears, pulling him closer to her chest, knowing what was coming.
Frank Carmine shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clearing his throat. "Richard, with all due respect, we’ve been loyal to you for twenty-five years. If Mark went rogue, that’s on him. None of us would ever touch a child. Especially not your kin."
"Is that so, Frank?" Richard asked, his voice deceptively gentle. He reached into his coat pocket and placed a sleek, modern smartphone on the table right in front of Carmine’s crystal wine glass.
"That's Dominic Russo’s personal encrypted device," Richard explained, leaning over Carmine’s shoulder until his lips were inches from the man's ear. "Viktor has a very talented technician who cracked the biometric lock yesterday in Zurich. Would you like to hear the voice memo Russo received at three in the morning the night of my birthday?"
Carmine’s face turned the color of damp chalk. He reached toward the breast pocket of his tailored jacket, but before his fingers could even graze the lapel, Viktor’s hand descended like a steel vise, pinning Carmine’s wrist to the table with bone-snapping force.
Richard tapped the screen. A voice filled the dining room, coming through the speaker with absolute clarity.
*“The package is in the box on the back porch, Dominic. The blizzard will finish him in two hours if the old man doesn't open the door. Make sure the transfer hits my Swiss account before dawn. We own New York now.”*
The voice didn't belong to Mark.
It belonged to Frank Carmine.
The other four Capos instantly backed their chairs away from the table, raising their hands in the air, distancing themselves from the dead man sitting in their midst.
"You sat at my table for a quarter of a century, Frank," Richard whispered, stepping back. "I made you a multi-millionaire. I attended your daughter's wedding. And you tried to freeze my flesh and blood in a snowdrift like stray garbage."
"Richard, please!" Carmine gasped, struggling futilely against Viktor’s grip, his eyes bulging with terror. "Mark forced me! He had dirt on my family! He said you were going soft, that you were going to dissolve the syndicate!"
"I am not going soft, Frank," Richard said, his expression completely devoid of humanity. "In fact, I have never been clearer. Noah is not my grandson. He is my son. He is the sole owner of everything you see, everything you touch, and everything you steal. And you will not live to see him take his throne."
Richard didn't raise a gun. He simply nodded once at Viktor.
Viktor reached into his pocket, pulled out a slender silver vial of pressurized paralytic liquid, and pressed the needleless injector against the side of Carmine’s neck. A sharp *hiss* echoed through the room.
Carmine’s eyes widened in utter panic as his vocal cords instantly froze, his lungs seizing, his entire body turning rigid within five seconds. He slumped forward onto the mahogany table, completely conscious, entirely paralyzed, staring into his empty wine glass as his heart slowly ceased to beat.
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Richard looked at the remaining four Capos, whose faces were drained of all color.
"Clear the table," Richard commanded. "The meeting is over."
