Chapter 11 - THE SHADOWS OF THE COMMISSION
-11
The answer didn't come in words. It came four days later, in the subterranean vault known as the Pantheon.
The Commission—the ruling council of the five major mafia families governing the Midwest—had called an emergency tribunal. Word of Viktor Vance’s sudden demise and the hostile takeover of the Halsted docks had spread through the underworld like wildfire. The old guard, led by Don Salvatore Moretti—a ruthless, eighty-year-old patriarch who controlled the downtown gambling rings—was furious that a syndicate monopoly was shifting so violently without their formal approval.
Twelve capos and family heads sat around the massive iron table in Vault B. They smoked expensive cigars, their faces shrouded in gray haze, muttering amongst themselves as the heavy steel doors swung open.
Enzo Marchetti walked in.
He didn't come alone.
Walking stride for stride beside him, dressed in an immaculate charcoal pantsuit with a diamond-encrusted silver pendant pinned to her lapel, was Adeline Croft.
A murmur of disbelief and outrage swept through the table. Don Salvatore slammed his heavy gold-ringed fist down onto the iron tabletop.
“Enzo! What is the meaning of this?!” Salvatore barked, his voice cracking with old-age fury. “This is a meeting of the Commission! Women, and especially unverified outsiders, do not enter the Pantheon! Who the hell is this girl?”
Enzo pulled out the central chair at the head of the table, gestured gracefully for Adeline to take a seat, and remained standing right behind her shoulder like an unyielding wall of muscle and authority.
“This is Adeline Marchetti,” Enzo stated, his voice ringing with absolute finality. “Or she will be, by the end of the week.”
The silence that followed was broken only by the hiss of a cigar burning down to the filter. Don Salvatore’s jaw dropped so low his dentures nearly slipped.
“You’re marrying a maid?!” Salvatore sputtered, standing up with the help of his cane. “After dumping Senator Ashford’s daughter, you bring a nobody into our inner circle and expect us to bow? We don't even know where she came from!”
Adeline didn't flinch. She didn't look down. She slowly laced her fingers together on the iron table, leaning forward into the light.
“My name is Adeline Croft,” she said, her voice cutting through the smoke-filled room like a razor blade. “My father built the grain elevators your families profited from for thirty years before Viktor Vance murdered him. I spent the last three days auditing Viktor’s old ledgers. And I happen to know that Don Salvatore’s gambling syndicate has been skimming twenty percent off the North Side port shipments to cover your private debts.”
Salvatore went the color of curdled milk. He grabbed his chest, his eyes bulging as he pointed a trembling finger at her. “Lies! Slander! She’s insane—kill her!”
Before any of Salvatore’s guards could reach for their holsters, the four walls of the Pantheon clicked simultaneously.
From hidden ports in the concrete ceiling, automated laser-sighted submachine gun turrets dropped down, locking their crimson beams directly onto the foreheads of every single capo and guard in the room.
Marcus and a dozen Marchetti enforcers stepped out of the shadows behind the table, their weapons raised and ready.
Enzo leaned down, resting his hands on the back of Adeline’s chair, his face inches from her ear.
“Tell them how it’s going to be, my queen,” Enzo murmured softly.
May you like
Adeline smiled—a cold, terrifyingly brilliant smile that mirrored the man standing behind her. She looked squarely at Don Salvatore, who was now sweating profusely under the red laser dot dancing between his eyebrows.
“From this moment on,” Adeline announced to the trembling council of Chicago’s underworld, “the Marchetti family doesn't ask for permission. We set the terms. Anyone who has a problem with that... is welcome to try their luck against the docks.”
