Chapter 6 - The Commission's Tribunal
The basement ballroom of the Grand Drake Hotel was a fortress of cigars, dark suits, and heavy tension. Long wooden tables were arranged in a semicircle, where seven elderly men—the heads of Chicago’s seven major syndicate families—sat like ancient kings judging a traitor.
In the center of the room stood a single chair.
When the heavy oak doors opened, Enzo Marchetti walked into the room. He didn't look like a man accused; he walked like a conqueror entering a conquered court. Beside him, dressed in a sweeping black velvet dress that contrasted sharply with her pale skin, walked Adeline.
Her head was held high. She felt Enzo’s presence beside her like a shield of iron.
"Enzo Marchetti," announced Don Mateo Moretti from the center of the panel. Mateo was seventy years old, with skin like yellowed parchment and eyes like a reptile. "You come before the Commission."
"I come because I was invited, Mateo," Enzo said smoothly, stepping to the center of the floor. "Though I see you brought your usual choir of cowards."
Several family bosses shifted uncomfortably in their seats, but Mateo held up a hand to calm them.
"You broke the peace," Mateo rasped, pointing a withered finger at Enzo. "You ended your alliance with the Ashfords, disrupting the shipping distribution that benefits all seven families. And you did it over a servant."
"I ended the alliance because Arthur Ashford is incompetent and his daughter is a psychotic liability," Enzo replied coldly. "She brought a whip to my formal gala and struck my staff."
"She struck a maid!" Mateo barked. "A nobody! A piece of dirt picked off the street! You disgraced a major bloodline for her!" Mateo pointed his crooked finger directly at Adeline. "And worse—you accuse my family of putting cyanide in her glass!"
The room murmured nervously.
"The maid lies," Mateo continued, turning to the other six bosses. "She worked for the Ashford family three years ago as a kitchen hand. She is a double agent, placed in Enzo's house to sabotage the merger and frame the Morettis! She poisoned the glass herself!"
All eyes turned to Adeline. The weight of seven syndicate leaders staring at her with lethal intent was enough to crush a normal person.
Adeline took a step forward, stepping out from behind Enzo’s shoulder.
"If I wanted to frame the Moretti family, Don Moretti," Adeline said, her voice clear and carrying across the quiet room, "I wouldn't have used Cyanide."
Mateo’s eyes narrowed. "What do you know about poison, girl?"
"I know that three years ago, when I worked at the docks, your family imported two shipments of Sodium Cyanide through the South Side warehouses," Adeline said calmly, pulling a folded piece of paper from her clutch purse. "I also know that the serial numbers on the glass vial found at the estate match the batch inventory from your personal private estate in Lake Forest."
She held up the paper. It was a copy of the manifest she and Enzo had analyzed just two nights ago.
"The chemist who mixed it is named Dr. Samuel Vance," Adeline continued, her tone entirely fearless. "Enzo’s men picked him up from his laboratory an hour ago. He is currently sitting in a car in the alley behind this hotel, ready to testify to the Commission about who paid him twenty thousand dollars to mix that poison."
Mateo’s yellow face flushed with dark rage. He slammed his fists onto the table. "Lies! She's a deceitful little whore!"
BANG!
Enzo drew his gun so fast the air seemed to crack. He didn't fire at Mateo; he fired directly into the center of the heavy oak table in front of the old man, splintering the polished wood into shards.
The entire room went dead silent. Nobody moved.
"Call her a name again, Mateo," Enzo whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "And the next bullet goes between your eyes."
The other five family bosses looked at Mateo, then at the evidence in Adeline’s hands, and finally at Enzo’s cocked gun. The balance had shifted.
"The girl speaks the truth, Mateo," said Don Falcone, the oldest boss on the panel. "Your handwriting is all over this setup. You tried to start a war between Marchetti and Ashford to take the riverfront for yourself."
"Falcone, you can't believe this—" Mateo stammered.
"The Commission’s verdict is clear," Falcone interrupted coldly. "The Marchetti family was justified in breaking the Ashford alliance. The Moretti family is fined fifty percent of its river territory, to be transferred to Enzo Marchetti by midnight."
Mateo sank back into his chair, his eyes burning with pure hatred as he glared at Adeline.
Enzo slowly lowered his gun and returned it to his holster. He extended his arm to Adeline.
May you like
"Let's go home, Adeline," Enzo said softly.
As they turned their backs on the Commission and walked out of the ballroom, Adeline caught Mateo’s deadly glare. She knew this was not the end of the war—it was only the opening strike.
