Chapter 5 - The Council of Wolves
The Union League Club of Chicago was built on lumber, rail, and the silent compliance of men who owned judges. Its sixth-floor private library smelled of ancient leather, Cuban tobacco, and single-malt scotch that had aged in casks before the Second World War.
It was 4:15 in the morning.
Around the long mahogany conference table sat the heads of the Five Families: Bernardo Valenti, his ancient face carved from dried walnut, draped in a bespoke charcoal wool suit; Don Giordani of the South Side docks; old man Carlotti from Cicero; and Don Salieri, who controlled the waste management haulers across the state line into Indiana.
And sitting at the far end of the table, his silk tie loosened, a glass of twenty-year-old Macallan balanced between his thick fingers, was my brother, Leo.
They were arguing. Their voices drifted through the heavy oak doors before I even reached the landing.
"He went mad!" Bernardo Valenti’s voice rose, thin and cracked with age, vibrating with the rage of a father who had just viewed his son’s shattered corpse on a police slab. "He slaughtered Stefano like a dog! In his own home! Over a misunderstanding about border patrols!"
"Alejandro doesn't slaughter without cause, Bernardo," Carlotti countered, blowing a cloud of blue cigar smoke toward the ceiling. "We've all dealt with him for a decade. He is cold, but he is not reckless. Stefano must have crossed a line."
"A line?!" Bernardo slammed his palm against the table. "He killed eight of my men! He left Stefano's body on the staircase like trash! The Commission cannot stand by while a mad dog runs loose through Lake Forest! I demand a vote of sanction! I demand his title be stripped, and his territories divided among the families!"
"And what does the Moretti family say?" Giordani asked, turning his heavy, hooded eyes toward the end of the table. "Leo? You are his blood. You control the North Side finances. Will you stand behind your brother, or will you stand with the Commission?"
Leo took a slow, deliberate sip of his scotch. He placed the heavy crystal tumbler on the mahogany table with an agonizingly measured clink.
"My brother," Leo said, his voice laced with the false, tragic gravity of an actor performing for a gallery, "has not been the same since Sofia died. We all know this. He walks through empty rooms. He ignores the business. He has become a ghost that haunts his own house. If he has murdered Stefano without the sanction of this council... then as much as it tears my heart to say it, the family must come before the man. For the peace of Chicago, I will accept the responsibility of the leadership."
A low murmur of agreement passed around the table. Bernardo smiled—a faint, reptilian twitch of his lips that signaled the victory of a trap long in the making.
"Then it is agreed," Bernardo said, raising his hand. "We take the vote. On the question of Don Alejandro Moretti's removal—"
The heavy oak double doors did not open.
They shattered inward.
The hinges—heavy, forged brass anchors—sheared off with a shriek of tortured metal as the doors were blown off their frame by a breaching charge. Splinters and white plaster dust exploded across the Persian rugs, showering the five old men in chalk and debris.
Before the smoke could clear, four men in unmarked black tactical armor swept into the room, their MP5 submachine guns raised, sweeping the corners with laser sights cutting through the haze like crimson threads.
Behind them walked Lucian Vance, carrying a slim leather briefcase.
And behind Lucian... was me.
I wore no armor. I wore a charcoal three-piece suit cut from Italian wool, my overcoat draped across my shoulders to conceal the bandage on my left deltoid. My hands were empty. My head was bare.
The five men at the table froze as if struck by lightning. Carlotti dropped his cigar onto the table linen, where it began to singe a slow, brown ring into the fabric. Giordani reached instinctively for his waistband, but a red laser dot instantly centered on the bridge of his nose, and his hand froze as if dipped in ice.
Leo's face didn't turn pale; it turned the gray of a dead fish washed up on the lake shore.
"Good morning, gentlemen," I said. My voice was very quiet, perfectly modulated to the refined acoustics of the library. "Please. Don't let me interrupt the vote."
I walked to the head of the table. Don Bernardo sat there, his ancient hands trembling against the polished wood, his breathing shallow and rapid.
"Alejandro," Bernardo stammered, trying to summon the authority of his seventy years. "You... you cannot enter this chamber under arms. The rules of the Commission—"
"The Commission," I said, stopping behind his high-backed leather chair, "was established by my grandfather to govern men of honor. It was not built to protect cowards who send death squads after sleeping children."
The room went so cold you could hear the grandfather clock ticking against the far wall.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
"What children?" Carlotti asked, looking around the table with genuine confusion. "What is he talking about, Bernardo?"
