Chapter 10: The Downtown Backroom
The private club on Wabash Avenue smelled of aged leather, stale bourbon, and decades of silent intimidation. The backroom was windowless, paneled in dark mahogany that absorbed the harsh overhead glare of a single brass chandelier. Around the long conference table sat four elderly men in tailored charcoal suits, their faces lined with the weathered patience of men who had survived decades of turf wars and federal indictments. At the head of the table sat Moretti, his silver hair slicked back, a gold signet ring catching the light as he slowly twirled an unlit cigar between thick fingers.
The heavy oak door clicked shut behind us. Salvatore walked in with absolute, unhurried grace, pulling out a leather chair and sitting down without asking permission. I remained standing just behind his left shoulder, my hands folded neatly over my vest buttons, adopting the posture of the server I had been just days ago—except this time, I wasn't carrying a tray. I was carrying the ledgers.
"Salvatore," Moretti rasped, his voice like grinding stones. He didn't bother looking up from his cigar. "You called an emergency session at dawn. And you brought restaurant staff into the inner sanctum. Have you lost your mind entirely, or are you just trying to insult us?"
"I brought the future of this syndicate," Salvatore replied calmly, leaning back in his chair and resting his hands flat on the polished wood. "And I brought someone who knows more about your personal accounting over the last ten years than your own auditors."
Moretti finally looked up, his heavy-lidded eyes shifting from Salvatore to me. A slow, ugly smile crept across his wrinkled face. "The girl from the restaurant alcove. What is this, a domestic dispute? You brought your waitress to a board meeting?"
"Her name is Audrey Sincel," Salvatore said, his voice dropping an octave, the temperature in the room plunging instantly. "And she is Don Vincenzo Bellandi's daughter. Which makes her my sister. And your new equal partner."
A murmur rippled through the seated capos. One of them, an old man with clouded eyes named Vitale, dropped his pen against the blotter. Moretti’s smile vanished, his jaw tightening as he slammed the unlit cigar down on the mahogany table.
"A bastard child dredged up from the slums," Moretti sneered, standing up and leaning over the table, his bulk casting a shadow across the wood. "You expect us to hand voting shares to a nameless server based on a family fairy tale? We built these docks while you were still in diapers, Falcone."
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"You built nothing," I spoke up, my voice cutting cleanly through the heavy air of the room. I stepped forward, pulling the heavy manila folder from beneath my arm and sliding it across the polished table directly in front of Moretti. "You looted it. Here are the shell company transfers from the last six years, routing Bellandi legacy funds into your personal accounts in the Caymans. I audited every transaction myself."
Moretti’s face drained of color as his trembling hand opened the folder. The silence in the room was absolute.
