Chapter 6 - The Mulberry Street Tribunal
The private room above Da Nico on Mulberry Street was thick with the scent of expensive cigars, garlic, and old wood. Twelve men sat around a massive oval table made of dark walnut—the underbosses and captains of the Moretti family, men who controlled the gambling, the construction, the unions, and the shipping lanes of the tri-state area.
At the head of the table sat Anthony Moretti, a sharp-featured man in a tailored light gray suit, his gold rings glittering under the low-hanging chandelier as he gestured with a cigar.
"Gabriel has lost his perspective," Anthony said, his voice filled with a calculated, theatrical sympathy. "We all love little Daniel, of course. But a leader cannot abandon a peace negotiation with Brooklyn because a child has a fever. He locked down Lenox Hill using our frontline soldiers, causing a massive police response that has compromised three of our major distribution hubs. He’s unstable. The boy’s sickness is dragging this family into the dirt."
"And what do you suggest, Anthony?" asked Old Mario, a gray-haired captain from the Bronx who had served Gabriel’s father thirty years ago.
"I suggest we implement the regency clause," Anthony said, leaning forward, slamming his hand down on the table. "I take the center chair until Gabriel recovers his emotional balance. We sign the peace treaty with Marcone, we give them the Manhattan ports, and we stabilize our revenue."
The double doors at the back of the room didn't just open—they exploded outward off their hinges.
Vincent Kane stepped through the dust first, a modified short-barreled shotgun raised to his shoulder, covering the left side of the table. Behind him came four Moretti enforcers, their weapons locked onto the bodyguards standing along the walls.
And then stepped Gabriel.
He walked into the room with a slow, deliberate cadence, his eyes fixed entirely on his cousin. He didn't look at the other captains. He didn't look at the weapons. He walked to the head of the table, stopped behind Anthony's chair, and placed both hands on the back of the wood.
The twelve captains froze, several of them dropping their cigars into their plates. Anthony’s face turned an instant, translucent shade of white.
"Gabriel," Anthony stammered, his voice jumping an octave. "You... we thought you were at the hospital. We were just discussing how to support you—"
"You always were a terrible liar, Anthony," Gabriel said softly. He reached out and tapped the ash from Anthony’s cigar onto the gray silk of his cousin's lapel. "You didn't want to support me. You wanted to bury me. You gave Santino Marcone the electronic key codes to the pediatric wing. You left my son’s room unprotected so two mercenaries could press a pillow over his face while he was hooked up to an oxygen line."
A collective murmur of disgust went through the older captains. Even in the mafia, there were rules. You don't touch wives. You don't touch children. You don't use a boy's failing heart as a business strategy.
"That’s a lie!" Anthony shrieked, looking around the table for support. "Mario! Sal! Don't listen to him! He’s paranoid! He has no proof!"
Gabriel didn't answer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, portable digital projector, placing it on the center of the walnut table. He tapped his phone, and a high-definition video feed projected directly onto the white wall behind Anthony’s head.
It wasn't a corporate document. It wasn't a bank statement.
It was the live security feed from Room 412.
The captains watched in absolute silence as the two men in tactical gear entered the room. They watched as Elena Cruz, a tiny woman with a blue cleaning rag in her hand, stepped between the killers and the bed. They watched her get slammed into the wall, her skull cracking against the plaster, and they watched her rise, blood streaming down her face, to break a wooden mop handle across the face of an armed mercenary to save the Moretti heir.
"That woman," Gabriel said, his voice echoing like thunder through the small room, "makes fifteen dollars an hour. She has no contract with this family. She has no blood connection to my name. But she bled more for my son in two minutes than you have in your entire miserable life, Anthony."
Old Mario stood up slowly, his eyes burning with an ancient, Sicilian fury as he looked at Anthony. "You betrayed the blood, Anthony. You allowed a stranger to do a man's job while you sat here drinking our wine."
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Anthony lunged across the table, reaching for a hidden weapon beneath the wood, but Gabriel was faster. His hand came down like a hydraulic press, slamming Anthony’s face directly into the walnut table with a sickening crack of bone.
"Vincent," Gabriel said, turning his back on his cousin without looking at the blood on the wood. "Clean the room."
