Chapter 12 - The Council of Wolves
By Sunday evening, the grand dining room was once again filled with the heavy tension of armed men, though this time the atmosphere was far more volatile.
Only four capos remained after the purge of Marcus Vance, and each one sat around the mahogany table like a cornered animal. They knew why they had been summoned. They knew about the Rotterdam discrepancy.
Adriano stood at the head of the table, his hands resting flat on the polished wood. He hadn't sat down. Beside him, dressed in a sharp, tailored obsidian pantsuit that commanded absolute authority, stood Dileia. She wasn't serving coffee or sitting quietly in the background anymore; she sat in the chair directly to his right, her fingers resting on a printed copy of the forged manifests.
"Someone at this table is playing a very dangerous game," Adriano’s voice cut through the silence like a butcher's knife. "Twelve tons of unregistered cargo cleared through our Rotterdam port on Thursday. The authorization code used was encrypted with a master key that only four men in this room possess."
A heavy silence fell over the table. Paolo Moretti, the oldest and most trusted capo of the eastern seaboard, cleared his throat.
"Boss," Paolo said cautiously, his hands flat on the table. "Are you suggesting one of us is selling out to the Verhoven group? We've bled for the Falcone name for thirty years."
"Loyalty isn't bought with tenure, Paolo," Dileia spoke up, her voice crystal clear and entirely devoid of fear. Every head at the table whipped toward her. "It’s proven in the details."
She slid a second folder across the mahogany surface. It landed right in front of Julian Rossi, the syndicate’s chief financial officer—a man who had smiled warmly at her wedding and brought expensive wine to their anniversary.
"Julian," Dileia said softly. "Care to explain why your offshore account in the Cayman Islands received a wire transfer of four hundred thousand dollars from a Dutch shell company exactly twelve hours before manifest 44-B was approved?"
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Julian Rossi’s face drained of all color. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a desperate, rattling wheeze. "That’s—that’s absurd! A fabrication! She’s a waitress, Adriano, she doesn't know how to read corporate finance—"
"She knows enough to trace a wire transfer through three layers of laundered crypto," Adriano interrupted coldly. He drew his pistol with terrifying speed, laying it flat on the table right beside his coffee cup. "Stand up, Julian."
