Chapter 5 - The Council Assembles
By eight o'clock the following morning, the storm had moved from the streets of Manhattan into the private subterranean dining room of Il Breccia—a restaurant in Little Italy that had served as the neutral meeting ground for the five families for sixty years.
The air inside was thick with the scent of dark espresso, old leather, and paranoia.
Old Man Giordano—eighty-two years old, sitting in a wheelchair with a oxygen tube beneath his nose—sat at the head of the long oak table. Around him were the capos of the city, men who controlled garbage union trusts, concrete companies, illegal gambling rings, and shipping docks.
Dominic sat near the middle of the table, his eyes bloodshot, his suit pristine but his hands twitching slightly near his water glass.
At the far end of the room, doors opened.
Ava walked in.
She wore a dark tailored wool coat over a navy maternity dress, her hair pulled back into a sleek, professional knot. Frank Scalise walked two steps behind her, holding a thick leather briefcase.
Dominic stood up so fast his chair rattled. “What is she doing here? This is a council meeting! Women don't sit at this table!”
Old Man Giordano raised a frail, spotted hand.
“Sit down, Dominic,” the old man rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves blowing across cobblestones. “The girl has a right to be heard. Her father built the ledgers you’ve been eating off of for ten years.”
Dominic glared at Ava, but he sat down, his jaw tightly clenched.
Ava walked to the empty seat opposite Giordano, placing her hands flat on the polished table. She didn't look at Dominic.
“Gentlemen,” Ava spoke, her voice calm, clear, and utterly devoid of fear. “I requested this meeting because my husband’s recent personal choices have compromised the security of every family in this room.”
A heavy murmur traveled down the table.
“You’re mad because he cheated on you,” spat Paulie 'The Bull' Varga, a capo from Brooklyn who controlled the construction unions. “We don't care about your marriage, little girl. Men make mistakes. Keep it in your bedroom.”
Ava turned her gaze slowly toward Paulie.
“I don't care about his bedroom, Paulie,” Ava said coldly. “I care about the three hundred million dollars in syndicate liquidity that was frozen by federal regulators two hours ago because Dominic gave his mistress administrative clearance to our Newark server.”
Paulie’s mouth snapped shut.
Giordano leaned forward, his cloudy eyes sharpening instantly. “Explain.”
Ava nodded to Frank, who opened the briefcase and laid fifty pages of printed financial audits down the center of the table.
“Celeste Vane is an operative working directly with the District Attorney’s office,” Ava explained, her voice as precise as a surgeon’s scalpel. “Dominic believed he was being clever, using her to bypass my oversight on offshore accounts. Instead, he handed her digital signature keys that have now linked the Giordano family construction funds to the Moretti illegal shipping accounts.”
She looked around the room, taking in the pale, furious faces of the most dangerous men in the city.
“By noon today,” Ava continued, “the DA will issue grand jury subpoenas for every man sitting at this table—unless the financial routing is immediately detached from Moretti Enterprises and transferred back into the Rossi Trust.”
Dominic stood up again, his face red with rage. “She’s lying! She cleared those accounts herself! She transferred the money to her own private accounts last night to blackmail me!”
Ava turned her head, finally looking directly into her husband’s frantic eyes.
“I didn't steal your empire, Dominic,” she said quietly, her voice echoing in the silent room. “I built it. And when I saw you handing the keys to a thief... I simply changed the locks.”
Giordano looked at the papers, then looked at Dominic.
“Dominic,” the old man said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly cold tone. “Where is the forty million for the Newark shipment arriving on Friday?”
Dominic swallowed hard. Sweat broke out on his forehead. “It’s... it’s being held in a temporary clearance account...”
“It’s gone,” Ava interrupted smoothly. “Because Celeste Vane filed a freeze order at seven AM. The only reason the shipment won't be seized by Federal marshals when the ship docks is if I personally sign the customs clearance indemnity form as the sole director of the Rossi Logistics Group.”
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She stood up, buttoning her dark wool coat over her pregnant belly.
“My husband is bankrupt, gentlemen,” Ava concluded, looking around the table. “And as of nine o'clock this morning... he no longer speaks for the Rossi family.”
