Chapter 9 - THE COUNCIL’S SUMMONS
The Union League Club on Jackson Boulevard was older than modern Chicago.
Behind its stained glass and hand-carved mahogany paneling, the city’s true rulers had gathered for a century.
Judges, governors, shipping tycoons, and the five Capos of the Midwest Commission.
Outside, a freezing November drizzle slicked the streets.
Inside the third-floor council room, fifty men in dark bespoke suits sat around an enormous horseshoe table.
The air was thick with cigar smoke and nervous anticipation.
At the center of the table sat Don Carmine Moretti, the eighty-two-year-old chairman of the Commission.
He leaned on an ivory cane, his rheumy eyes scanning the empty chair at the head of the Lombardi delegation.
Corrado Lombardi stood before the table.
He had shaved his stubble, wearing a three-thousand-dollar Brioni suit and a gold silk tie.
He looked polished, confident, and victorious.
"Elders of the Commission," Corrado announced, his voice carrying effortlessly through the vaulted room.
"For twelve years, our family has respected my cousin Sebastian."
"We allowed him to rule from his bedroom while his mind and body decayed."
"But the world has changed."
"The federal prosecutors are closing in on the shipping corridors."
"A man who cannot leave his wheelchair cannot command an army."
Corrado produced a stack of medical records bearing the forged seal of Northwestern Memorial.
"Sebastian is suffering from terminal pulmonary fibrosis," Corrado lied smoothly.
"He will not survive the winter."
"Under Article Seven of the Grand Charter, I petition this council to declare the Lombardi seat vacant."
"And to invest me with the signet of the South Side."
Don Carmine looked down at the medical files.
He tapped his ivory cane once against the Persian rug.
"These are grave charges, Corrado," Don Carmine rasped.
"Has Sebastian been served with the summons?"
"He has," Corrado said with an arrogant smile.
"His deadline was nine o'clock."
He checked his gold watch.
"It is 9:02 PM."
"He isn't coming."
"Because he cannot walk through those doors."
"Then by the authority of this table—" Don Carmine began.
BANG.
The heavy, brass-studded oak double doors of the council chamber flew inward.
They didn't swing open.
They smashed against the interior walls with concussive force.
The fifty men at the table leaped to their feet, reaching inside their jackets for concealed weapons.
"Sit down!" a voice thundered from the hallway.
Gabriel Mendes stepped through the doorway, holding a suppressed tactical submachine gun across his chest.
Behind him came eight soldiers of the Iron Guard, locking down every exit with military precision.
And behind them...
Came the sound of footsteps.
Slow.
Heavy.
Rhythmic.
Click.
Clack.
The sound of leather soles striking polished hardwood.
A figure stepped through the smoke into the golden chandelier light.
Sebastian Lombardi.
Dressed in a tailored black three-piece suit that accentuated his broad, powerful shoulders.
No wheelchair.
No cane.
No titanium frame.
He walked down the center aisle of the council chamber with his head held high, his silvered temples gleaming under the lamps.
His gait was slightly stiff, but his stride was unmistakable:
The apex predator had returned to his hunting grounds.
Behind him walked Clare Bennett.
She wore a long, elegant emerald gown, her dark hair pinned in a classical chignon, her chin lifted with sovereign pride.
The entire council room fell into absolute, suffocating silence.
Corrado’s face turned the color of curdled milk.
His gold watch slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering uselessly against the floorboards.
"You..." Corrado stammered, his eyes wild with horror.
"You're... you're walking..."
Sebastian stopped three feet from his cousin.
He towered over Corrado by four inches.
Sebastian didn't raise his voice.
He spoke with the quiet, terrifying calm of an emperor inspecting a peasant who had stolen bread.
"You told the council I was dying, Corrado."
Sebastian raised his right hand.
He held up the antique gold pocket watch Oliver had found.
He popped the caseback open.
He pulled out the translucent strip of micro-film and tossed it onto the table in front of Don Carmine.
"On that film are the bank transfers from Corrado's Swiss accounts to Doctor Sterling," Sebastian announced.
"Payments made every month for twelve years to inject me with tubocurarine."
"And the confession of the hitman who murdered my father in Detroit under Corrado's personal signature."
A collective gasp moved through the fifty bosses.
To kill a Don's father was unforgivable.
To poison a sitting member of the Commission was an automatic sentence of extermination.
Don Carmine picked up the film.
He looked at Corrado.
"Is this true, boy?"
Corrado realized he was dead.
Panic broke the last shreds of his sanity.
He reached inside his Brioni jacket, ripping out a chrome-plated automatic pistol.
May you like
He didn't aim at Sebastian.
He swung the barrel straight toward Clare Bennett's chest.
