Chapter 6
The three senior capos moved immediately, stepping onto the paved courtyard and standing at rigid attention before their twenty-six-year-old boss. Their faces were somber, stripped of all arrogance, their eyes fixed on the flagstones.
"You have seen the documents," Valentina said, her baritone voice carrying to every corner of the vast garden. "You have seen the poison. Under Article Seven of the Carbone Charter, what is the penalty for conspiring with outside syndicates against the sovereign bloodline?"
Capo Sal did not hesitate. "Total forfeiture of territory, revocation of rank, and death."
"And what is the penalty," Valentina continued, her eyes narrowing, "for attempting to harm the Don's heir?"
"Erasing the traitor's name from the family rolls," Marco, the capo from Queens, answered firmly. "No grave on Carbone land. No remembrance."
Gerald let out a strangled, terrified sob from the floor. "No! Sal, Marco, you can't vote for this! We grew up together! We ran the docks in Red Hook when we were teenagers! You can't let this woman execute me!"
"You executed yourself, Gerald, the second you brought that vial through the front gates," Sal replied coldly, not even looking down at him. "You disgraced your brother's memory. You disgraced every man who wears this pin."
Valentina walked over to Gerald. She knelt on one knee before him, her dark three-piece suit unruffled, her grey eyes locking onto his face with the clinical detachment of an executioner reviewing a condemned cell.
She reached out. Her fingers took hold of the gold capo pin resting on the crushed linen beside his knee.
She didn't hand it to Dante. She squeezed the pin in her fist, feeling the sharp needle bite into her leather glove, before tossing it into the stainless-steel beverage cooler where the melted ice water swallowed it with a faint clink.
"Your rank is stripped, Gerald," Valentina declared, every syllable dropping like an anvil. "Your territory in Brooklyn is revoked and transferred directly to Sal’s division. Your bank accounts in Manhattan, Zurich, and Grand Cayman are seized and liquidated into Lily's educational trust fund."
"What about my house?" Gerald wheezed, tears of pure, desperate ruin spilling down his cheeks. "The carriage house... my cars..."
"You own nothing on this mountain, Gerald," Valentina replied softly. "You own only the clothes on your back. And by the time the sun goes down, you won't even have those."
May you like
She stood up and turned to Evelyn, who was shivering beneath the broken lattice, her pearl necklace snapped, her dress ruined.
"And you, Evelyn," Valentina said, her voice dropping into that chilling, quiet register. "Remove the rings from your fingers. Remove the earrings. Every diamond you wear was purchased with Carbone maritime dividends. Take them off now, or Dante will bring a pair of wire cutters and take the fingers with them."
