Chapter 8 - The Ghost Wife Takes The Gavel
The ballroom was thick with the scent of spent gunpowder and absolute submission.
I walked forward slowly, my hand resting gently on my stomach, every eye in the room tracking my movements. The ruthless killers who had terrified the eastern seaboard for decades stood with their heads bowed, waiting for the verdict of the woman they had mourned seven months ago.
I stopped at the head of the table, looking down at Carmine Caruso. The once-terrifying Don was pinned like an insect beneath his son’s iron grip, his expensive suit disheveled, gasping for air against the polished mahogany.
""You took my life away for seven months, Carmine,"" I said, my voice cold, devoid of the fear that had once ruled my nights in that drafty apartment. ""You forced me to sleep on a secondhand mattress, washing dishes in grease and cold water, praying every night that my baby wouldn't die of malnutrition or winter chills.""
""Elena... please,"" the old man choked out, his arrogance completely evaporating into pathetic groveling. ""I was protecting the family... I was trying to keep the empire strong...""
""You were protecting your own greed,"" Luca snarled, increasing the pressure on Carmine’s shoulder until a sickening pop echoed through the hall. Carmine let out a strangled shriek of pain.
""Luca,"" I said softly.
Luca froze. He looked up at me, the bloodlust in his dark eyes softening instantly at the sound of my voice.
""Let him up,"" I commanded gently.
Luca hesitated for half a heartbeat, then released his grip and stepped back, his posture coiled and ready to strike if the old man made even a twitching movement.
Carmine scrambled back, clutching his dislocated shoulder, sliding against the wall like a cornered animal. He looked around the circle of capos, desperately searching for a single sympathetic face. He found only stone, disgust, and the cold glint of drawn weapons.
""The Caruso name will not be built on the slaughter of family,"" I announced, turning to the council of capos. ""My father, Don Vincente, taught me that a ruler who relies on cowardice and assassination has already lost his crown. Carmine Caruso is stripped of his rank, his assets, and his freedom.""
Salvatore nodded solemnly. ""And the judgment, Donna Elena? Does he feed the fishes in the lake he claimed you died in?""
The room waited with bated breath. A single word from me, and Carmine would be executed on the spot, his body disposed of before sunrise.
I looked at the trembling, pathetic old man on the floor. Killing him would be easy. But killing him would perpetuate the cycle of blood that had nearly destroyed Luca’s soul.
""Death is too quick for what he did,"" I declared. ""Carmine will spend the remainder of his days locked inside the fortress at Blackwood. No phone. No visitors. No internet. No contact with the outside world. He will sit in a room with four stone walls and think about the family he destroyed, while his grandson grows up knowing nothing of his existence.""
Carmine’s eyes widened in horror. For an egomaniac who had lived his entire life in the center of adoration and terror, utter isolation was a fate infinitely worse than a bullet.
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""Take him away,"" Luca ordered.
Enzo and two guards grabbed Carmine by his arms, dragging him across the polished floor toward the rear service elevators. His pathetic protests faded down the long marble corridor until the heavy steel doors clanged shut.
