Chapter 9 - The Blood Verdict
The following evening, the underground council chamber of the Moretti estate was filled with thirty of the most powerful syndicate leaders on the East Coast.
Heavy iron chandeliers cast a deep amber light over the stone walls. The air smelled of old tobacco, rain, and cold iron.
Sitting at the center elevated table was Aleandro, flanked by Marco and Dante. Beside him sat Isabella, wearing a simple, elegant dark green wool dress, her posture tall and proud, her small hand resting comfortably inside Aleandro’s large palm.
On the floor in front of the table, bound in heavy chains, sat Marcus.
The council members sat in utter silence as Dante finished playing the full audio recordings of Marcus’s phone calls with Cassian Vance—recordings that detailed the entire plot to kidnap little Clara, frame Isabella, and execute a coup against Aleandro.
When the audio finished, a collective wave of disgust swept through the elder bosses.
Elder Don Carmelo—a seventy-year-old mob veteran with silver hair and a scarred jaw—stood up, pointing his heavy cane directly at Marcus.
“Treason against your own boss,” Carmelo spat, his voice trembling with outrage. “Using a child to destroy a family from within. There is only one sentence for a snake like this under our law.”
The thirty bosses stood up one by one, raising their right hands in unanimous agreement.
Marcus slumped against his chains, weeping silently, knowing there was no court, no lawyer, and no appeal that could save him now.
Aleandro stood up from the center table. He looked around the room at the men who held the destiny of the city’s underground in their hands.
“This council has spoken,” Aleandro declared, his deep voice ringing off the stone arches. “Marcus will be stripped of his name, his assets, and his territory. His entire line of authority is dissolved.”
He turned his dark gaze down to Marcus.
“And as for you,” Aleandro added coldly, “you will spend the rest of your life in an offshore federal facility, where you will never see the sun, never hear a human voice, and never touch another coin of Moretti money.”
Two guards hauled Marcus up by his chains, dragging him kicking and screaming out through the heavy iron doors of the chamber, his desperate pleas echoing down the dark stone corridor until they faded into nothingness.
Aleandro turned to Isabella.
May you like
He reached out, cupping her face gently before the thirty high-ranking bosses of New York, and pressed a tender, lingering kiss against her lips.
The entire council room erupted into thunderous, respectful applause.
