Chapter 5 - The Gathering of Kings
The main dining hall of the Moretti estate was designed to intimidate. A forty-foot ceiling supported by exposed oak beams hung over a massive, dark-walnut table carved from a single tree trunk in the Black Forest. Crystal chandeliers cast a brilliant, cold light across polished silver and crystal glassware that reflected the wealth and terror of the East Coast underworld.
By eight o'clock, the five most feared Mafia dons had arrived.
There was Salvatore Rossi, the aging patriarch of the Philadelphia syndicate, whose gray eyes had overseen decades of dockland corruption. Beside him sat Vincent "The Butcher" Moretti, a distant cousin and head of the New Jersey enforcer wing, along with three other regional kingpins who controlled every major port, casino, and union hall from Maine to Maryland.
They sat in absolute silence, nursing glasses of rare scotch, waiting for Damiano. They knew about the summit. They knew about the alliance with Chicago. But the urgent summons calling them to the main hall thirty minutes before the official signing had put every man on edge.
The double doors swung open with a heavy, deliberate thud.
Damiano Moretti walked in. He didn't look like a man who had just narrowly escaped being blown to pieces. He wore a crisp black tailored suit, his posture rigid, his dark eyes sweeping across the table with the absolute authority of a sovereign king.
Behind him walked Tony, carrying a heavy metal briefcase. And behind Tony—to the utter shock of every hardened criminal in the room—walked Sophia, holding six-year-old Emma tightly by the hand.
Salvatore Rossi slammed his glass down onto the walnut table, the crystal cracking under the impact.
"What is the meaning of this, Damiano?" Salvatore barked, his face flushing crimson beneath his white beard. "We were told this was a summit for the five families and the Chicago delegation! Why are there civilians—why is a child—standing in the middle of a war room?"
Damiano didn't answer immediately. He walked to the head of the table, pulled out the high-backed leather chair, and motioned for Sophia and Emma to sit in the two chairs directly to his right.
Sophia’s hands were shaking as she sat down, pulling Emma onto her lap to shield her from the terrifying stares of five murderous syndicate bosses.
Damiano remained standing, resting both hands flat against the polished wood of the table.
"The Chicago delegation will not be joining us tonight," Damiano said, his voice echoing cleanly off the stone walls. "Viktoria Rostov has been relieved of her duties... permanently."
A murmur rippled through the table. Vincent Moretti leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. "Relieved? Damiano, that engagement was supposed to lock down the entire Midwest distribution network. What the hell happened?"
Damiano clicked open the metal briefcase Tony had placed before him and tipped it forward.
Out spilled a cascade of items across the pristine white tablecloth: a dismantled military-grade explosive charge with charred wiring, three encrypted flash drives downloaded from Viktoria’s private server, and a signed ledger detailing the Chicago Bratva's active plot to assassinate every man sitting at this exact table.
The room went dead silent. Even the breathing of the five veteran dons seemed to stop.
"She planted this beneath my desk two hours ago," Damiano stated, his voice dropping into a chilling, lethal register. "Her plan was simple: eliminate the leadership of the East Coast syndicates in one stroke, plunge our territories into chaos, and let her father’s enforcers walk in and pick the bones clean."
Salvatore stared at the explosive device inches from his scotch glass, his face draining of all color. "An inside job... the engagement was a trojan horse."
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"It was," Damiano agreed coldly. "And she would have succeeded. Every man in this room would be ash right now... if not for one person."
Damiano turned his head, looking down the table directly at six-year-old Emma, who was quietly hugging her one-eyed rag doll, completely unaware of the monstrous power dynamics swirling around her.
