I Buried The Don And Took His Throne Chapter 14
Two Chairs on the Dais
The marble in the compound’s main hall gets scrubbed for two days straight before the last of the dark stains come out.
I take off the body armor and put on a black dress cut sharp at the shoulders, gold trim down the sides.
Dante had it made for me — same tailor that does his suits, same weight of fabric.
I walk up the dais in flat black leather boots.
Every capo on the East Coast is on both knees down the length of that hall. Nobody’s breathing loud enough to hear.
Up on the dais, next to the Don’s chair — his father’s chair — someone has moved in a second chair.
Identical. Same dark wood. Same crest carved into the back.
Dante’s already sitting, his left arm still in a sling, his eyes fever-bright, but he’s up.
He stands when I get close and reaches out his good hand.
His palm has a fresh scar across it from the coup. He grips my hand hard enough that the bones grind.
“Bring in the notary.”
His voice fills the hall. Cold. No wobble.
The Commission’s notary — old Sicilian, bald head, thick glasses — shuffles up onto the dais with a leather folder.
Dante reads from the paper himself. Loud enough for the men in the back to hear.
“Sloane Crestwell. For breaking the Bratva at Buffalo. For crushing the coup at the compound. For putting the Vitale Family back on its feet twice inside twelve months.”
“Effective tonight, she sits as co-Don of the Vitale. Full vote. Full seat at the Commission table. Anything signed by her hand carries the same weight as anything signed by mine.”
The old capos keep their foreheads on the marble, not one of them lifts.
Dante isn’t done.
He pulls a second document out of the folder. Slaps it down on the notary’s stand.
“The Crestwell crew is recognized in perpetuity as a standing arm of the Vitale Family. It answers only to Sloane Crestwell.”
“Nobody at the Commission, nobody in the Vitale, nobody up in Chicago touches her supply chain, her soldiers, or her tribute. Anyone who tries — I put him in the ground personally.”
That kills every angle the old guard had left. No more starving my crew out. No more sideways plays.
I lower myself into the second chair. The wood is cold through the back of my dress.
The view from up here is different than I remember it. Wider. Quieter.
First life, I knelt on this marble until my knees turned purple, waiting for Marco to look at me.
Second life, Bianca had me strangled with wire in this same building for the sin of not fighting hard enough.
All that heartbreak. All that swallowing. All that being *reasonable*. Just a joke somebody else was telling on me.
I turn my head.
Dante’s looking at me. Not at the room. At me. Same look he had in the cell the night I cut his chains.
“Sloane. You happy now?”
He’s not asking as a Don. He’s asking as a man. My man.
I look at the heavy new ring on my thumb. The gold’s still warm from his hand.
“Not enough.”
My territory, my rules. My rules, everybody follows.
Men. If they behave, they can decorate the operation.
If they don’t — there’s plenty of room next to Marco in the basement.
Dante’s good hand closes over mine. Tight.
I don’t move it away. I let him hold on.
Up here, love is a garnish. Nothing else.
The knife on my hip and the road I built under my own feet — that’s the only thing that’s real.
I lift my head and look out over every made man from Boston to Miami, kneeling on my floor.
“Gentlemen. On your feet.”