Chapter 2
The restricted level beneath the hotel was empty when Daniel checked it.
Almost.
There were four chairs arranged around a small service lounge and an untouched bottle of whiskey on the table.
No weapons.
No restraints.
No obvious violence.
That made the setup more interesting.
Four men had been expected to sit there.
I knew two of the chairs immediately from the coats hanging over them.
Raymond Vale.
Stephen Moretti.
Both older Falcone captains.
Neither man had been in the atrium when Harper was shoved.
Daniel found them upstairs.
They looked confused when I asked why their coats were below the ballroom.
Raymond answered first.
“Nicholas said you wanted a private conversation before midnight.”
I looked at Nicholas.
He was seated now, guarded, one hand holding ice against his face.
“What conversation?”
Raymond frowned.
“About restoring the advisory table.”
There it was.
I had abolished that table two years earlier.
Seven older men who once “advised” the boss on everything from crews to marriages to where children sat at family dinners.
My father tolerated it.
I did not.
Too many retired men controlling active decisions because everyone was afraid to tell them retirement meant retirement.
Stephen looked at me.
“You didn’t call the meeting?”
“No.”
His face darkened.
Nicholas said nothing.
Different lies had already begun colliding.
I looked toward the ballroom clock.
Twenty-three minutes until midnight.
“What happens upstairs at twelve?”
Raymond’s expression changed.
He knew what I meant.
The Falcone First Toast.
An old ceremony so outdated I treated it mostly as theater. At midnight during the winter family gathering, the acting boss raised the first glass.
If the boss was absent, tradition allowed the most senior active Falcone to stand in temporarily and open the table.
Temporarily.
A word ambitious people love.
My father had once told me the custom existed for wartime emergencies.
Valerie apparently thought hotel elevators counted.
I turned toward Nicholas.
“You needed me downstairs during the toast.”
He looked away.
Raymond stared at him.
“Nick?”
Still nothing.
Then Daniel approached me.
“Boss, there’s something else.”
He had found an old high-backed black chair inside a hotel storage room.
The chair used to sit at the head of the Falcone advisory table.
I had ordered it removed years ago.
Valerie had brought it back.
May you like
Not for decoration.
For Nicholas.
