Chapter 8 - The Judicial Summit
The meeting took place on Sunday evening at an abandoned, historical theater owned by the Valente family in South Chicago—a location where the walls were thick and wiretaps were impossible to plant.
Matteo sat in a velvet armchair on the empty stage, surrounded by the dark, cavernous shadows of the theater. Marco stood behind him, his hand resting casually near his jacket.
The heavy oak doors at the back of the auditorium opened, and Chief Justice Thomas Vale walked down the center aisle. He was an old man, white-haired, with a stern, aristocratic face that had commanded respect in courtrooms for thirty years. He was accompanied only by his personal driver.
“Valente,” Justice Vale said, his voice echoing off the empty balconies as he reached the stage. “You sent a courier to my private residence with documents that constitute blackmail against a federal official. You have five minutes to explain why I shouldn't have the National Guard surround this building.”
Matteo gestured to an empty chair across from him. “Sit down, Thomas. Let's not play the grand jury game. We both know why you're here.”
The old man hesitated, then sat down, his posture rigid. “My son tells me you assaulted him and kidnapped his fiancée. You are crossing a line that your father never crossed, boy.”
“Your son is a monster, Justice Vale,” Matteo said smoothly, tossing the medical records of Elena Vance and the pharmaceutical logs of St. Catherine’s onto the small table between them. “He broke his first fiancée’s jaw, and you paid two million dollars to bury it. For the past six weeks, he’s been using his hands to bruise my executive secretary. And while he’s not busy beating women, he’s stealing fentanyl from dying children to pay off the Bratva.”
Justice Vale picked up the papers, his eyes scanning the data logs. Matteo watched the old man's face change. The righteous indignation faded, replaced by the crushing, grey weight of a father who realized his son was completely rotten.
“This... this is a fabrication,” Vale whispered, though his voice lacked conviction.
“The DEA already has a duplicate file, Thomas,” Matteo lied smoothly, his voice dropping into a lethal purr. “It's currently sitting in a secure vault at Valente Tower. If I press a button, that file is delivered to the federal prosecutor’s desk. Your son will go to a maximum-security prison for narcotics trafficking. Your name will be dragged through the mud, and every ruling you’ve made in the last ten years will be overturned on suspicion of corruption.”
Justice Vale closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping. “What do you want, Valente? Money? A dismissal of your pending tax evasion audits?”
“I want your son’s ring off Arya’s finger,” Matteo said, his voice hard as iron. “I want him to sign a full, legally binding confession regarding the domestic abuse of Elena Vance and Arya Monroe, to be held in my private possession as collateral. I want him stripped of his medical license, and I want him sent to an out-of-state rehabilitation facility in New Mexico. If he ever sets foot in Chicago again, or if he ever looks in Arya’s direction, the federal file is released. And you, Thomas, will step down from the bench at the end of the term due to 'health reasons'.”
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The Chief Justice stared at the mafia boss, realizing he was trapped in a cage of his own son’s making. “You are destroying my family.”
“Your son did that,” Matteo replied, rising from his chair. “You just chose to fund it. You have until midnight to have him sign the papers. If he refuses, start looking for a defense attorney.”
