Chapter 3 - The Attorney's Ledger
Keller didn't make it three steps toward the double mahogany doors of the dining hall.
Before the attorney could reach the threshold, Frank Bellini’s heavy, scarred hand slammed into his chest, throwing Keller back against the wall. Two younger soldiers stepped into the doorway, their hands sliding inside their tailored suit jackets.
“Sit down, Martin,” Frank growled, shoving the lawyer into a empty side chair near the sideboard.
Keller was gasping for air, his silk tie crooked, his thin silver hair disheveled. “Dominic! Listen to me! This isn't what it looks like! She’s setting me up! She’s an informant!”
Dominic didn't raise his voice. He walked slowly toward Keller, his cane thumping steadily against the marble floor. Every step was deliberate, controlled, dangerous.
He stopped two feet from the trembling lawyer.
“Claire,” Dominic called out without looking back.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Where does that transmitter send its signal?”
Claire picked up the silver device from the table, turning it over in her large, sturdy hands. She adjusted her reading glasses, squinting at the small serial number printed on the back casing.
“It’s a short-range military-grade bug,” Claire explained, her voice steady and professional, as if she were detailing the cleaning supplies in the utility closet. “It doesn't have the power to send a signal across the city. It broadcasts within a three-hundred-yard radius. The receiver has to be on the estate property.”
Dominic lowered his gaze to Keller. “Is the receiver in this house, Martin?”
Keller squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving. “Dominic... please. I’ve served your family for twenty years. I drew up your father’s will! I kept you out of prison during the 2018 tax indictment!”
“You put a wire under my chair,” Dominic whispered. “Who bought you?”
Keller remained silent, his lips trembling.
Dominic turned his head toward the end of the table. “Vincent.”
Vincent stood frozen beside the head of the table, his hand resting near his open jacket. His eyes darted toward the high windows overlooking the dark estate gardens outside.
“I didn't know anything about a bug, Dom,” Vincent said quickly, his voice carrying a nervous pitch it hadn't possessed ten minutes ago. “If Keller was working with an outside party—with New York or the Feds—then he acted alone. I had nothing to do with this!”
“ didn't say it was New York, Vincent,” Dominic noted softly.
“Then who else would it be?!” Vincent yelled, spreading his arms wide, appealing to the capos around the table. “Look at the situation! Dom gets shot outside the courthouse! A week later, Keller puts a wire in the dining room! It’s an extortion play! Keller was going to sell our distribution secrets to the East Coast outfits!”
Claire stepped forward, holding her reading glasses in one hand and a small brown leather-bound ledger in the other.
Every head in the room turned toward her once more.
“Where did you get that?” Vincent snapped, his voice cracking.
“It was in Mr. Keller’s briefcase,” Claire replied calmly. She had walked over to the overturned leather portfolio while the men were surrounding Keller and pulled the book from an inner zipper compartment. “He leaves it unlocked in the staff lounge whenever he visits the house. He thinks the domestic staff can't read financial ledgers.”
“Put that down!” Keller screamed, making a desperate lunge forward, but Frank Bellini pinned him against the wall with an elbow to the throat.
Claire flipped through the thin rice-paper pages of the ledger with practiced efficiency.
“This isn't an extortion file for New York,” Claire announced to the room. “It’s an escrow account register. Over the past four weeks, six million dollars was transferred from the Moretti construction accounts in Cicero to an offshore shell company called Apex Logistics in the Cayman Islands.”
Dominic took a step closer to her. “Who owns Apex Logistics?”
Claire looked up from the ledger, her gray eyes meeting Dominic’s with steady clarity.
“The company was incorporated three months ago,” Claire said. “The primary shareholders are Martin Keller... and Vincent Moretti.”
A collective gasp echoed down the long dining table.
The capos stood up from their seats one by one. The atmosphere in the room transformed from a calculated political takeover into a volatile, lethal standoff.
Frank Bellini’s face hardened into stone. He let go of Keller’s collar and turned his heavy frame toward Vincent. “You drained the Cicero pension accounts while Dom was in an ICU bed?”
“He lied to us!” another capo shouted from the back. “He told us the Cicero accounts were frozen by the federal grand jury!”
Vincent backed away from the table, his hands held up defensively. “Listen to me! All of you! It was a protective transfer! If the Feds seized the accounts after Dom was shot, we would have lost everything! I moved the money to keep it safe for the family!”
“Safe in your name?” Dominic asked. His voice was terrifyingly low, devoid of emotion. “Two bullets hit me outside the Cook County courthouse five weeks ago, Vincent. The shooter knew exactly what door I was walking out of, and what time my security detail was turning the cars around.”
The room fell into a terrifying, suffocating silence.
Dominic took two steps toward his younger brother, the ebony cane clicking rhythmically against the stone floor. Thump. Step. Thump. Step.
“I spent five weeks wondering how the shooter got through our perimeter,” Dominic whispered. “I thought we had a leak in the security team. I executed two guards in Cicero because I thought they sold my route.”
He stopped three feet from Vincent.
“It wasn't the guards, was it?” Dominic asked. “It was the man who knew my court schedule before I even left the house.”
Vincent’s composure finally shattered completely. Tears of rage and panic welled in his eyes as he looked around the room at the thirty-seven capos who had supported him twenty minutes ago. Every single man had drawn back, leaving Vincent completely isolated at the head of the table.
“You were old, Dom!” Vincent screamed, his voice echoing off the high crystal chandeliers. “You were soft! You were letting the Milwaukee outfits take our street business while you sat in this house playing patriarch! The family needed new leadership! It needed someone who wasn't afraid to modernize!”
“So you put two bullets in my hip?” Dominic asked.
“You were supposed to die in that alley!” Vincent spat, dropping all pretense, his face twisting into a hideous mask of spite. “You were supposed to die on the operating table! But you just wouldn't die! You came back dragging your leg, sitting on a maid’s chair, trying to rule a city you don't even understand anymore!”
Vincent’s hand suddenly darted into his inner coat pocket, reaching for the silver snub-nosed revolver concealed in his holster.
Before his fingers could even touch the grip, a heavy wooden object whistled through the air.
May you like
CRACK!
Claire had picked up her heavy oak kitchen chair by its backrest and swung it with the full force of her broad shoulders, slamming the solid wood frame directly into the side of Vincent’s head.
