Chapter 5 - The Snake at the Drake
The Grand Ballroom of the historic Drake Hotel on Michigan Avenue was an arena of gilded gold leaf, towering French mirrors, and four hundred people who traded in municipal corruption, international cargo lines, and the blood of their rivals.
Beneath the soaring crystal chandeliers, Chicago’s political elite mingled with the oldest mafia royalty in North America. State senators in bespoke tuxedos sipped champagne with capos from the Genovese family; federal judges shared Cuban cigars with union bosses from the teamsters.
At the center of the high table, seated on an elevated mahogany dais overlooking the floor, sat Camilla Thorne.
She wore an emerald-green silk dress that clung to her ribs, diamond necklaces dripping from her throat, her hair swept into an elaborate architectural chignon. But her golden makeup couldn't hide the pale, sickly terror beneath her skin. She had drank three martinis in forty minutes, her manicured fingers shredding a linen napkin beneath the table, her eyes darting frantically toward the heavy double doors at the rear of the room every time a server walked past.
Beside her sat an older gentleman with silver hair brushed straight back over a hawkish, predatory face: Don Carmine Genovese, the undisputed patriarch of New York’s underworld.
“You look nervous, little niece,” Carmine drawled in low, gravelly Italian, slicing a piece of rare tenderloin with surgical precision. “Where is your groom? The press conference for the port merger was scheduled for eight o'clock.”
“Luca had... business at the railyards, Uncle Carmine,” Camilla stammered, her voice shaking as she raised her glass. “He’ll be here. He promised he’d be here.”
“He had better be,” Carmine murmured, his pale blue eyes cold as a frozen ditch. “My people have six cargo vessels idling in international waters off the coast of Maine. If those Calumet dock deeds aren't signed before the dessert course, this wedding becomes a funeral before the morning arrives.”
At eight-fifteen, the heavy double doors at the rear of the ballroom swung open with a resounding, concussive thud that cut through the sound of the string quartet like an artillery shell.
The room went dead silent.
Conversations died mid-sentence. Forks were lowered onto china plates. Four hundred people turned their heads in unison toward the entrance foyer.
Standing at the threshold, flanking the doorway like twin monoliths of dark iron, were Daniel and eight of Luca’s senior enforcers, their dark coats unbuttoned, their hands resting flat over their lapels.
And between them walked Luca Moretti.
He was magnificent. He wore a midnight-blue three-piece tuxedo cut from English wool, a black silk bow tie, and his grandfather's antique gold pocket watch resting against his vest. He moved with that slow, measured, predatory rhythm that made grown men instinctively check their pockets to see what they had lost.
And on his right arm, her hand resting firmly against the black silk of his sleeve, was me.
A collective, audible gasp rippled across the room.
I walked beside him, my stride smooth, the low-heeled Italian boots completely concealing the white compression bandage beneath my hem. The midnight-blue velvet gown hugged my waist, the dark lace sleeves whispering against my skin, the tiny platinum beads catching the glare of five thousand crystal prisms with every step. My dark hair had been styled into soft, elegant waves by Mrs. Carter, and on my lips was a shade of deep, classic crimson that hid the tiny scar on my lower lip.
Whispers erupted across the ballroom like wildfire.
“Who is that with Moretti?” “Is that an ambassador’s daughter?” “Where is Vanessa? Why is he walking in with another woman?”
At the high table, Camilla Thorne surged to her feet so violently her crystal water goblet overturned, soaking the white linen cloth. Her eyes bulged as she looked down the sixty feet of red carpet at the housemaid she had shoved into the gravel forty-eight hours ago.
“You...” Camilla choked out, the word dying in her throat.
Luca didn't look at the crowd. He didn't look at the photographers whose flashbulbs were detonating in blinding white bursts from the press riser.
He guided me down the center aisle of the ballroom, his hand covering mine where it rested on his forearm, his touch warm, solid, and entirely unyielding. He walked with the effortless dominance of a king parading his chosen queen through a conquered city.
We reached the foot of the elevated dais.
Luca stopped directly in front of Don Carmine Genovese.
He didn't bow. He didn't offer his hand. He looked down at the old New York boss with eyes that were cold, ancient, and completely empty of mercy.
“Carmine,” Luca said, his voice carrying effortlessly into every corner of the silent hall. “You look well. The damp lake air usually troubles men of your age.”
Carmine Genovese slowly set his fork down, his pale eyes flicking from Luca’s face to mine, lingering on the midnight-blue velvet, before settling on the trembling woman standing beside him in emerald green.
“Luca,” Carmine said, his voice smooth as oil. “We were beginning to think you had forgotten your rehearsal dinner. And who is this charming young woman on your arm? I thought the seat beside the boss was reserved for the bride.”
Luca tilted his head half an inch.
The corner of his mouth curved into that slow, terrifying smile that had preceded the fall of three syndicates in five years.
“The seat beside the boss is reserved for the woman who holds my ledgers, Carmine,” Luca replied softly.
He turned his body, took my hand, and gently guided me up the three stairs of the dais. He pulled out the heavy mahogany armchair directly to his right—the seat that had been set with Camilla’s place card—and looked at me.
“Sit, Lucy,” Luca commanded gently.
I looked at the four hundred faces staring at me in stunned, terrified silence. I looked at the New York boss whose name was whispered in the corridors of federal courts. And then I looked into Luca’s gray eyes, saw the absolute, unshakable fortress of his protection, and lowered myself into the grand leather chair without a single tremor in my spine.
Luca remained standing beside my shoulder, towering over the table like an executioner at the block.
He reached into his breast pocket.
He didn't pull out a gun.
He pulled out the yellowed funeral program from Milwaukee, laid it flat on Carmine Genovese’s gold dinner plate, and slid it directly under the old Don’s nose.
May you like
“I believe you know the girl on the front, Carmine,” Luca whispered, the words echoing off the high gilded ceilings like a struck bell.
“Her name was Vanessa Bellini. And she’s been buried in an unmarked grave in Wisconsin for eight years.”
