Chapter 38 #3
They looked at us like we were monsters. Maybe they were right, maybe we were, but monsters were only created when someone gave them a reason to exist, and Aldo had given us plenty.
We finally reached the top floor, and the second the elevator doors opened, AJ and Marcio led the way down the hallway. Future leaders. All of them.
It was strange seeing it now. Not long ago, we were just kids training in a backyard, arguing, joking, and pretending we knew exactly what we were preparing for.
Now we were walking into the very place where decisions were made that shaped entire families.
We reached a large wooden door, and everyone piled into the meeting room. The room itself was intimidating.
A massive table stretched across the center, surrounded by dozens of chairs. Each seat had a nameplate placed neatly in front of it, representing every member of the council.
Power. Influence. Years of history sitting right in front of us. Thankfully, the room was empty. We must have arrived early. Everyone began settling in, and I adjusted myself in the damn wheelchair, still trying to ignore how much I hated being confined to it.
AJ took the seat beside me, and I glanced over at him, immediately noticing something most people probably wouldn’t. He was exhausted, the bruises, the stitches, the pain…none of it compared to the weight he was carrying, but AJ would rather die than admit he wasn’t okay.
"You good, man?" I asked. I shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable in this stupid chair.
AJ looked over at me and gave me a small smile before nodding. "I'm good. How about you?" I shrugged. "Got some broken ribs, but it's safe to say that's the least of my problems." I chuckled, and he let out a small laugh.
"Okay," he muttered.
The room fell silent after that, everyone lost in their own thoughts, probably wondering the same thing...what happens now? Because after everything we went through, there was no going back to who we were before. AJ glanced around the room, his expression twisting slightly.
"Doesn't this place make your insides crawl?" I looked around the room, taking in the walls that held decades of decisions, betrayals, and bloodshed. "More than it should," I answered.
AJ was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "You know this is where my dad came when he was young."
I looked over at him.
"These people are the ones who made him boss at thirteen. And the Capo a couple years later." The way he said it sounded like he was finally understanding the weight of his father's past.
I nodded slowly. "Uncle Adriano has been around this shitty place for too long." I looked toward the empty seats around us. "You know, there is still so much we don't know about him."
AJ nodded. "I know. He's a quiet man."
I shrugged slightly. "Or maybe nobody ever really took the time to ask him."
The thought hung between us because everyone knew Adriano Basilio, the feared Capo, the man people whispered about, the monster but how many people actually knew the man underneath?
Before AJ could respond, the doors opened, and almost like he had been summoned by our conversation, the Capo walked in.
Adriano entered the room with Aldo in front of him, dragging him behind like he weighed nothing. He shoved him into one of the chairs at the table.
Aldo looked nothing like the man who had caused all of this, stripped of the confidence, power, and control he once carried, now just a man waiting to see what came next.
Adriano's jaw was clenched, his expression unreadable. He looked like a man who was exhausted from playing a game he never wanted to play in the first place.
He was done...done with the threats, done with the bloodshed, and done with the war Aldo had forced onto his family.
I watched as Aunt Gianna walked toward him. For a moment, the feared Capo disappeared. She pulled him into a hug, and slowly, almost impossibly, his shoulders relaxed as the tension left his body and the beast calmed in a way only Aunt Gia could bring out of him.
~***~
The council finally arrived shortly after, and the second they entered the room, the atmosphere changed. Every chair was filled, every pair of eyes locked onto us, and none of them looked happy.
Their expressions were filled with barely hidden contempt and disgust. Like our very presence offended them.
The Basilios, the family they never wanted to accept. The room was silent, but it wasn’t peaceful; it was the kind of silence that came right before something broke.
Everyone was on edge, one wrong move or one wrong word and this entire room would explode.
At the head of the table sat an older woman with completely white hair pulled back neatly. She wore a perfectly tailored baby-blue suit that somehow made her look even more intimidating. Her cold blue eyes scanned the room, taking in every person sitting before her.
Then her gaze landed on Adriano.
The Capo.
She didn’t look afraid, and she didn’t look impressed; she simply looked like someone who had seen too much power come and go. After a moment, she straightened slightly and spoke.
"Council is now in session."