Chapter 9 - THE BLOODLINE CONCLAVE
The massive oak doors of St. Michael’s Cathedral swung open with a resounding boom that echoed across the vaulted marble nave.
Over two hundred mob capos, syndicate bosses, and armed enforcers from the Five Families fell dead silent. At the front altar stood Donatello’s hand-picked allies, ready to proclaim the usurper as the new supreme head of the eastern commission.
Adrian stepped through the doors.
Dressed in Vincent’s bespoke midnight-blue suit, his face set in a mask of absolute, unyielding dominance, Adrian walked down the central aisle with the heavy, measured stride of a king. The capos parted before him in stunned, fearful silence. Whispers rippled through the pews like wildfire.
“Corrado is alive.”
“They said he was dead!”
“Donatello!” Adrian’s voice roared through the cathedral, rich, deep, and commanding. “You called a conclave to steal my father’s seat, claiming I fell to Moretti assassins. But you forgot one thing: a Corrado does not die by the hands of cowards.”
Donatello’s second-in-command, Capo Varga, raised his weapon, his hand trembling. “Vincent... how did you—”
Adrian hurled the waterproof ledger onto the marble communion table with a thunderous slap. “Inside that book is forty years of treason! Signed bank transfers proving Donatello embezzled over two hundred million dollars from the Five Families! And the audio logs proving he orchestrated the murder of Isabella Corrado forty-seven years ago!”
An uproar erupted in the cathedral. Elder bosses from the Falcone and Lucchese families surged forward, grabbing the ledgers and examining the authentic seal of Don Silvio Corrado.
Meanwhile, seventy feet above the cathedral courtyard, rain lashed against the granite facade of the bell tower.
Vincent moved up the exterior stone carvings like a shadow, ignoring the burning agony in his muscles and the biting wind that threatened to tear him from the ledge. He reached the arched gothic window of the clock room, peering through the rain-streaked glass.
Inside, three armed mercenaries were watching the cathedral courtyard below, while Donatello stood beside Mia’s chair, his thumb resting on the remote detonator.
Vincent didn’t wait for an opening. He created one.
With a powerful kick, Vincent shattered the heavy stained-glass window, diving into the room amidst a shower of colored glass and driving rain.
Before the guards could react, Vincent fired three rapid shots. The two window guards dropped instantly, their weapons clattering against the wooden floorboards. The third mercenary lunged forward, swinging a heavy shotgun, but Vincent ducked beneath the strike, drove his combat knife into the attacker’s shoulder, and hurled him over the railing into the clockwork gears below.
Donatello gasped in horror, stumbling backward against the stone wall, his thumb pressing down hard on the detonator button.
“Die, you bastard!” Donatello shrieked.
Nothing happened.
Donatello clicked the button frantically, his eyes wild with terror. “No... no! Why isn’t it blowing?!”
Camila looked up, a triumphant, defiant smile breaking across her bruised face. In her hands, held tightly behind the chair, were the shredded red and blue wires of the explosive charge—severed by the sharp edge of the silver compass Mia had slipped into her mother’s tied fingers moments before.
“Because my daughter is smarter than you,” Camila said.
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Vincent closed the distance in a heartbeat. He grabbed Donatello by the throat with one hand, lifting the older man off his feet and slamming him hard against the stone parapet overlooking the crashing waves of the Atlantic coast.
***
