Chapter 6 - The Council of the Black Sun
The grand library on the first floor was illuminated by the roaring flames of a massive stone hearth that consumed split logs of aged hickory with angry, popping snaps.
Outside, the storm had reached its apex. Lake Michigan was throwing thirty-foot waves against the limestone cliffs below the estate, the vibration humming through the floorboards like an idling locomotive.
Around the twenty-foot burled walnut conference table sat nine men.
They were the caporegimes of the Chicago Syndicate—men in their fifties and sixties whose tailored Italian suits hid decades of penitentiary ink and scar tissue. They represented the docks of Gary, the freight yards of Cicero, the gambling dens of the North Side, and the corporate shell companies operating out of the financial district.
At the head of the table sat Dominic Vale.
He had not changed out of his dark trousers, but he wore a clean black dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, his forearms resting flat against the polished wood. To his immediate right sat Noah, perched on an oversized leather booster chair, eating slices of cold ham from a silver plate with his fingers.
The boy was calm now, his dark curls brushed, his tiny hand resting casually against my knee where I sat beside him. In my lap, beneath the table, my fingers were locked around the cold steel of a compact .38 revolver Dominic had pressed into my hand twenty minutes earlier in the hallway.
The double doors of the library swung open with a heavy, dramatic thud.
Marcus Vale strode into the room.
His broken nose was set with white surgical tape, his eyes surrounded by dark purple bruising, but his suit had been changed to an immaculate charcoal pinstripe. He moved with aggressive, theatrical confidence, tossing a thick leather portfolio onto the walnut table so hard the silver water carafes jumped.
"Apologies for the delay, gentlemen," Marcus announced, his voice carrying an icy, artificial charm that filled the room. "I had an unfortunate domestic altercation in the north corridor with my brother’s new employee."
The nine captains shifted in their chairs, their eyes darting between Marcus’s broken face and Dominic’s stony, unreadable expression.
"You called an emergency plenary session of the council, Marcus," spoke Sal Moretti, the seventy-year-old capo who controlled the southern rail corridors. "Three hours before dawn during a blizzard. This better not be about municipal garbage contracts."
"It is not about garbage, Salvatore," Marcus replied, stepping to the head of the table, planting his manicured hands on the wood opposite Dominic. "It is about the survival of this syndicate."
Marcus pointed a finger directly at little Noah.
"For fourteen months, this family has been held hostage by the madness of a child," Marcus declared, his voice rising with rehearsed, righteous fury. "Noah is four years old. He has attacked eighteen private employees. He does not speak. He does not interact with the council. And my brother... our sovereign... has allowed his grief over Julianna to paralyze his command."
Marcus opened the portfolio, revealing nine certified affidavits bearing the signatures of psychiatric evaluators and probate attorneys.
"Under Article Nine of our syndicate charter," Marcus recited, "if a sitting sovereign displays acute psychological incapacity that threatens the enterprise’s financial security, the council holds the statutory duty to transfer executive authority to the designated underboss."
A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the library.
Sal Moretti looked at the documents, then up at Dominic. "Dominic? What do you have to say to this?"
Dominic did not look at the papers. He did not look at his brother.
He slowly reached out, picked up a small porcelain teacup from his side of the table, and set it down in front of Marcus with a sharp, echoing clink.
"Drink the tea, Marcus," Dominic said softly.
Marcus froze. The color in his cheeks drained by two visible shades. "What?"
"Drink the tea," Dominic repeated, his gravelly baritone rolling through the room like thunder across a prairie. "Earl Grey. Prepared by your private maid, Elena, forty minutes ago in the service pantry. She told Viktor that you gave her a five-thousand-dollar bonus this morning to ensure I consumed it before the council gathered."
The nine capos straightened up in their seats as one. Sal Moretti’s hand dropped casually beneath the edge of the table.
"This is ridiculous," Marcus stammered, attempting a dismissive laugh that cracked into a high-pitched squeak. "You're hallucinating, Dominic! The strain of the estate—"
"Noah," Dominic interrupted, his voice dropping into a gentle, terrifying register. "Tell your uncle what the tea smells like."
Noah set down his piece of ham.
The four-year-old boy stood up on his leather booster seat, his little hands resting on the edge of the walnut table. He looked directly into his uncle’s sweating, panicked face, his amber eyes clear, sharp, and ancient.
"Bitter nuts," Noah said, his voice ringing through the silent library like a church bell on Sunday morning. "Smells like the medicine you gave Mother before the car went boom."
The room went completely, terrifyingly airless.
Marcus reached for his waistband.
He never cleared the leather.
Dominic moved with the blinding, concussive speed of an apex predator. He surged across the table, his massive left hand clamping around Marcus’s throat like an industrial clamp, slamming the underboss’s head down onto the polished walnut with a sickening, bone-jarring CRACK.
The nine capos bolted from their chairs, weapons drawn, but every single barrel was pointed directly at Marcus Vale’s skull.
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Dominic leaned down, his face inches from his brother’s bleeding cheek, his slate-gray eyes burning with an ancient, apocalyptic wrath.
"You took my wife, Marcus," Dominic whispered into the silence. "You stole my brother's honor. And you thought I wouldn't hear my sister crying in the north wall?"
