Chapter 8 - The Breach at the Royal Regency
The Grand Ballroom of the Royal Regency Hotel was choked with cigar smoke, the clinking of whiskey glasses, and the loud, arrogant laughter of thirty high-ranking mob captains.
At the head of a massive banquet table sat Dominic Moretti.
Moretti was fifty years old, obese, wearing a flash red velvet suit jacket, heavy gold rings covering his fingers. He held a crystal glass of scotch in one hand, pounding his heavy fist onto the table.
"To the future!" Moretti bellowed into a microphone, his voice echoing over the loud crowd. "For eight years, we waited for the ghost of Caleb Marino to die in his big stone house! Today, the port contracts belong to us! The shipping lines belong to us! The South End takes it all!"
The room erupted into loud cheers and applause. Captains raised their glasses, celebrating the final division of the Marino empire.
BOOM!
The heavy double oak doors of the ballroom blew inward with a deafening roar, blowing off their hinges, sending wood splinters and metal fragments flying across the marble entrance.
The room went dead silent.
Cigar smoke hovered in the air as fifty armed bodyguards immediately reached for their waistbands, drawing weapons, pointing them toward the dust-filled doorway.
Through the settling cloud of smoke and splintered oak stepped a solitary man.
He was not in a wheelchair.
He walked with a slow, heavy, deliberate stride, his leather dress shoes crunching over the broken wood on the floor. He wore a pristine charcoal suit, his hands resting casually in his pockets, his eyes cold and dark as a winter storm.
Behind him walked Vance and twenty heavily armed tactical security guards wearing black body armor, their automatic rifles raised, securing the perimeter doors.
Dominic Moretti’s crystal glass slipped from his fingers, shattering onto the floor.
Every mob captain in the room froze in pure, unadulterated terror.
"C-Caleb...?" a senior captain from South Boston whispered, his face turning pale as paper. "He’s... he’s walking..."
Caleb walked down the center aisle of the ballroom, his eyes locked onto Dominic Moretti at the head of the table.
The silence in the room was absolute. No one dared to breathe. No one dared to raise a gun. The sheer, overwhelming aura of authority radiating from Caleb Marino crushed the arrogance out of every man in the room.
Caleb stopped five feet from Moretti’s chair.
"You're sitting in my seat, Dominic," Caleb said, his voice quiet, smooth, and deadlier than a loaded shotgun.
Moretti trembled, his fat neck turning bright red, sweat pouring down his forehead. "This... this is impossible! You were paralyzed! You were a cripple!"
"I was waiting," Caleb corrected gently.
He pulled a small black USB drive from his suit pocket—the drive Marco Rossi had hidden in Lily’s stuffed bear—and tossed it onto the banquet table in front of the gathered captains.
"On that drive," Caleb announced, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the room, "are the complete financial ledgers of every illegal transaction Dominic Moretti has made for eight years. Including the three million dollars he paid to hitmen to murder Marco Rossi, and the wire transfers he used to order the attack on Atlantic Avenue that killed my wife."
The mob captains looked at the drive, then looked at Moretti with disgust and fear.
In the mafia world, killing a rival boss was business. But murdering a boss’s pregnant wife and framing loyal accountants was a violation of the high code that even the worst criminals respected.
"He lied to you all," Caleb continued softly. "He told you I was dead so he could steal your cuts of the port profits. Look at your bank statements for the last three years. Moretti has been skimming thirty percent off every contract."
The ballroom erupted into angry shouts. Captains stood up, pointing fingers at Moretti, cursing his name.
Moretti, realizing he was completely cornered, panicked. He reached into his velvet jacket, pulling a snub-nosed revolver, aiming it directly at Caleb’s chest.
"DIE, MARINO!" Moretti screamed.
THWIP!
A suppressed gunshot echoed through the room.
Before Moretti could pull the trigger, a single bullet from Caleb’s silenced Sig Sauer pierced Moretti’s right hand. The revolver dropped to the floor, splashing into spilled scotch.
Moretti screamed in agony, clutching his bloody hand, falling to his knees on the carpet.
Caleb stepped forward, placing the polished leather sole of his boot directly onto Moretti’s chest, pressing him flat against the floor.
Caleb leaned down, looking into Moretti’s terrified, tear-filled eyes.
"Eight years ago, you took everything from me," Caleb whispered into Moretti’s ear. "You thought you left a ghost in a chair. But a ghost doesn't stay buried forever."
Caleb looked up at the thirty mob captains standing around the table.
"Dominic Moretti is stripped of his rank, his assets, and his life in this city," Caleb declared. "The Harbor belongs to the Marino family again. Anyone who disagrees can step forward now."
Not a single man moved. Every captain lowered their head in absolute submission.
May you like
"Vance," Caleb ordered, stepping off Moretti’s chest. "Hand him over to the Federal Prosecutor’s office along with the USB drive. Let him spend the rest of his pathetic life in a federal penitentiary."
"With pleasure, Boss," Vance smiled, grabbing Moretti by his velvet collar and dragging him away.
