Chapter 7 - The Gathering of Wolves
The Santoro family council was held in the subterranean banquet room beneath an unassuming Italian restaurant in Little Italy—a room fortified with reinforced steel walls and electronic scramblers.
Twelve senior captains sat around a massive oval marble table. At the far end sat Don Carmine Santoro—Niko’s elderly uncle and the legendary former head of the syndicate.
Arthur sat near the head of the table, looking smug and confident.
When Niko stepped into the room, dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit, the room went quiet.
Then I stepped in behind him, wearing a sharp white tuxedo suit, holding a leather briefcase.
A murmur of outrage swept through the captains.
"Niko!" Captain Bruno slammed his fist onto the table. "Why did you bring Arthur Shaw's daughter into a closed council meeting?!"
"She is my wife, Bruno," Niko said calmly, taking his seat at the head of the table. "And she is here to present the evidence regarding the federal leak."
Arthur let out a loud, mocking laugh. "Is this a joke, Niko? She is the source of the leak! Her father just submitted our financial ledgers to Prosecutor Sterling's desk three hours ago!"
"Her father submitted ledgers that you forged, Arthur," I spoke up, my clear, sharp voice ringing out across the room.
I walked over to the center of the table, opening my briefcase and pulling out three stacks of bound legal documents. I slid them down the marble table toward Don Carmine.
"These are the digital audit trails from the Santoro server network," I explained, pointing to the highlighted encryption codes. "My father's IP address didn't access Niko’s server through my security pass at Columbia. He accessed it through an IP address registered to an apartment in Soho—an apartment leased under Arthur Santoro’s private shell company."
Arthur’s smug expression instantly withered. The color drained from his face. "That... that’s impossible! Those files were encrypted!"
"They were encrypted until my wife decrypted them two hours ago," Niko said, his voice dropping into a deadly register. "Evelyn didn't just study law, Arthur. She spent her undergraduate years studying forensic financial accounting."
Don Carmine put on his reading glasses, scanning the documents with sharp, lethal eyes. "This signature on the Valenti wire transfer... this is your private offshore account, Arthur."
Arthur panicked. He reached into his coat pocket, pulling a snub-nosed revolver, aiming it directly at Niko’s head. "He’s ruining the family! He’s turning us into legitimate businesses! The Valentis offered us twice the territory!"
Before Arthur could pull the trigger, two suppressed gunshots rang out from behind him—THWIP! THWIP!
Arthur collapsed across the marble table, his gun skittering across the floor, his life blood pooling over the financial ledgers he had forged.
Standing near the doorway, his weapon raised, was Leo.
The room was dead silent.
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Don Carmine slowly took off his reading glasses, looking up at Niko, then at me.
"The girl stays," Don Carmine declared smoothly, his raspy voice echoing through the quiet room. "And Arthur’s territory is transferred to Niko’s estate immediately."
