Chapter 16 - The Tribunal of Palermo
Two weeks later, the storm crossed the Atlantic.
In a private, heavily guarded aircraft hangar outside Palermo, Sicily, Dante Rossi knelt on the concrete floor, bound hand and foot. Surrounding him were the remaining elders of the old Sicilian families—men who remembered the blood wars of the nineties and who answered only to the unwritten laws of the old country.
Mateo stood at the center of the hangar, dressed in a black wool coat, his hands tucked deep into his pockets. Genevieve stood beside him, her presence an unshakeable pillar of support.
Dante spat blood onto the concrete, glaring up at Mateo with pure hatred. “You think shipping me back to Sicily saves you? My family controls half the magistrates in Palermo! You’ll never see a courtroom!”
“Courtrooms are for men who pretend to follow laws,” Mateo said, his voice cold as winter ice. “We are here for an accounting.”
An elderly Sicilian patriarch stepped forward, holding an antique ledger bound in black leather. He opened it, read three lines in rapid, archaic dialect, and slowly closed the cover.
“The debt is verified,” the elder announced in heavily accented English. “The Rossi bloodline broke the peace of the commission. Your territory is forfeited, Dante. Your name is erased.”
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Dante’s face drained of color. He screamed as two enforcers hauled him to his feet, dragging him toward the waiting transport that would take him to a permanent, inescapable exile in the deep interior of the Mediterranean.
The feud that had spanned thirty years ended not with an explosion, but with a quiet, absolute stroke of a pen.
