Chapter 2 - The Serpents at the Table
Two hours later, the grand conference room of the Moretti estate in Long Island was thick with cigar smoke and suffocating tension.
Twelve capos sat around a massive mahogany table, their faces dark with frustration. At the head of the table sat Don Matteo Moretti, Alessandro’s uncle—a scheming, heavy-set man in his sixties who had long coveted the supreme position of Don.
"This is an absolute disgrace!" Don Matteo slammed his fist onto the table, making the crystal whiskey glasses rattle. "The wedding was meant to unite our family with the Lombard family’s shipping ports in New Jersey! The invitations were sent to every major family on the East Coast! And you cancel it twenty-four hours before the altar because of a petty personal dispute?!"
Alessandro sat at the far end of the table, his posture relaxed, his dark eyes cold as obsidian as he twirled an unlit cigar between his fingers.
"It was not a petty dispute, Uncle," Alessandro said, his voice dropping into an octave that instantly silenced the room. "Isabella was pregnant with another man's child. A soldier from the Brooklyn Morello crew."
Gasps echoed through the room! The capos exchanged shocked glances!
"What?" Matteo stammered, his face turning pale. "That... that is impossible! She swore to us—"
"The DNA test was verified by three independent labs," Alessandro interrupted smoothly, throwing a stack of medical reports into the center of the table. "Isabella was leaking our supply routes to the Morello syndicate in exchange for keeping her affair quiet. She compromised our operations, our men, and my personal household."
Matteo’s jaw tightened. He had been the one who arranged the match between Alessandro and Isabella two years ago, using the marriage to siphon money from the Jersey ports into his own private accounts.
"Even if that is true," Matteo sneered, trying to regain control, "you have publicly humiliated our family! You walked out on the alliance! The Lombard family is threatening war, and the Morellos are advancing on our docks in Queens!"
Alessandro stood up slowly. Standing at six-foot-three, his imposing frame seemed to cast a long, dark shadow over the entire room.
"Let them advance," Alessandro said softly, pulling a heavy silver revolver from his holster and placing it on the mahogany table with a sharp clack. "I built this empire on blood and loyalty, Matteo. Not on fraudulent marriages and cheap lies. If the Lombards or the Morellos want a war, tell them I am waiting for them at the docks."
"And what about your heir?" Matteo shouted, standing up to face his nephew. "You are thirty-eight years old, Alessandro! You have no wife, no child, and no legacy! A Don without an heir is a target for every hungry gun in New York!"
Alessandro stared at his uncle, his mind suddenly drifting back to the cold bench in Central Park, to the feeling of a innocent little girl’s arms wrapped around his chest, telling him that strangers were just friends waiting to be met.
"My legacy will be built on truth, Uncle," Alessandro growled. "Not corruption. Meeting adjourned."
He turned and walked out of the conference room, leaving the twelve capos whispering in the dark.
Inside his private study, Alessandro walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the estate grounds. Marco stepped in behind him, closing the double oak doors.
"Boss," Marco reported quietly. "Isabella has fled to her father's estate in New Jersey. But our informants in Brooklyn report that Frank Morello—the leader of the Morello crew—has learned about the broken wedding. He knows Isabella failed her mission."
"Frank Morello is a coward who strikes from the shadows," Alessandro said, staring out at the rain beginning to fall over the gardens. "He will look for a weak point in my defense. Monitor every movement in the city."
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"And... Mrs. Rossi and her daughter?" Marco asked carefully.
Alessandro paused, taking a long breath. "Place four subtle guards on them. Two at the school, two at her apartment in Queens. If a single hair on that little girl's head is touched, I want the culprit brought to me alive."
