Chapter 6 - The Chess Game
With the immediate threat neutralized, Dominic wasted no time. The cancer had to be cut out entirely, root and stem.
By sunrise, Dominic’s loyal capos had rounded up Antonio Vane and his remaining loyalists, trapping them inside their downtown social club. Dominic sat alone in the dim office of the club, cleaning his sidearm with a white silk cloth, when Antonio was dragged in and shoved hard onto a wooden chair by Marco.
Antonio looked old, broken, and terrified. The iron grip he once held over the docks was gone.
"Dominic... please," Antonio wheezed, blood trickling from his lip. "We go back forty years. I helped your father build this family."
"You built it, Antonio," Dominic said quietly, not looking up from his pistol, "and then you rotted it from the inside out. You used my name to traffic poison through our ports, and you put a hit on a mother and her six-year-old child."
"It was business! The port contracts weren't making enough—"
"Family is the business, Antonio," Dominic interrupted, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the weight of absolute finality. "And you betrayed the family."
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Dominic stood up, walking slowly toward the older man. He didn't execute him on the spot—that was too merciful. Instead, he signaled to Marco. "Strip him of his rank, his assets, and his territory. Ship him out on a freighter to South America tonight. If he ever sets foot in New York again, feed him to the harbor fish."
Antonio screamed curses as he was dragged away into the dark, but Dominic barely flinched. The Vane syndicate was broken. The Moretti empire was finally cleansed.
