Chapter 6 - The Council of Fire
The Cicero Club in East Harlem was an old-school establishment, its walls lined with dark walnut paneling, the air thick with the scent of expensive cigars, espresso, and the lingering dread of thirty men who understood that the balance of power in New York was about to shift.
Eleven captains sat around the massive horseshoe table, their personal bodyguards standing behind them against the walls, their hands near their jackets. At the head of the table sat Logan Marchetti, his face illuminated by the low light of a green banker's lamp.
To his right, the chair remained empty. Vincent Marchetti was twenty minutes late.
"He's not coming, Logan," said Carmine, the oldest captain from the Brooklyn docks, a man whose loyalty had always been divided between the nephew and the uncle. "Vincent’s at his estate in Greenwich. He sent a message saying he doesn't take orders from a boy he used to bounce on his knee. He says if you have an issue with the Newark accounts, we can discuss it at the Christmas gala."
Logan didn't answer immediately. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the Manila folder he had taken from the Wall Street vault, and tossed it into the center of the table. The heavy paper slid across the polished wood, stopping against Carmine’s coffee cup.
"Open it," Logan said softly.
Carmine frowned, his scarred fingers opening the tab. He read the first three pages, his expression shifting from irritation to a pale, frozen shock as his eyes scanned the signatures and the federal clearance stamps. The other captains leaned forward, their brows furrowing as the text was passed down the line.
"This is eight years old, Logan," Carmine muttered, his voice losing its bravado. "This is... this is Elena’s handwriting. She’s talking about the Newark shipments from before your father died."
"My uncle Vincent spent eight years convincing this council that my sister died in a car accident because she was unstable," Logan said, his voice cutting through the smoke-filled room like a razor blade. "He told you she was a liability to our family’s security. The truth is, she was a liability to his bank account. He faked her death, exiled her to an upstate tenement, and when her husband started looking into his operations two years ago, Vincent had him murdered. Eleven months ago, he had my sister pushed down a flight of stairs in Rosewood because she wouldn't give up her children."
A collective murmur broke out among the captains. In the underworld, territory disputes were expected, and corporate execution was a standard cost of business. But the systematic torment of a family boss’s sister—the bloodline of the founder—was a violation of the old code that no captain could openly defend without looking like a coward.
"We didn't know, Logan," Carmine said, his hands coming up in a defensive gesture. "On my mother’s grave, if we had known Vincent was playing a double game with Elena—"
"You would have done what you always do," Logan interrupted, rising from his chair, his tall frame casting a long, predatory shadow across the council table. "You would have waited to see who won. But the waiting is over. Tonight, the Marchetti family is being purged. Anyone who takes a phone call from Greenwich after midnight is an enemy of the house. Anyone who routes a single dollar through Vincent’s trusts will be treated exactly like the men who went to Rosewood."
The double doors of the club swung open, and Marcus Reed walked in, his trench coat damp with the midnight mist. He didn't look at the captains; he walked straight to Logan and leaned down to whisper in his ear.
"We have a problem at Greystone, Boss. The Kane family’s perimeter scanners just logged a caravan of six black Suburbans moving up the old river road toward the valley. They aren't ours, and they aren't Vivienne’s. It’s Vincent’s personal enforcement crew from the Queens yard. He’s bypassing the city entirely. He’s going for the girls."
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Logan didn't blink. He reached down, grabbed the green banker’s lamp, and smashed it against the mahogany table, plunging the head of the council into a stark, jagged darkness.
"Marcus, get the cars," Logan said into the dark. "The meeting is adjourned."
