Chapter 6 - The Council of the North End
The underground tactical conference room beneath the North End fish market was not designed for polite conversation.
It was a windowless bunker of reinforced concrete and twelve-inch steel doors, lit by harsh fluorescent strips that hummed with a low, electrical frequency. In the center of the room sat a massive table carved from a single slab of black walnut, surrounded by the twelve surviving capos of the New England syndicate.
At the head of the table sat Antonio Russo.
He wore an unbuttoned black wool coat over a charcoal suit, his right hand resting flat over the walnut wood, his slate-gray eyes sweeping across the assembly with the cold, absolute authority of a king inspecting his lords after a victory.
Standing behind his right shoulder, her hand resting on the back of his leather chair, was me.
I wore an impeccably tailored emerald-green wool suit, my dark hair swept into an unyielding professional chignon, the heavy diamond necklace gleaming against my collar. I was not a spectator. I was a voting partner in the Moretti-Russo Sovereign Trust, holding fifty percent of the voting equity in the North American shipping lines.
"The federal indictment against Marco has been formally dismissed by the District Attorney’s office," Dante reported, dropping a thick file onto the walnut table. "The arresting officers who stopped his transport van in Providence have been reassigned to highway patrol in the western district. The municipal judge who signed the warrant is currently retiring to a farm in Vermont."
A murmur of approval rippled through the twelve capos.
Salvatore Lucchese—the sixty-year-old capo of the Providence docks—slowly raised his hand, his voice gravelly and cautious.
"And the Genovese family, Antonio? They lost four men in that warehouse fire in Charlestown last month. They aren't going to let us absorb the Rhode Island shipping lanes without a war."
Antonio did not blink.
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a gold cigarette case, flipped it open, and extracted an unlit Churchill cigar, rolling it between his fingers without lighting it.
"The Genovese family doesn't have a leadership structure left to declare a war, Salvatore," Antonio said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying register that made the room go completely tomb-silent.
"I met with their surviving captains in a hotel room in Hartford on Tuesday night. I informed them that if a single cargo container marked with our seal is delayed by twenty-four minutes at their docks... I will reroute every rail shipment through Montreal and starve their family out of the Massachusetts market within thirty days."
He tossed a set of signed parchment deeds onto the center of the table.
"They signed the territorial surrender at midnight. The North Atlantic shipping lanes belong exclusively to the Russo syndicate."
Salvatore Lucchese swallowed hard, bowing his silver head in absolute submission. "Understood, Mr. Russo. The harbor is yours."
Antonio stood up, buttoning his coat, and reached down to take my hand.
May you like
"The meeting is adjourned," he commanded.
We walked out of the bunker, through the subterranean freight tunnels, and climbed into the back of the waiting black Escalade that carried us back to the fortress on the cliff before the morning tide could turn.
