Chapter 3 - The Gathering of Wolves
The move to the second floor changed the atmosphere of the Hudson Street estate the way a sudden drop in the barometer changes the sea before a squall.
The mansion had twenty-four rooms, six chimneys, and an inner courtyard paved with Belgian blocks where black town cars sat idling at all hours of the day and night. For five years, Rachel had moved through these rooms like a shade—dusting the gilded frames of landscapes she would never visit, polishing silver forks that cost more than her mother’s funeral, always keeping her eyes lowered, always stepping into alcoves when boots sounded on the marble.
Now, she lived in the suite with the French doors.
Emma spent her mornings sitting on the stone balustrade of the terrace, swinging her legs over a drop that gave Rachel palpitations, watching the "suits" arrive.
"That one has a broken nose," Emma announced on Tuesday morning, pointing a piece of toast at Marco Moretti, Vincent’s thirty-two-year-old nephew and the rising star of the Brooklyn faction.
Marco was sharp, lean, and smelled of five-hundred-dollar cologne and raw ambition. He carried an Italian automatic in an oiled shoulder holster that showed whenever his jacket swung open, and he walked with the tight, predatory bounce of a man who believed the world had been kept waiting for him too long.
Rachel grabbed Emma’s wrist, pulling her back into the safety of the bedroom.
"Do not point, Emma," Rachel hissed, her heart doing its familiar, frantic skip. "Do not look at them. We are guests here, by some miracle, but miracles run out."
Down below, Marco had stopped.
He looked up at the terrace. His eyes were small, pale blue, and entirely devoid of the ancient gravity that lived in his uncle’s face. He didn't see a child; he saw an irregularity. A crack in the stone. A sign that the old man in the library was losing his grip on the lever.
He spat onto the Belgian blocks, turned on his heel, and entered the study.
Inside the study, the air was dense with the smoke of three Romeo y Julieta cigars.
Vincent was not at his desk. He was standing by the high arched window, his hands clasped behind his back, watching the morning mist rise off the Hudson.
"Uncle," Marco said without waiting for an invitation.
Silvio Varga sat in the red leather wingback, an unlit cigar between his yellowed teeth. His wrist was still bandaged from where an old tendon injury had flared up, but the purple bruising from his humiliation had settled deep into the bags under his eyes.
"You're late, Marco," Vincent said without turning around.
"Traffic on the bridge," Marco lied easily. He walked to the sideboard, poured himself three fingers of twelve-year-old scotch, and didn't touch the water pitcher. "We got problems in Red Hook. The dockworkers' local is balking at the new rate. They say the union rep from Manhattan has no business telling them who unloads the container ships."
"The union rep is our man," Vincent said.
"They don't care," Marco said, leaning his hip against the edge of the mahogany desk. "They say Vincent Caruso hasn't been down to the piers in two years. They say the Don is getting soft. Living in the clouds on Hudson Street with the pigeons and the maids."
The silence in the room became heavy, the kind of silence that usually preceded a funeral.
Silvio shifted his eyes toward Marco, a malicious little smile touching the corner of his mouth. He wanted Marco to push. He wanted to see how far the young wolf could snap before the old lion took his paw off the floor.
Vincent turned slowly.
He looked at Marco’s hip resting against his desk.
He didn't speak. He just looked at the contact point between Marco’s trousers and the wood.
Marco’s smile flickered. Slowly, with an insolent roll of his shoulders, he stood upright.
"You think I'm soft, Marco?" Vincent asked.
"I think the street talks, Uncle," Marco replied, his jaw tightening. "The street sees things. The street saw Silvio get brought down by a six-year-old girl with dirt on her knees. The street saw you move two kitchen hands into the suite Clara used to sleep in."
At the mention of Clara’s name, Silvio went very pale. He hadn't expected Marco to go that deep, that fast.
Vincent did not move. He did not reach for the heavy glass paperweight on the blotter. He simply looked at his nephew with a cold, biological curiosity, as if he were observing a wasp crawling along the rim of a teacup.
"Clara died because I listened to men like you," Vincent said.
The words were so quiet Marco had to lean forward to hear them.
"Men who thought respect was something you bought with noise and lead," the Don said. "Men who thought fear was the same thing as power. You have three days to settle Red Hook, Marco. If there is blood on the docks, you will pay the workers their back wages out of your own kickback. If you mention my daughter’s name again in this room, I will have Gianni take your teeth out one by one with a pair of pliers and mail them to your mother in Naples."
Marco stared at him.
For five seconds, the young man’s hand twitched toward his left lapel.
It was an instinctive movement, the reflex of a generation that had grown up with rap music, semi-automatics, and the belief that the old ways were just stories told by cowards who had survived too long.
Vincent didn't even reach for a weapon. He just watched the twitch.
"Try it," Vincent whispered.
Marco swallowed.
The hand dropped.
"Yes, Don Caruso," Marco muttered, the blood rushing into his ears.
"Get out."
Marco turned and slammed the heavy oak door behind him so hard the crystal decanters on the sideboard rang like small, terrified bells.
Silvio rose quickly, his bulk shaking. "Vincent, I didn't tell him to—"
"Silvio."
"Yes, Boss?"
"Go to the market," Vincent said, turning back to the window. "Find some of those small yellow plums. The sweet ones from the north. Emma likes them."
Silvio stood frozen, his face cycling through rage, disbelief, and finally, total, crushing defeat.
"Plums, Vincent?"
"Did I stutter?"
May you like
"No, Don Caruso. Plums."
***
