Chapter 10
The grand pavilion grew quiet once more. The captains stood one by one, kissing Lorenzo’s signet ring in solemn, renewed loyalty before filing out into the evening mist, leaving only Lorenzo, Alina, and Lucy in the vast, shadowed hall.
Lorenzo stood up, walked around the table, and gently scooped Lucy into his arms. The little girl wrapped her arms around his broad neck, resting her head against his shoulder with a soft, sleepy sigh.
"Are we going home now, Daddy?" Lucy murmured, her eyelids drooping in the dimming light.
"Yes, my love," Lorenzo smiled gently, pressing a kiss to her temple. "We’re going home."
He extended his other hand to Alina, helping her rise from the heavy chair. Alina looked up into his eyes, her face still carrying the faint shadows of the afternoon's violence, but her spirit unbroken.
"Is Carmine really finished, Lorenzo?" she asked softly as they walked toward the grand terrace doors.
"Carmine is in federal holding right now, Alina," Lorenzo replied, guiding them out onto the viewing platform where the incident had begun hours earlier. "His boats are seized, his crews are broken. He won't ever cross the state line again."
The cool night air rushed over them, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth. Below the platform, the soft sand practice lane lay empty, smoothed clean by the groundskeepers.
At the bottom of the terrace steps, Lorenzo’s armored Maybach waited, engine purring softly, surrounded by four dark security sedans with their parking lights glowing amber.
Frank jogged up the stone steps, holding an encrypted leather folder that had just been delivered by a private courier. His face was unusually grim under the exterior lanterns.
"Boss," Frank whispered, pausing two steps below them so as not to startle Lucy. "We opened the private safe in Marcus’s locker inside the clubhouse."
Lorenzo stopped, his hand resting protectively on Alina’s lower back. "What was inside?"
Frank opened the leather folio, revealing a stack of high-level diplomatic transit papers, sealed with a gold wax stamp bearing the insignia of the National Commission in Chicago.
"It wasn't just Carmine Moretti, Lorenzo," Frank said, his voice dropping to a troubled, urgent cadence. "Marcus had signatures from three family bosses out of the Midwest. And look at the date on the primary authorization."
Lorenzo looked down at the document. The date stamped in red ink was not from today, nor was it from this week.
It was dated six months ago.
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened into black diamonds beneath the terrace lights. The plot had not been an impulsive move by a bitter cousin; it was the opening gambit of a coordinated national purge aimed at wiping the entire Carbone bloodline off the eastern seaboard.
"Lorenzo?" Alina asked, noticing the sudden, dangerous stillness in his posture.
Lorenzo gently handed sleeping Lucy to Alina, ensuring his wife was secure, before closing the leather folio with a sharp, decisive snap.
He looked out over the vast, darkened polo fields stretching into the Connecticut mist, where the shadows of an unseen war were already moving toward his empire.
"Get in the car, Alina," Lorenzo said, his voice quiet, cold, and carrying the promise of a global reckoning. "Call the captains in Boston and New York. Tell them to assemble at the estate before dawn."
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He looked into the dark horizon, his hand resting upon his family signet ring.
"The wolves wanted a war," Lorenzo whispered into the night. "Now they’re going to get one."