"He’s mad!" Leo shouted, leaping to his feet, his chair screeching violently against the floorboards. "I told you! He’s hallucinating! He’s been unhinged since Sofia’s funeral! Put him down before he kills us all!"
I didn't look at Leo. Not yet. I kept my eyes on Bernardo Valenti.
"Lucian," I said.
Lucian stepped forward, opened the leather briefcase, and placed four glossy photographs in the center of the table.
They were not crime scene photos.
They were four portraits, taken by Dr. Bell’s medical scanner two hours ago in the Waukegan hangar. Four identical boys, their dark eyes looking directly into the camera, their features bearing the unmistakable, terrifying stamp of the Moretti bloodline.
Carlotti leaned forward, picked up one of the photos, and let out a low whistle that sounded like wind through a broken window. "Holy Mother of God... they're yours."
"Four of them," I said. "Four sons born to Sofia Moretti before she took her last breath in Wisconsin. Four boys who have spent four years living in a cottage in the woods, eating oatmeal and catching frogs, because their mother knew that the men in this room were too rotten to let them live."
Giordani turned his head slowly toward Bernardo Valenti, his dark eyes hardening into obsidian. "Bernardo. Stefano went to Lake Forest with automatic rifles. Was he sent for the territory... or was he sent for these children?"
Bernardo’s tongue flicked across his dry lips. "I... I knew nothing of children. Stefano had information that rogue elements—"
"Stefano died with my rifle in his throat, Bernardo," I interrupted softly, resting my hand on the back of his chair. "He told me everything before he bled out on my stairs. He told me how much you paid for the address. Four million dollars."
I turned my head. Finally, my gaze locked onto Leo.
My older brother was pressed against the mahogany wainscoting, his chest heaving, sweat rolling down his temples and soaking his silk collar.
"Tell them who received the four million, Leo," I whispered.
Silence clamped down on the library like an iron vise.
"I didn't..." Leo choked, his eyes darting toward the armed operatives whose muzzles never drifted from his chest. "Alejandro... listen to me... we're brothers. Our father... our father made us swear—"
"Our father died in a federal penitentiary because you didn't have the stomach to run the South Side docks," I said, taking three slow, deliberate steps toward him. "And Sofia died alone in a drafty bedroom in Madison because you sold her brother to the state police."
Leo’s breath hitched. "You... you can't prove that."
"I don't need to prove anything to a court, Leo," I said, stopping two feet from his chest. "This is not the Cook County Circuit. This is the family table. And on this table, your debt has come due."
I reached into my overcoat.
Leo screamed—a high, undignified sound of pure animal terror—and threw his hands over his face, dropping to his knees on the singed Persian rug.
I didn't draw a gun.
I pulled out a small, velvet-lined jeweler's box and tossed it onto the table in front of him.
It landed with a soft, muted thud.
Leo peered through his trembling fingers. "What... what is that?"
"Open it," I commanded.
With fingers that could barely hold their shape, Leo reached up and clicked the brass latch.
Inside, resting on black velvet, was our father's signet ring—the heavy gold seal bearing the roaring wolf of the Moretti house, the ring our father had given to Leo on his deathbed, which Leo had pawned twenty years ago to pay off a gambling debt in Atlantic City before I bought it back from a fence on Canal Street.
"You traded the blood of your family for paper," I told him, looking down at his bowed head with a disgust so profound it burned away the last vestige of brotherly memory. "You traded my wife's life. You traded my sons' safety. You are no longer a Moretti. You are no longer a man."
I looked across the table at Carlotti, Giordani, and Salieri.
"The Commission has five minutes to confirm my succession," I said, my voice echoing off the leather-bound books. "Or my men at the docks, the airports, and the concrete plants will begin clearing the board. Choose."
Carlotti didn't hesitate. He raised his hand. "Alejandro Moretti is the Don. The only Don."
Giordani raised his. "Confirmed."
Salieri nodded slowly. "Confirmed."
Bernardo Valenti sat paralyzed, his face gray as ash.
I turned back to the door. "Lucian."
"Yes, Don Alejandro?"
"Strip Leo of his name, his assets, and his passports. Put him on a cargo vessel bound for the copper mines in Antofagasta. If his feet ever touch American soil again, feed him to the dogs."
"And Don Bernardo?" Lucian asked, his pen already poised over his legal pad.
I paused at the threshold of the shattered door, looking back at the ancient man who had sent wolves to kill my cubs.
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"Don Bernardo is retired," I said. "His family will vacate their holdings in Illinois by noon. If a single Valenti remains in this state when the sun reaches its zenith, burn their houses to the ground."
I walked out of the library, leaving five broken old men in the dust of their own ruin.
