Chapter 7 - THE FAMILY COUNCIL
The Duca family council met above an old social club in Bridgeport.
I did not want to go.
Roman didn’t want me there either.
Lily solved the argument.
“If Clare doesn’t go, I’m not going.”
Roman closed his eyes.
I leaned toward him.
“Your niece negotiates better than you.”
“I’m aware.”
The room upstairs held fourteen men and two women.
Capos.
Union contacts.
Trucking supervisors.
People whose names I had heard on Chicago news without ever realizing why their photographs always seemed to include courthouse steps.
Nobody carried a weapon openly.
Nobody needed to.
Power lived in the seating arrangement.
Anthony stood at the far end of the table.
Roman’s chair waited at the head.
When Roman entered, everyone rose.
Even the men backing Anthony.
That mattered.
Roman waited until Lily and Sophia sat.
Then Clare.
Only after that did he take his seat.
Anthony watched everything.
“You’re making my argument for me,” he said.
Roman removed his coat.
“What argument?”
“That emotion is running the family.”
Roman’s expression did not change.
Anthony looked around the table.
“We have four trucking routes frozen, two union locals asking questions, and Bellucci watching Pier 16.”
Victor Bellucci was not there.
That seemed intentional.
Anthony continued.
“And why? Because Roman discovered Thomas Bennett may not have been responsible for something seventeen years ago.”
“May not?” I said.
Roman glanced at me.
I ignored him.
Anthony did too.
He addressed the table.
“This is not about whether Thomas was a good man.”
“It should matter whether he was an innocent one,” Enzo said.
Anthony looked at him.
“It does. But men sitting at this table are responsible for hundreds of families whose paychecks depend on stability.”
One capo nodded.
Another looked uncomfortable.
Anthony wasn’t ranting.
That made him more dangerous.
Because some of what he said was reasonable.
Roman leaned forward.
“Tell them about Bellucci.”
Anthony went silent.
Roman repeated, “Tell them.”
A gray-haired capo named Salvatore Marino looked between them.
“What about Bellucci?”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
Roman answered.
“My underboss offered Victor Bellucci access to Pier 16 in exchange for silence about Lily’s father.”
The room erupted.
Not shouting exactly.
Chairs moving.
Sharp whispers.
One man cursed under his breath.
Anthony raised a hand.
“Limited access.”
Roman’s voice stayed calm.
“You offered Duca territory without authorization.”
“To prevent a succession problem.”
Lily stood.
“I’m not a succession problem.”
Every man in the room stopped.
Anthony softened.
“Lily—”
“No.”
She held Luca’s photograph.
“I’m a person.”
Nobody moved.
“My mom was a person too.”
Her voice shook, but she kept going.
“And Clare’s dad.”
I saw Roman watching her.
Not interrupting.
Not rescuing.
Just listening.
Lily looked at Anthony.
“You keep saying you protected everyone.”
Anthony’s face tightened.
“I tried.”
“Did you ever ask Mom if she wanted your protection?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Clare’s dad?”
“No.”
“Did you ask me?”
Anthony’s shoulders lowered.
“No.”
Lily sat.
The room remained silent.
Salvatore Marino cleared his throat.
“Roman, what are you proposing?”
Roman looked around the table.
“No proposal.”
Several men frowned.
“I’m telling you what happened.”
He placed Carlo’s ring on the table.
“My father ordered Thomas Bennett to remove Elena from Pier 16. He gave Thomas this ring as proof of authority.”
The ring passed from hand to hand.
Enzo placed the photograph beside it.
Roman continued.
“Carlo later blamed Thomas to contain the scandal. I believed him. I punished a man who had followed my father’s orders.”
Roman looked directly at me.
“That was my failure.”
A Mafia boss apologizing publicly was apparently rare.
The room felt stunned.
Anthony looked almost angry.
“You think admitting weakness makes this disappear?”
“No.”
Roman turned back toward him.
“I think hiding it made everything worse.”
Anthony stepped forward.
“You inherited a stable family because some of us made decisions you never had to make.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“I was there.”
“You were Carlo’s son.”
Anthony finally lost his calm.
“You got to be angry. I had to fix things.”
His voice rose.
“Carlo told me to retrieve letters. I left them. He told me Thomas was dangerous. I discovered he wasn’t. He told me Bellucci would use that child. I believed him because I had watched families turn babies into leverage before they could walk.”
He pointed toward Lily.
“I did not hate her.”
Lily looked at him.
“I was afraid of what men would do with her name.”
For the first time, I believed him completely.
Anthony had done terrible things with motives that were not entirely terrible.
That was worse.
Roman said, “And when Carlo died?”
Anthony went quiet.
“When I became boss?”
Nothing.
“When Lily was five? Ten? Fifteen?”
Anthony stared at the table.
“That’s where your protection became power.”
Enzo spoke softly.
Nobody challenged him.
Anthony closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The admission shifted the room.
Roman stood.
“I’m removing Anthony as underboss.”
Two men immediately stiffened.
Anthony nodded once.
He had expected it.
“Who replaces me?”
“Nobody tonight.”
That surprised everyone.
Roman continued.
“The trucking routes reopen under Enzo and Salvatore jointly. Pier 16 stays closed to outside families until the capos review it together.”
Salvatore frowned.
“Together?”
“Yes.”
Roman’s mouth tightened.
“We have apparently had enough decisions made by one man who thinks everybody else needs protection from the truth.”
Nobody argued.
Then the door opened.
A dock supervisor entered carrying a canvas pouch.
He handed it to Enzo.
“This came from Warehouse Twelve.”
Anthony’s face changed.
Roman saw it.
“What is it?”
Enzo emptied the pouch.
Three red shipping tags fell onto the table.
The same kind Frank Delaney had shown us.
But these were new.
Current.
Each bore Anthony’s initials.
Salvatore stared.
“Where were these headed?”
The supervisor answered.
“Pier 16.”
Roman looked at Anthony.
“You reopened it.”
Anthony said nothing.
“For Bellucci?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Anthony’s face looked tired now.
Older.
“Marino people from the west side.”
Salvatore shot to his feet.
“Not mine.”
Anthony shook his head.
“Not your branch.”
Roman stepped closer.
“What did you move?”
“Nothing illegal that wasn’t already ours.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Anthony met his eyes.
“Trucking contracts.”
Enzo looked stunned.
“You were building a separate network.”
“I was building a fallback.”
“For what?”
Anthony looked at Lily.
Then at Roman.
“For the day the Bellucci truth came out and half this family decided you were too compromised to lead.”
Silence.
Roman’s face hardened.
“So you prepared to replace me.”
Anthony answered quietly.
“I prepared to replace the structure if you broke it.”
Roman picked up one of the red tags.
Then Lily noticed something.
“Wait.”
She took the tag from his hand.
On the back, written in pencil, were two letters.
T.B.
My initials tightened around my throat.
Thomas Bennett.
I looked at Anthony.
“What does my father have to do with your new shipments?”
Anthony’s expression changed.
“I didn’t write that.”
Roman stared at him.
“Then who did?”
Enzo picked up another tag.
T.B.
The third.
T.B.
The dock supervisor swallowed.
“There’s more.”
He placed a battered wooden recipe box on the table.
May you like
My father’s name was carved into the lid.
And suddenly, seventeen years after Thomas Bennett was blamed for betraying the Duca family, his name had appeared again on shipments moving through the same pier.
