Chapter 16 - The Syndicate Council
The grand boardroom at the Casaro headquarters in Brooklyn was filled to capacity. Around the massive mahogany table sat the twelve most powerful capos and regional syndicate bosses in the United States, representing territories from Miami to Chicago, Boston to Las Vegas.
The atmosphere was tense, laden with the heavy scent of cigars, expensive scotch, and suppressed paranoia. The old guard—men who had spent decades serving under Leo Casaro—were struggling to accept the unprecedented reality of a woman co-ruling the most powerful criminal enterprise in the western hemisphere.
The heavy double doors swung open with a resounding click.
Silence slammed over the room instantly.
Leo Casaro walked in first, his face carved from granite. But he didn't take the head seat at the center of the table. Instead, he stepped aside, holding the back of the central high-backed leather chair for Myra.
Myra entered with the poise of an empress. She wore a pristine white silk blouse paired with black wool trousers and stilettos that clicked like drumbeats against the polished parquet floor. She didn't smile, nor did she flinch under the weight of twelve pairs of hardened, skeptical eyes. She took her seat at the head of the table, resting her hands casually on the wood.
“Gentlemen,” Myra’s voice cut through the silence, clear, melodic, and chillingly authoritative. “I’ve reviewed the quarterly financial ledgers for all twelve territories. Miami is running a seven percent deficit in narcotics distribution. Las Vegas is leaking cash through poorly managed casino laundering fronts. And Chicago is operating below our projected yield by nearly four million dollars.”
A low murmur of discontent rippled through the table. Don Salvatore from the Miami faction leaned forward, narrowing his eyes.
“With all due respect, Ms. Casaro,” Salvatore sneered, his voice dripping with condescension, “you’ve been in this business for less than a month. You sit there reading numbers off a spreadsheet, but you’ve never pulled a trigger, watched a man bleed out, or defended a territory against a federal raid. Why should we take orders from a mechanic’s daughter?”
Before Leo could even tense his shoulders to draw his weapon, Myra raised a single hand, her eyes locked dead onto Salvatore with the freezing glare of a firing squad.
She reached into her pocket, pulled out a heavy silver signet ring—Nico’s ring—and dropped it onto the center of the mahogany table. It spun once, twice, and then clattered to a dead stop right in front of Salvatore’s coffee cup.
“Nico asked me the same question the night he tried to auction off my dignity for ten thousand dollars,” Myra said, her voice dropping into a register so cold the air in the room seemed to freeze. “He thought I was fragile. He thought my father’s near-death made us weak. Where is Nico right now, Salvatore? Do you know?”
Salvatore swallowed hard, his arrogant smirk instantly vanishing.
“He’s locked in a padded psychiatric facility in Europe, eating his meals through a straw,” Myra continued, leaning forward over the table, invading Salvatore’s personal space. “And Vincent Moretti—the man who controlled Boston for thirty years—signed away his entire maritime empire to me yesterday without firing a single shot because he knew what happens to men who underestimate me.”
Myra stood up slowly, her eyes sweeping over every single capo sitting around the table.
“You can look at my background. You can question my gender. You can whisper behind my back about where I came from,” Myra said, her voice rising with absolute, unyielding power. “But if you ever challenge my authority in this room again, I won't just strip your territory and freeze your assets. I will personally bury you in an unmarked grave beneath the Brooklyn docks. Am I understood?”
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A heavy, suffocating silence gripped the boardroom. One by one, the twelve capos lowered their eyes. Finally, Don Salvatore slowly bowed his head, his voice trembling slightly.
“Understood, Queen Myra.”
