887 Welcome To The Commission
Late at night while men slept, a few others were awake and going about their business. Eric had scheduled the meeting with the core members of the commission at such unholy hours when there wouldn’t be many eyes on them. It was held in one of their secret locations and Eric made his entrance when he was sure everyone had arrived.
“Thank you for accepting my invitation on such short notice,” Eric said, accepting his seat with all eyes on him.
Each leader of the five, no, four families – except for the late Basil family – were here. However while there should be a total of four people present, there were five instead. While Niklaus Spencer was part of the Sakuzi family, he was merely the son-in-law to Valentine Sakuzi, having married his daughter, Reina.
Hence both families united as one, however in critical meetings like this one, Niklaus tended to make an appearance himself alongside the current leader and foster son of Sakuzi, Emerald.
“I am not going to beat around the bush since we all know why we are gathered here tonight,” Eric said, “We need to come up with a way to deal with our common enemy, Richardo Santi before it gets out of hand.”
Niklaus lifted his hand, “Is that our problem though? All of this started because of a feud between Marcel Luciano and Richardo.”
“In one word, are you saying that we should turn a blind eye to the crime committed against a member of the commission?” Eric reminded him pointedly, “He wiped off the Basil family.”
“I’m not saying we should let him be, however, Marcel Luciano is the cause of this problem from the very beginning. It seems to me that you’re trying to lend a helping hand when we could stay back and watch the both of them battle it out. If he manages to kill Richardo, then it’s our luck. We wouldn’t even have to lift a finger in the end. ”
Eric scratched his brows. While he knew this wouldn’t be easy, he never thought that Niklaus would be so against it. Niklaus and Marcel had never seen eye to eye on an issue. It seems he was still bearing a grudge over his nephew Akim being dumped coldly. Unfortunately, Marcel was Winter’s guardian, which meant his – Niklaus – wrath would be directed at him too.
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Eric said to him, “It seems to me that you are blinded by your personal vendetta against the Luciano family that you are unable to see the bigger picture.”
“And what about you?” Niklaus retorted, “I heard that you wouldn’t be avenging your fallen soldiers because of your numerous personal ties with the Luciano family?”
Eric’s features distorted as soon as he heard that. However, he covered it up with a smile saying, “You seem to know a lot about me?”
“And you seem to be a lot involved with the Luciano family,” Niklaus stated, their gaze connected and held. Electricity cackled in their gazes and the tension in the room increased so the hairs on the arms of everyone present stood on edge.
“That is enough, brother-in-law,” Emerald calmly told Niklaus.
The Don of the Di Angelo’s family reprimanded Eric at the same time, “You are the head of the commission and your role is to mediate conflicts among families, not start a fight.”
A sense of shame washed over Eric but he was quick to compose himself. He announced, “While it would be easy to leave the hard work to Luciano and of which we aren’t sure of which side would emerge victoriously in the attack, we also don’t know the level of destruction it would bring to the city. Not to mention the attention, it would draw as well. However, with our combined resources and efforts, we would be able to manipulate and control the level of damage. ”
“What’s the plan then?” asked the leader of the Geneva family.
“First of all, we have to cut off every escape route Richardo might attempt to use when he realizes he’s losing. We don’t when we might get another opportunity like this one, not to mention he might come back stronger and take us unaware. We have to take care of this threat once and for all.”
He took a deep breath,” And that is why I invited Marcel Luciano to this meeting to brief us on our opponent, Richardo Santi. If there’s anyone that knows him well enough, it’s him. ”
All eyes turned to the door as Marcel made his way into the meeting room. He stood at the entrance and faced the whole of them before bowing his head in acknowledgment.
“Thank you for giving me this rare opportunity to stand before the esteemed members of the commission.”
While other people have a positive reaction, Niklaus snorted instead. He could see how this was going to work out already and he didn’t hide his displeasure. The Luciano family was a time bomb and having them in the commission would come to bite Eric in the ass one day, he was sure of it.
Eric continued, eyeing Niklaus, “Just as you suggested, Marcel would be on the front line of this war. However, what does he get in the end? I suggest making him a member of the commission. That position is long overdue already and we know that already.”
“Do whatever you want,” Niklaus muttered under his breath. He doesn’t care anyway.
There was slight murmuring in the room and Eric said, “Are we going to take a vote? Raise your hand if you want to make the Luciano family part of the commission.”
“I vote yes,” Eric was the first to raise his hand and the others looked amongst each other undecidedly having perceived that Niklaus was not in support.
However, Emerald raised his hand and their eyes widened in shock, having not seen that coming. If anyone was going to be on Niklaus’ side, it had to be Emerald or so they thought.
“It’s time for a fresh face, don’t you think so?” Emerald smirked at Niklaus who was not pleased with his action.
And just like that, the leader of the Geneva and Di Angelo’s family raised their hands as well and it was concluded.
Eric stood up with a smile and stretched his hand out to Marcel who had been holding his breath all this while.
“Welcome to the commission, Marcel Luciano.”
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