Chapter 5 - THE FIVE FAMILIES CONCLAVEThe frantic buzzing of twelve satellite phones sounded like a swarm of hornets inside the garage.
Vanessa snatched her phone from her trench coat pocket, her hands trembling slightly for the first time. She tapped the screen, and the face of Don Carmine Genovese—the seventy-year-old chairman of the Five Families Commission—appeared in high-definition video.
Genovese’s face was dark as a thundercloud, his cold, ancient eyes burning with absolute, lethal rage.
“Vanessa Bellini,” Genovese’s booming voice echoed through the speaker of her phone. “Where is Vittorio?”
Vanessa swallowed hard, forcing her cold facade back into place. “Don Carmine... this is a misunderstanding! Dominic is unstable, he’s heavily medicated—”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Genovese roared through the speaker, his fist slamming onto a wooden table in his Manhattan office. “We have been watching the live audio stream for six minutes! You admitted to attempting to murder an heir of the Moretti family! You admitted to fraud against the Commission! And you brought a hit squad into a neutral safehouse!”
Vanessa’s face turned from pale to sickly gray. “Don Carmine, listen to me—”
“By authority of the Five Families Commission,” Genovese announced, his voice carrying the finality of an execution order, “the alliance between the Moretti and Bellini syndicates is formally dissolved. Vittorio Bellini and Vanessa Bellini are hereby declared enemies of the Commission. Any member of the family who executes them holds full immunity.”
The line went dead.
Silence dropped back over the garage like an anvil.
The twelve mercenaries surrounding us slowly looked at each other. They weren't loyal to Vanessa; they were mercenaries hired by the syndicate. And now, every phone in their pockets was receiving the same Commission directive: KILL VITTORIO AND VANESSA BELLINI.
One of the mercenaries—the squad leader—slowly lowered his rifle, stepping away from Vanessa.
“Ma'am,” the squad leader said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “Our contract just expired.”
“You work for me!” Vanessa shrieked, her voice losing its icy composure, cracking into panic. “I pay your wages!”
“Not anymore,” the squad leader replied, pulling his team back toward the garage exit. “We aren't dying for a dead woman.”
Within ten seconds, the twelve mercenaries turned on their heels and marched out into the fog, their heavy boots fading into the darkness of the night.
Vanessa stood alone in the center of the garage.
Her inner circle was gone. Her mercenaries had deserted her. Her alliance was shattered.
She looked at Donovan, who was standing frozen near the counter, his jaw slack. “Donovan! Shoot them! Kill Dominic now!”
Donovan looked at Vanessa, then looked at me. Slowly, deliberately, the old security chief lowered his head, set his pistol onto the marble counter, and stepped back with his hands raised.
“It's over, Vanessa,” Donovan murmured quietly. “Vittorio’s empire is dead.”
Vanessa backed away toward the open blast doors, her eyes wild, her chest heaving as she pulled a small snub-nosed revolver from her purse.
“You think you’ve won, Dominic?!” she screamed, pointing the gun at my face. “My father still has three hundred men in Long Island! He has the federal judges! He has the police chief! You will never leave this forest alive!”
BANG!
A single gunshot echoed from inside the residential quarters behind us.
Vanessa froze. A small, neat red hole appeared in the center of her chest.
She dropped her purse, her eyes widening in utter, stunned disbelief. She looked down at the blood blooming across her ivory silk shirt, then looked past my shoulder toward the inner doorway.
Standing in the frame of the bedroom door, holding my heavy 12-gauge tactical shotgun with two steady hands, was Grace Bennett.
Smoke curled from the barrel of the shotgun. Her face was calm, her eyes unblinking, her scrubs splattered with plaster dust.
Vanessa collapsed onto her knees, falling face-first onto the concrete floor of the garage, motionless.
Grace lowered the heavy shotgun, her breathing steady as she looked at me over the barrel.
“She was going to shoot you, Mr. Moretti,” Grace said softly.
I looked at the dead body of my half-sister, then looked at the nurse who had saved my life three times in forty-eight hours.
“Matteo,” I rasped, turning to my consigliere. “Clean up the garage.”
“And Donovan?” Matteo asked, pointing his gun at the traitorous security chief.
I looked at Donovan—the man who had served my father, the man who had traded his honor for a debt.
“Give him a car,” I said quietly. “If he’s still in New York by sunrise, kill him.”
Donovan bowed his head silently, took his car keys, and walked out into the misty rain without another word.
I walked over to Grace, taking the heavy shotgun from her hands and setting it against the wall. I looked down into her dark, steady eyes.
“You're not just a nurse, Grace,” I murmured.
Grace offered a faint, weary smile. “I told you, Mr. Moretti. I don't like people who hurt children.”
From the bedroom behind her, a small voice called out softly into the quiet safehouse:
“Mom?”
I turned around. Lucas stood in the doorway, clutching his silver cross, looking past us at the dark garage.
I walked over, kneeling down on the floor in front of my son, reaching out my large, scarred hand.
“She’s gone, Lucas,” I whispered, my voice filled with a promise that would never be broken. “The monsters are gone.”
Lucas looked at my hand, then reached out his tiny fingers and wrapped them tightly around my thumb.
“Are we going home now?” he asked softly.
May you like
I looked at Matteo, then at Grace, then out at the dark New York road waiting for us.
“Yes, Lucas,” I said, standing tall, the pain in my chest finally vanishing into absolute resolve. “We're going home to take back our city.”
