Chapter 2 - The Gathering of the Wolves
By 1:00 AM, the grand estate in Old Westbury had turned into a fortress under siege.
The two hundred wealthy guests—politicians, judges, socialites, and minor mob associates—had been quietly, firmly escorted off the premises by armed men in dark suits. The string quartet had packed their violins and fled; the twelve-foot Christmas tree stood illuminated in the empty, silent ballroom, its white lights casting long, surreal shadows across the littered marble floor.
In the second-floor master suite—a room Dominic had not used in months—the heavy velvet curtains were drawn against the winter storm outside.
Lily lay in the center of the king-sized bed, fast asleep, wrapped in a soft cashmere blanket that Dominic had personally pulled from his wardrobe. Elena sat in an armchair beside the bed, holding a porcelain cup of hot tea that the kitchen staff—now terrified and bewildered by the sudden shift in power—had brought up on a silver tray.
Dominic stood near the window, his tuxedo jacket gone, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, his dark tie hanging undone around his neck.
He was staring at his daughter.
"She looks like her," Dominic murmured, his voice raspy. He hadn't touched his own drink. "The way she holds her hands when she sleeps. Sophia used to do that when she was tired."
Elena took a slow sip of her tea. "Sophia talked about you every single day, Dominic. Even when we didn't have enough money for heat in the winter. Even when she was so sick she could barely sit up. She never hated you."
Dominic closed his eyes, a sharp, physical pain striking through his chest. "She should have hated me. I brought the monsters to her door."
"No," Elena said firmly, setting her cup down on the saucer with a soft clink. "She hated the world you lived in. She hated the fear. But she loved you. She used to tell me that the Dominic she knew wasn't the Don of New York. He was just the man who bought her hot chestnuts on Mulberry Street and laughed when she dropped them in the snow."
A light knock sounded at the bedroom door.
Paulie Vitti stepped inside, his face grave. "Boss. They're all downstairs. All five Capos. Frank Scalise, Jimmy 'The Hammer' Bernardi, Marco Bellini, Sal Rossi, and Joey Vance."
Dominic’s eyes narrowed at the last name. "Joey Vance came?"
"He's furious, Dominic," Paulie warned low. "You humiliated his daughter in front of the entire city. Judge Vance is talking about pulling his judicial protection from our docks in Brooklyn. Scalise and Bernardi are whispering that you've lost your mind over a maid's kid."
Dominic turned away from the window. He walked over to the side of the bed, leaning down to touch Lily’s forehead with his lips—a light, reverent touch.
"Stay here with her, Elena," Dominic said quietly. "Keep the door locked. Paulie, leave four armed men in the hallway. Nobody enters this floor without my personal clearance."
"Understood, Boss," Paulie nodded.
Dominic walked out of the suite and descended the grand staircase.
The atmosphere in the grand council room on the ground floor was thick with cigar smoke, the scent of expensive leather, and violent tension.
Five men sat around a massive oval oak table that had belonged to Dominic’s father. These were the captains of the Moretti empire—men who controlled narcotics, construction unions, extortion rings, and shipping lanes across the Eastern Seaboard.
At the head of the table sat Joey Vance—a sharp-featured, ruthless man in his late fifties who served as the family’s political fixer. His face was beet-red with anger.
When Dominic entered the room, the conversations stopped instantly.
Dominic didn't sit down. He walked to the head of the table, resting his hands flat on the dark wood, looking down at the five men who helped him rule New York.
"Dominic," Joey Vance spat, standing up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor. "What the hell is the meaning of this?! You threw my daughter out of your house like a dog! You canceled the engagement in front of two hundred people! My brother is a federal judge—do you have any idea what kind of insult this is to my family?!"
Dominic looked at Joey Vance with cold, dead eyes.
"Sit down, Joey," Dominic said softly.
"I will not sit down!" Vance shouted, slamming his fist onto the table. "You owe us an explanation! Word is already spreading that you locked your own mother in her room because of some kitchen girl’s bastard! Is that true?! Are you tearing up a fifty-million-dollar political alliance for a servant's child?!"
The room went dead silent.
Frank Scalise, the oldest Capo at the table, stroked his gray beard, watching Dominic carefully. Jimmy Bernardi puffed slowly on his cigar, his eyes narrowing.
Dominic took a slow, deep breath.
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out the worn, yellowed letter written by Sophia Carter four years ago, and placed it gently in the center of the mahogany table.
