Chapter 5 - The Commission's Verdict
The private boardroom on the top floor of the Moretti Building on Fifty-Seventh Street offered a sweeping, panoramic view of Central Park, but inside, the air was as cold and heavy as a tomb.
Seated around the thirty-foot table of polished black granite were the heads of the Five Families—men who controlled the shipping docks, construction unions, waste management, and digital gaming across four states.
At the head of the table sat Dominic Moretti.
To his right stood Marco, holding the leather briefcase. Bound and sitting in a plain wooden chair near the corner of the room sat Paulie Moretti, his head bowed, his hands shaking in his lap.
Dominic did not raise his voice. He laid out the evidence with surgical, devastating precision.
The brass key 402. The USB drive with the house codes. The recorded confession from Victor Hale. The Zurich bank transfers linking Paulie’s dummy corporations to the bribery payouts.
Old man Lucchese, the eighty-year-old patriarch of the Brooklyn families, leaned forward, resting his heavy, liver-spotted hands on the granite table.
"You brought us here for this, Dominic?" Lucchese rasped, his voice deep and gravelly. "A internal family dispute over estate security?"
"It wasn't just security, Don Lucchese," Dominic said calmly. He reached into his pocket and laid a final document on the table. "This is a contract signed three weeks ago between Paulie and the Russian syndicate operating out of Brighton Beach. Paulie agreed to sell fifty percent of our Brooklyn shipping piers to them in exchange for fifty men to back his internal coup against me."
A dark, dangerous murmur passed down the long table.
Selling family territory to foreign syndicates was the single unforgivable sin in the New York underworld. It violated the fifty-year accord that maintained peace across the boroughs.
Don Lucchese’s eyes narrowed into dark slits as he looked at Paulie. "Is this true, boy?"
Paulie couldn't speak. He trembled violently, tears dropping onto his expensive leather shoes.
Lucchese looked back at Dominic, bowing his head slightly. "The Commission recognizes your right to clean your own house, Dominic. The territory of the Moretti family remains entirely under your command. No family will interfere."
One by one, the other four bosses nodded their agreement. The verdict was unanimous.
"What about the handler?" Lucchese asked as he stood up, buttoning his coat. "The man who starved your dog?"
Dominic stood up, buttoning his own suit jacket. His face was unreadable.
"He’s being delivered to the Port Authority police in an hour," Dominic said smoothly. "With twenty years of recorded tax fraud and illegal K-9 smuggling files attached to his name. He will spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary."
"And your cousin?"
Dominic looked at Paulie, whose eyes were filled with sheer, hopeless terror.
"Paulie is taking a long, one-way trip to a private facility in upstate New York," Dominic said coldly. "He will never set foot in New York City again."
Twenty minutes later, the boardroom was empty.
Dominic stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling window, watching the yellow taxis crawl through the rain-slicked streets far below. The war that had threatened to destroy his family from the inside had been crushed before a single shot was fired in public.
Marco stepped up beside him, handing him a warm cup of espresso.
"It's done, Boss," Marco said softly. "The piers are secure. Paulie’s men have surrendered their keys. The house is clean."
Dominic took a slow sip of the dark coffee.
"Not yet, Marco," Dominic said.
"What else is there?"
Dominic turned around, looking at his consigliere. "Call the best veterinary specialist in the northeast. I want a complete medical team brought to the estate tonight to examine Bruno. And tell the construction team to tear down the old kennels tomorrow morning."
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"Tear them down?" Marco asked, surprised. "Where are we going to put the guard dogs?"
"We aren't building kennels," Dominic said softly. "We're building a park. A place for Lilly to play."
