Chapter 4 - The Execution of Justice
In the third-floor boardroom of the Moretti estate, seven men sat around a massive mahogany table. At the head of the table sat Victor Vance—a man in his late fifties with slicked-back gray hair, wearing an Italian leather suit and a gold signet ring that had belonged to Dante’s uncle.
"Dante is running late," Victor said, looking at his diamond-encrusted watch with an irritated frown. "We’ll begin reviewing the South Side port distribution budgets without him."
Before Victor could open his leather ledger, the heavy double doors of the boardroom were thrown wide open.
Dante Moretti walked in.
He didn't walk with his usual measured calm. He moved with a lethal, terrifying momentum that made every captain in the room immediately sit up straight. Behind him, Marcus and four heavily armed estate guards stepped into the room, taking positions along the perimeter and locking the doors behind them.
"Dante?" Victor blinked, adjusting his glasses. "What is the meaning of this security deployment? We’re in the middle of a private council meeting."
Dante didn't answer. He walked directly to the head of the table, grabbed Victor by his expensive lapels, and dragged him out of his chair, throwing him violently onto the polished floor.
"Dante! Have you lost your mind?!" Victor roared, scrambling backward against the mahogany wall as the other captains gasped, several reaching instinctively for their sidearms.
"Keep your hands away from your coats!" Marcus bellowed, leveling his submachine gun at the sitting captains. "Nobody moves!"
Dante pulled the black encrypted hard drive from his pocket and slammed it onto the center of the table. He turned to the room's master audio system, inserted a flash drive containing Christopher’s cassette recording, and hit play.
Victor’s recorded voice echoed through the boardroom speakers:
“You’re going to stamp these transfer receipts, or your pretty wife and your little girl are going to have a very unfortunate accident... Make it look like a fall down the shaft at River North. And plant the forty grand in his locker...”
The six regional captains listened in stunned, horrified silence. The color drained from Victor Vance’s face until he looked like a corpse sitting against the baseboard.
"Twelve million dollars, Victor," Dante said, his voice echoing off the wood paneling like a tolling bell. "You stole twelve million from this family. You murdered an innocent man who tried to protect my name. And then you forced his widow and child to scrub the floors of this estate for three years while you sat in my uncle's chair."
"Dante... listen to me..." Victor stammered, raising his trembling hands in surrender. "It was... it was a business dispute! The old man was dying! I built this empire—"
"You didn't build anything," Dante spat, stepping forward and planting his leather boot firmly onto Victor’s chest, pinning him to the floor. "You were a parasite living off my family's legacy."
Dante looked around the table at his remaining captains. "Is there any man here who dissents from the sentence I am about to hand down?"
Captain Russo, a hardened veteran from the West Side, stood up, looked down at Victor with utter disgust, and spat on the floor. "The man is a snake, Boss. He broke the fundamental code. Do what needs to be done."
Dante looked down at Victor.
"You aren't worth a bullet in my house, Victor," Dante said softly. "Marcus, call the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Turn over the offshore banking records, the murder recording, and the ghost script diagnostics. Let Victor spend the rest of his natural life in a maximum-security prison cell, knowing that every cent he stole has been seized."
Victor began to weep, blubbering frantic pleas for mercy as Marcus’s guards hauled him off the floor and dragged him out of the boardroom in handcuffs.
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Dante turned to face the remaining captains, adjusting his suit jacket.
"Effective immediately," Dante announced, "the Hayes family is fully exonerated. All back pay, pensions, and damages owed to Christopher Hayes’ estate will be paid out from Victor Vance’s seized assets. And Christopher’s name will be carved into the memorial wall at our headquarters as a man of absolute honor."
