Chapter 7 - The Sitting Room
By two o'clock in the afternoon, the sky over Brooklyn had turned gray and dark, threatening a torrential downpour.
Inside the grand library of my estate, the air was thick with the scent of old leather, wood polish, and rain coming through the high leaded-glass windows.
The twelve capos who had cleared out of the room twenty-four hours earlier were back.
They sat in their exact same high-backed leather chairs around the massive walnut table. But today, there were no maps laid out. There were no cigars lit.
On the center of the polished wood table sat two objects: the worn red leather ledger belonging to Miguel Alvarez, and the loaded custom Sig Sauer P226 pistol.
I sat at the head of the table in my dark three-piece suit, my tie perfectly knot-tied, my cufflinks gleaming beneath the chandelier light.
The heavy oak doors swung open.
Marco Ricci walked inside alone.
He wasn't wearing his tailored jacket. His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his hair slightly unkempt, his face pale and sunken as if he had aged five years in six hours. He walked down the center of the room, stopping five feet from the head of the table.
He looked at the twelve capos sitting around us. None of them met his eyes. They all stared straight ahead, knowing that Marco was already a dead man standing.
“Sit down, Marco,” I said quietly.
Marco didn't move. He stood looking at the red ledger sitting beside my weapon.
“I built that shipping network, Leo,” Marco said, his voice raspy and dry. “For ten years, I did the dirty work while you sat in this room playing the refined gentleman. I moved the cargo, I paid off the port inspectors, I took the risks!”
“And you killed Miguel Alvarez,” I said, my voice steady and cold.
“He was going to the federal prosecutor!” Marco shouted, his face turning red with sudden, desperate anger. “The idiot found the secondary manifests! If he talked, the whole port operation would have collapsed! I did what had to be done to protect the business!”
“No, Marco,” I replied, leaning forward, placing both hands flat on the walnut table. “You didn't do it to protect the business. You did it to protect your fifty-million-dollar offshore fund. And then you brought his widow into my house so you could keep her quiet.”
Marco swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the heavy doors behind him.
“You took a bullet for me in Philadelphia, Marco,” I continued softly. “I gave you my trust, my authority, my name. I would have given you half the waterfront if you had asked for it like a man.”
“Then give it to me now!” Marco pleaded, taking one step closer, his hands raised in a frantic gesture. “Let me take my share and walk away, Leo! Ten years! That has to count for something!”
I looked down at the purple crayon mark still faintly visible on the black velvet pad beside my gun—the smiling face a three-year-old girl had drawn while her mother knelt terrified on the floor.
“Ten years counts for a lot, Marco,” I whispered.
I reached out my hand, picked up the red ledger, and tossed it to Joey, who was standing beside the wall.
“Take this to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Manhattan,” I ordered Joey. “Tell them it’s a gift from Leo Moretti. Tell them Marco Ricci’s name is on every single page.”
Marco’s eyes went wide with sheer horror.
In our world, death was swift. Federal prison—spending thirty years locked in a concrete box with the very men Marco had betrayed—was a slow, agonizing nightmare that never ended.
“NO!” Marco screamed, turning around to sprint toward the heavy exit doors.
Two of my senior enforcers stood up from their chairs simultaneously, stepping into the doorway, grabbing Marco by his arms, locking him in a double-elbow hold before he could take three steps.
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“Take him to the basement until the federal marshals arrive,” I said, turning my back on him.
“LEO! PLEASE!” Marco’s terrified screams echoed through the grand library as he was dragged down the hallway, his boots scraping uselessly against the polished floor until the heavy oak doors slammed shut, cutting off his voice forever.
