I Buried The Don And Took His Throne Chapter 06
The Man in the Doorway
Dead silence. Every eye in the hall is nailed to the paper in my hand.
The soldiers who had guns on me — every one of them freezes mid-motion.
Muzzles hovering three inches from my throat. Not one man dares to push it forward another inch.
The Old Don’s seal.
Marco’s face goes chalk white in one heartbeat.
He forces himself to his feet, points a shaking finger at me.
“Enough, Sloane! You forged that! You forged the Old Don’s letter!”
“Soldiers! Put this rat down on the spot!”
I laugh once. Short. “Forged?”
I hold the paper up higher, and I let the whole thing unroll in front of the entire room.
The wax seal at the bottom catches the light. Every capo who was around in the old man’s day knows it on sight.
Nobody in this country can fake that seal. It went into the ground with him.
Marco’s pupils shrink to pinpoints.
Three of the oldest capos in the front row — men who ate at the Old Don’s table for thirty years — drop to their knees on their own.
“That’s… that’s his seal…”
“That’s the old man’s mark, Christ have mercy, that’s really his…”
The whispers spread like fire across the hall. Every capo starts murmuring at once.
Marco’s face finally cracks all the way open.
He steps down off the dais. Slow.
One step. Two. He walks toward me.
I don’t move.
He stops three feet from me. His voice drops low, so nobody else can catch it.
“Sloane.”
His whole tone changes.
Not the Don anymore. Not the man who put half my crew under Enzo Russo.
But something older, something from before — the boyfriend who used to pick me up from my grandfather’s house in a beat-up Camaro.
“Don’t do this. I know you’re angry with me.”
His throat bobs. His eyes actually get wet.
“Take the letter back. Right now. I’ll drop Bianca tonight. The Donna seat is yours. It was always yours.”
He says it sweet. Says it heartbroken.
Now it just makes me sick to my stomach.
Bianca comes flying across the marble, grabbing at the back of his suit jacket, screaming.
“BABY! What are you saying?! You SWORE to me! You said this was MINE! You said you’d have her kneel at my feet forever!”
“How could you — for HER —!”
She doesn’t finish.
Marco backhands her across the mouth so hard she leaves the ground and hits the marble floor. She doesn’t get back up right away.
“SHUT UP!” he snarls.
Bianca sits there on the floor, hand cupped over her split lip, staring up at him like she doesn’t recognize him.
Just like I looked at him. Twice.
I glance down at Bianca’s tiara, rolling in a little circle by my heel, and something like a laugh catches in my throat.
Two lives. Two deaths. For this man.
Pathetic.
“Sloane!” Marco whips back around, warm eyes on again.
“Look — Bianca, done. Handled. What else do you want? Donna seat, yours. Your crew, back. Anything. Name it. Just give me the letter, baby.”
He’s so panicked he keeps flipping between Don voice and boyfriend voice. Terror all over his face.
I look at him. Small smile. “Too late. Marco.”
His pupils blow wide.
For one clean second, I see real killing intent in his eyes. Not anger. Not bluffing. Cornered-animal insanity.
“KILL HER!”
Marco throws himself backward, screaming it.
Shooters step out from behind three of the columns. Three suppressed pistols come up at once. Muzzle flashes in the dim light.
The rounds are already in the air.
*CLANG.*
Something silver spins across the room and knocks two of them out of the air mid-flight — a heavy tactical knife, thrown hard enough to bury itself in the wall behind me.
Then —
*BOOM.*
The double doors at the back of the hall blow off their hinges.
A silhouette stands in the doorway, backlit by the chandeliers in the foyer.
Charcoal suit, white shirt soaked red down the front, a Beretta hanging loose in one hand.
I raise my voice so every capo in the room hears it.
“By the sealed order of the Old Don — Marco Vitale is unfit. He framed his brother. He murdered good soldiers. He is stripped of the Family, effective now.”
“The seat passes to the rightful heir. Dante Vitale.”