Chapter 12 - The Council of Wolves
Two weeks later, the grand dining room of the Rossi estate played host to a meeting that hadn't occurred in over a decade. The capos, regional bosses, and high-ranking lieutenants of the syndicate sat around a massive mahogany table, murmuring anxiously among themselves.
The Moretti family was pushing for total war, threatening to dismantle the Rossi empire piece by piece. Gabriel sat at the head of the table, his expression carved from absolute ice, flanked by his two most trusted enforcers.
The double doors swung open, and Don Salvatore walked in, leaning on his silver cane, accompanied by a surprising figure: Tessa.
She wore a sharp, tailored charcoal suit that commanded instant respect, her posture immaculate, her expression completely calm. She wasn't serving the coffee today; she was sitting right beside the Don.
“Quiet!” Salvatore rasped, slamming his cane against the floor. The room fell instantly dead silent. “You all sit here like scared dogs whining about territory and blood. You forget what built this family. You forget unity. And more importantly, you forget respect.”
The senior capo across the table, a burly, scarred veteran named Bruno, sneered openly, glancing sideways at Tessa. “With all due respect, Don Salvatore, we are facing an existential war. Bringing a civilian waitress into our war council doesn't change the fact that Moretti is burning our ports.”
Before Salvatore could erupt in fury, Tessa spoke.
Her voice was calm, clear, and delivered in flawless, crisp Sicilian dialect—the precise, authoritative tongue of the old Palermo aristocracy. She laid out a precise financial and logistical audit of the Moretti family’s illicit shipping routes, pointing out the exact vulnerabilities Gabriel’s team had uncovered through corporate tracking over the past week.
The table dropped into stunned silence. Bruno stared at her with his mouth half open. Not only did she understand the inner workings of the syndicate, but she had outmaneuvered their financial ledgers.
“She is not a civilian, Bruno,” Gabriel stated coldly, resting his hands flat on the table. “She is my partner. And starting tonight, she speaks with my authority. Anyone who has a problem with that can answer to both of us.”
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Bruno slowly lowered his gaze, nodding in sullen submission. The council was won.
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