Chapter 6 - The Shadow of the Commission
While the domestic storm inside the DeLuca estate had settled, a far dangerous threat was assembling on the south side of the city.
The Commission—a council of five old-world crime bosses who controlled the illegal docks, gambling, and smuggling operations in the Midwest—had called an emergency meeting at an old meatpacking warehouse near the stockyards.
Don Carmine Moretti, an eighty-year-old tyrant who had controlled the South Side for forty years, sat at the head of a long steel table. Surrounding him were representatives from the four other families.
"Julian DeLuca has gone soft," Moretti declared, his voice raspy from decades of cigars. "His butler tried to poison him. He brought a maid and a bastard child into his house. The feds are crawling all over his legal ledgers because of Thomas Bell's arrest. He is weak."
"What are you proposing, Moretti?" asked Antonio Bruno, a younger Capo from the West Side.
"We take the shipping docks," Moretti growled. "Julian has been trying to legitimize those ports for three years. If we take the docks, we cut off his cash flow. And if he resists... we remind him what happens to DeLucas who forget who they are."
The heavy doors of the warehouse suddenly crashed open.
Through the fog and cold winter air stepped Julian DeLuca. He wore a dark wool overcoat over a crisp black suit. Behind him walked Vance and twenty heavily armed men carrying tactical rifles.
The Commission guards drew their weapons, but Vance’s men instantly covered them with laser sights pinpointed on every boss at the table.
Moretti didn't flinch, though his eyes narrowed. "Julian. You enter an emergency council meeting without an invitation?"
"I don't need an invitation in a city my family built," Julian said calmly, walking to the edge of the table and resting his hands on the metal surface. "I heard you were discussing my shipping docks, Moretti."
"We were discussing your fitness to lead," Moretti corrected coldly. "You're distracted by women, children, and federal investigations. You've lost your edge."
Julian leaned forward, his voice dropping into a register that made even the hardened bosses around the table shift uncomfortably.
"Thomas Bell tried to take my life and my family," Julian said softly. "He is currently sitting in a federal holding cell, faced with fifty years of charges I personally handed to the United States Attorney. If I can destroy the man who raised me in six hours, imagine what I will do to an old man who sits in a cold warehouse dreaming of the 1980s."
The room fell into a terrifying silence.
Julian pulled a thick folder from his coat and tossed it onto the center of the table. "Those are the deeds to every legal dock, warehouse, and shipping lane in Lake Michigan. They have been transferred into an irrevocable public trust managed by the City of Chicago. The illegal operations are shut down permanently."
Moretti stood up, his chair scraping violently against the concrete. "You gave away our ports?!"
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"I cleaned my house," Julian replied, looking Moretti dead in the eye. "The DeLuca family is out of the Commission. If any of you step onto my property, approach my shipping lines, or speak the name of my daughter... I won't call the police. I will use the entirety of my fortune to hunt you down."
Julian turned on his heel and walked out into the falling snow, leaving the five bosses sitting in stunned, helpless silence.