"That child upstairs," Dominic said, his voice echoing off the dark wood paneling, "is not a servant's bastard. She is Lily Moretti. My daughter. My legitimate heir."
A low murmur swept through the room.
Joey Vance sneered. "A child born out of wedlock to a nobody from Mulberry Street? That doesn't make her an heir, Dominic! It makes her an embarrassment! You have a duty to this family! You promised to marry my daughter Julianna!"
"Four years ago," Dominic continued, ignoring Vance entirely, his voice cutting through the smoke like a blade, "my mother, Lucia, used family muscle to threaten Sophia Carter. She burned down an innocent man's shop in Queens. She forced a pregnant woman into hiding. And because of that, my daughter grew up in poverty, and the woman I loved died alone in a clinic in Lake George."
Dominic leaned over the table, pressing his weight onto his hands, his gaze locking onto each Capo one by one.
"My mother acted without my authorization," Dominic declared, his tone ironclad. "She used Moretti soldiers to commit a treasonous act against me. She broke the first rule of this table: family does not strike at the Don's blood."
Frank Scalise spoke up, his voice raspy with age. "Dominic... Lucia is your mother. She was protecting the family name. You were young, you were blinded by a girl—"
"I was the Boss!" Dominic roared, hitting the table with a force that made the crystal ash trays jump. "I was the Don! And my mother plotted behind my back with men sitting in this very room!"
He stopped. His eyes snapped directly toward Jimmy Bernardi.
Jimmy "The Hammer" Bernardi froze, the cigar stopping halfway to his mouth.
"Dominic..." Bernardi stammered, a bead of sweat forming at his hairline. "What are you talking about?"
"Four years ago," Dominic whispered, walking slowly around the table toward Bernardi, "my mother didn't send strangers to burn down the Carter shop in Queens. She sent her favorite enforcer. A man who knows how to make an arson look like an electrical fire."
Dominic stopped directly behind Bernardi’s chair. He placed his hands heavily on Bernardi’s shoulders.
Bernardi went rigid. "Dominic, I swear to God—"
"Paulie," Dominic said calmly.
Paulie Vitti stepped out of the shadows near the corner of the room. He reached into his coat, pulled out a heavy, suppressed automatic pistol, and placed the barrel directly against the back of Jimmy Bernardi’s head.
The other Capos gasped, leaping to their feet, reaching for their weapons.
"Sit down!" Dominic barked, his voice commanding absolute obedience. "Nobody moves!"
The Capos froze, their hands hovering over their holsters, looking between Dominic and the gun pointed at Bernardi’s skull.
"Jimmy," Dominic murmured in Bernardi’s ear, his voice terrible in its intimacy. "My mother paid you fifty thousand dollars out of the syndicate treasury to scare Sophia out of New York. You took money from my mother to target my woman. Isn't that right?"
"She... she told me you approved it, Dominic!" Bernardi whimpered, tears of sheer terror leaking from his eyes. "She said you were too proud to break up with the girl yourself! She said it was a family matter!"
"You lied to your Don," Dominic whispered. "You touched my blood."
Thwack.
The suppressed gunshot was small, muffled, almost gentle.
Jimmy Bernardi’s body slumped forward onto the mahogany table, knocking over his glass of whiskey. A dark pool began to spread across the polished wood.
Silence fell over the room—a heavy, suffocating silence that smelled of gunpowder and copper.
Dominic didn't look at the body. He pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket, casually wiped a tiny speck of dark blood from his white cufflink, and looked up at the remaining three Capos and Joey Vance.
"There is a new rule in the Moretti family," Dominic said smoothly, tossing the stained handkerchief onto Bernardi’s back. "My daughter, Lily Moretti, is the sole heir to everything I own. Anyone who looks at her wrong, anyone who whispers her mother's name with disrespect, anyone who dares to question her place in this house... will end up like Jimmy."
He turned his gaze toward Joey Vance, whose face was now as white as a sheet.
"As for your alliance, Joey," Dominic added, his eyes narrowing. "Tell your brother the judge that if he pulls his protection from my docks... I will release the tape recordings of him taking bribes from the union bosses in 2022. You will leave my house tonight, and you will never mention your daughter's name to me again."
May you like
Joey Vance swallowed hard, his throat working frantically. He nodded once, rapidly, unable to speak.
"Clean this room up, Paulie," Dominic ordered, turning on his heel and walking toward the door. "And bring my mother down from her suite. It’s time she met her granddaughter."
