Chapter 3 - The Council of Wolves
The mahogany table in the private library of the Falcone estate was twice the size of the one in the Velvet Room, and the men who sat around it were not diners — they were predators.
Four lieutenants. Four pillars of the Falcone syndicate. Each one controlled a district, a dock, a union, or a mountain of laundered cash that could buy a small European nation. They sat in high-backed leather chairs, smoking imported cigars, their faces carved from stone and cynicism.
The heavy oak doors swung open, and Enzo walked in.
He did not sit at the head of the table immediately. He walked to the massive stone fireplace where a low fire crackled, dropped his silver-plated lighter onto the mantel, and turned slowly to face them. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and a faint, dried smear of dark red stain — Elena Ferraro’s blood — was still visible on his right cuff.
Every man at the table saw it. Not one of them mentioned it.
"Boss," Salvatore, the oldest of the four, broke the silence. He was a man with white hair combed straight back and eyes like chipped flint. "Word is reaching the upper tiers. The south-side flower shop. A woman nearly beaten to death. And your car was seen outside county general twice in two hours."
Enzo didn't blink. "Your hearing is improving, Salvatore. That's a useful trait."
"It's a distraction," Vincent muttered. Vincent was younger, sharp-suited, the head of their financial operations, a man who measured everything in percentage points and profit margins. "With respect, Enzo — and you know there is no man in this room more loyal to your name — we are three weeks away from the port acquisition vote. The city council is already nervous. If the press connects you to a bloody domestic dispute in a third-rate florist shop, the feds will have an excuse to raid every warehouse from here to the bay."
"It wasn't a domestic dispute," Enzo said quietly.
"A robbery gone wrong, then," Vincent waved a hand dismissively. "Some junkies looking for drug money. It happens fifty times a night in that district. That's why we let the small-timers handle those blocks — or rather, why we don't bother handling them at all. Let the Serpents bleed them dry. It keeps the police busy elsewhere."
Enzo looked at Vincent for a long, cold moment. The silence stretched until the crack of the fireplace sounded like a pistol shot.
"The Red Serpents," Enzo said, tasting the words like something foul on his tongue. "Tell me what you know about them."
Salvatore frowned, leaning forward. "A bunch of street-level thugs. Led by a piece of garbage named Marcus Vance. They've been shaking down shopkeepers on Fourth and Ninth for protection money. Low-yield stuff. We didn't stop them because they stay in their lane and don't touch our shipments."
"They touched a flower shop," Enzo said.
Vincent let out a short, incredulous laugh. "A flower shop? Enzo, are you hearing yourself? Are we running a charity now? Are we going to send fruit baskets to every cracked skull in the slums?"
In a blur of motion that defied his fifty-three years, Enzo crossed the room, grabbed the heavy crystal decanter from the center of the table, and slammed it down with a force that cracked the mahogany wood and sent amber scotch spilling across the green felt.
Every man at the table jolted back. Hands twitched toward armpits.
"They didn't just smash a window, Vincent," Enzo said, his voice dropping to a register so cold it felt like dropping into a frozen lake. "They walked into a shop where a seven-year-old child was hiding under a counter, and they beat an innocent woman nearly to death because she couldn't pay twenty dollars in tribute to a pack of mangy dogs."
"That happens every day in this city," Salvatore said cautiously, choosing his words with extreme care. "You can't fix the whole sewer, Boss."
"I am not trying to fix the sewer," Enzo said, leaning his palms flat against the scarred table and staring down at his lieutenants one by one. "I am going to drain it."
A heavy, suffocating quiet settled over the room. Vincent stared at Enzo as if he had lost his mind. Salvatore looked down at his cigar, his face expressionless, but his mind calculating the impossible logistics of what his boss was proposing.
"You want to wipe out the Serpents?" Vincent asked, disbelief bleeding into his tone. "Over a florist?"
"I want them erased," Enzo said. "Every stash house. Every corner they control. Every name on their roster. I want them hunted down until there isn't enough left of their leadership to fill a cigar box."
"And the heat?" Vincent pressed, his voice rising. "The police commissioner is already asking questions about why our cars were parked outside St. Jude's hospital under heavy guard all night. If we start a full-scale turf war on the south side over a civilian —"
"The police commissioner," Enzo interrupted, his voice terrifyingly calm, "owns three houses in the hills that are currently carrying mortgages held by shell companies registered to my mother's maiden name. If he asks questions, remind him of the address of the third one."
Salvatore let out a slow, whistling breath through his teeth. He looked up at Enzo, and for the first time, he saw something in his boss's eyes that had not been there since the night thirty years ago when the phone rang and a life ended.
It wasn't anger. It wasn't business.
It was purpose.
"And the girl?" Salvatore asked quietly. "What about Mia Ferraro?"
Enzo straightened up, walking back toward the fireplace and picking up his silver lighter. He turned it over in his palm, feeling the cool metal against his skin.
"She stays here," Enzo said.
Vincent stood up abruptly, knocking his chair back against the wood paneling. "Boss, have you gone completely insane? You're bringing a civilian child — the daughter of a broke florist — into the Falcone stronghold? You're turning this fortress into a day-care center?"
Enzo didn't look at him. He flicked the lighter open. A sharp blue flame leaped into the dim air, casting dancing shadows across his granite features.
"She stays here," Enzo repeated, his voice leaving no room for argument, no space for compromise, no breath for debate. "And if anyone has a problem with that, they are welcome to tell me across this table. Right now."
No one spoke. Vincent glared at Enzo for three long seconds, his chest heaving with suppressed fury, before he slowly lowered himself back into his chair and looked away.
"Marco," Enzo called toward the corner of the room where his right hand stood like a statue in the shadows.
May you like
"Boss."
"Take forty men. Go down to the Red Serpents' main headquarters on 12th and Jackson. Burn it to the ground. Don't leave a single door un-splintered, don't leave a single safe un-cracked." Enzo paused, the blue flame reflecting in his dark eyes like twin fires. "And bring me Marcus Vance. Alive. I want to ask him a question about manners."
