Chapter 7 - The Trial of the Syndicate
The gray light of dawn broke over Chicago, illuminating the industrial flats along the Calumet River.
Inside an abandoned freight terminal owned by the Castiglione holding company, forty senior members of the Chicago syndicate sat in folding chairs arranged in a cold semicircle. In the center of the concrete floor, under the glare of industrial halogen work lights, two men were kneeling on the oil-stained gravel, their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
One was Salvatore Bellini. The former underboss was bruised, his expensive tailored suit torn to shreds, his left eye swollen shut from Dominic’s interrogation.
The other was Tommy Higgins. Tommy was weeping hysterically, his nose running over his upper lip, his knees shaking so violently that his cheap trousers rustled.
The side door of the warehouse opened.
Dominic walked in. He wore a crisp, dark three-piece charcoal suit, his coat open, his posture commanding and serene. Beside him walked Clara.
She wasn't hiding behind him. She was walking on her own two feet, leaning with steady, dignified rhythm on her black walnut cane. She wore a simple emerald-green wool coat that Dominic had bought for her, her dark hair pulled back, her gaze clear and unflinching as she looked across the assembled mobsters.
Every man in the room stood up out of respect—and terror.
Dominic walked to the center of the circle, stopping three paces from the kneeling men. He did not look at Tommy. He looked down at Sal Bellini.
“Sal,” Dominic said, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the vast depot. “Eight months ago, you took five million dollars from the Detroit syndicate to eliminate my sister’s car on the Skyway. You thought that if Sophia and Leo were dead, I would have no heir, no family, and my grief would make me weak enough for you to step into my seat.”
Sal spat a mouthful of blood onto the gravel. “You can’t prove nothing, Dominic. The Commission won't sanction this hit without proof.”
Dominic gestured to Vincent.
Vincent stepped forward, setting a stainless steel medical tray on an empty oil drum. On the tray lay a flattened, deformed lead slug—the nine-millimeter bullet Dr. Marino had extracted from Clara’s calf three days earlier.
“Ballistics matched this slug two hours ago,” Dominic stated calmly. “Fired from a customized Sig Sauer P226 registered to your personal security detail, Sal. The same gun found on the shooter my men neutralized at the King’s Court Inn.”
A dark murmur rippled through the assembled capos. The Donati boss from the North Side shook his head in disgust. In the American mob, family was sacred; murdering a boss’s sister and attempting to execute an innocent six-year-old child was an unforgivable violation of the code.
“And then,” Dominic continued, his eyes shifting toward Tommy, “you found a degenerate gambler who owed forty grand on football parleys. You told him that if he delivered his sister to me under the guise of an unpaid debt, you would clear his ledger and give him four hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
Clara stepped forward, her cane clicking softly on the concrete. She stopped in front of Tommy.
Tommy looked up at her, tears streaming down his blotched cheeks. “Clara... please! They were gonna kill me! Sal told me if I didn't bring you to Chicago, they’d chop me into pieces and feed me to the pigs! I did it to keep you close to Dominic! I knew Dominic would protect you!”
Clara looked down at her older brother. The boy who had taught her to ride a bicycle. The man who had sold her like a broken horse to cover his own cowardice.
“You didn't care if Dominic killed me on the spot, Tommy,” Clara said, her voice completely devoid of hatred—filled only with a cold, devastating pity. “You saw my blood on that motel floor, and the only thing you thought about was your own skin.”
She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out the gold signet ring their father had left Tommy—a ring Tommy had pawned three times and Clara had bought back with her own tip money—and dropped it onto the gravel in front of his knees.
“You don't have a sister anymore, Tommy,” she said quietly. “You don't have a family. You don't have a name.”
She turned her back on him and walked back to Dominic’s side.
Dominic looked at the assembled Commission bosses. “Is there any man here who questions my judgment?”
Not a single capo spoke. The Donati boss raised his hand slightly. “The blood is justified, Dominic. Take what is owed.”
Dominic nodded once to Vincent.
“Take Sal to the deep docks,” Dominic ordered flatly. “Let him find out how cold the Calumet River is in November.”
Two operators hauled the screaming, cursing Bellini backward into the shadows.
Then Dominic looked at Tommy Higgins, who had collapsed into a sobbing ball on the concrete.
“You,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into an icy register that made Tommy freeze. “You are alive for one reason, and one reason only. Because your sister took a bullet to keep my nephew breathing, and she has asked that your blood not stain my hands.”
Dominic reached into his coat and threw a plain white envelope onto the floor beside Tommy.
“There is five thousand dollars in that envelope,” Dominic said. “And a one-way bus ticket to El Paso, Texas. If you ever set foot north of the Ohio River again—if you ever speak Clara’s name, if you ever look at a photograph of her—I will not shoot you. I will dismantle you piece by piece until there is nothing left to bury. Run, Tommy. Run until your shoes fall apart.”
Tommy didn't hesitate. He scrambled on his hands and knees, grabbed the envelope, and sprinted through the loading dock doors into the gray morning fog, vanishing forever.
Dominic turned to Clara. In front of forty stone-faced killers, he offered her his arm.
“Let’s go home, Clara,” he said.
May you like
She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, leaning into his strength, and together they walked out of the darkness and into the rising sun.
***
