Chapter 8 - The Ashes of the Underworld
Midnight arrived under a blanket of thick fog rolling off the East River.
In a private, soundproof basement suite beneath an upscale restaurant in Little Italy, thirty of the most powerful mob bosses on the East Coast sat around a massive round oak table. The room was heavy with the smell of expensive cigars, leather, and unspoken violence.
At the head of the table sat Don Viktor Vance—a burly, fifty-year-old man from Chicago with a scarred jaw and cold, arrogant blue eyes.
“Where is Ferraro?” Vance growled, glancing at his gold watch. “He called this emergency summit. If he’s too busy weeping over his divorced wife to show up on time, I’m leaving.”
The heavy iron doors at the rear of the suite swung open.
Dominic walked into the room alone.
He wore no body armor, no winter coat—only a impeccably tailored black suit with a blood-red tie. He walked with a smooth, terrifying grace, his hands buried casually in his trousers pockets as he approached the head of the table.
Behind him, Julian closed and deadbolted the heavy iron doors from the outside.
The assembled bosses muttered among themselves, surprised to see the head of the Ferraro family enter a room filled with rivals without a single armed guard at his back.
“Dominic,” Vance sneered, leaning back in his chair. “You look tired, boy. Did your little airport reunion at JFK not go according to plan?”
A few minor bosses chuckled nervously, but the older, wiser men in the room stayed completely silent, noticing the eerie, unnatural calm in Dominic’s eyes.
Dominic stopped at the foot of the table, looking directly at Vance.
“Ten months ago, Viktor,” Dominic spoke, his voice calm, clear, and echoing effortlessly off the concrete walls, “you sent me a photograph of my wife with a red laser crosshair on her chest. You told me to divorce her, strip her of my name, and yield three shipping piers in Brooklyn, or you would put a bullet in her heart.”
Vance smirked, swirling his scotch. “And like a good little boy, you obeyed. You gave up your woman to save her skin.”
“I did,” Dominic agreed softly. “Because ten months ago, I believed in the old rules. I believed that business was business, and that keeping my wife alive was worth sacrificing my own soul.”
Dominic reached into his suit jacket. Several bosses instinctively reached for their weapons, but Dominic simply pulled out a heavy black USB flash drive and tossed it onto the center of the table.
“On that drive,” Dominic continued smoothly, “are the complete offshore bank records, wire transfers, and execution logs of Silvio’s treason—including his deals with Chicago to ambush my wife and eight-month-old twin children at JFK today.”
The entire room went dead quiet.
Several elder bosses gasped, turning their heads to stare at Vance in utter shock and disgust. In the Italian underworld, targeting a man’s wife was line-crossing; targeting newborn infants was an unpardonable sin that broke the ancient code of the Commission.
“You targeted my blood, Viktor,” Dominic whispered, his dark eyes locking onto Vance like two gun barrels. “You tried to murder my son and my daughter.”
Vance’s smirk vanished, replaced by a sudden, sharp flash of anger. “So what if I did?! You’re surrounded, Ferraro! You came in here alone! My men control the street outside!”
Dominic slowly pulled his right hand out of his pocket.
He wasn't holding a gun. He was holding a small, sleek electronic detonator with a single glowing red button.
“Your men outside are already dead, Viktor,” Dominic said calmly. “My strike teams cleared your perimeter ten minutes ago. And the building you own in downtown Chicago—the headquarters where your entire leadership council is currently sitting—is rigged with twelve hundred pounds of commercial explosive.”
Vance froze, his face draining of every single drop of color. “You... you’re bluffing...”
Dominic looked down at the red button, then looked back up at Vance with an expression of pure, unadulterated coldness.
“I spent nine months living in hell without my family,” Dominic murmured softly. “Do you really think I care about the rules anymore?”
Dominic pressed the red button.
His satellite phone in his breast pocket buzzed twice—a confirmation signal from his team in Chicago.
Simultaneously, a live news alert flashed across the big-screen television mounted on the restaurant wall: BREAKING NEWS: EXPLOSION DESTROYS DOWNTOWN CHICAGO COMMERCIAL COMPLEX.
Vance dropped his glass of scotch, the crystal shattering into a thousand pieces on the floor. He scrambled frantically to draw his weapon, but before his hand could clear his holster, Dominic moved with lightning speed!
Dominic reached across the table, grabbed Vance by his tie, dragged his heavy head violently down against the solid oak surface, and drew his silver pistol in a single fluid motion!
THWIP.
A single shot rang out through the soundproof room.
Vance went completely limp, dropping face-down onto the mahogany table.
Dominic stood over the body, re-holstering his weapon, his dark eyes sweeping over the twenty-nine remaining mob bosses in the room. Not a single man dared to move. Not a single man dared to breathe.
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“The Ferraro family is officially withdrawing from the Commission,” Dominic announced, his voice carrying an iron authority that echoed down into their very bones. “My lieutenant, Julian, will assume control of the legitimate logistics operations in New York. If any man in this room ever speaks my name, my wife’s name, or my children’s names again... I will burn your entire bloodline to the ground.”
He turned on his heel, unlocked the heavy iron doors, and walked out into the cool rain of Little Italy, leaving the terrified underworld of New York behind him forever.
