Chapter 10 - The Sovereign Reckoning
The shattered crystal wine glass lay in a dark pool of red wine on the Persian rug, mirroring the violence about to erupt.
Every bodyguard in the Drake Ballroom reached into their tailored coats, the metallic clatter of clearing holsters echoing off the gilded ceiling.
Dominic Russo’s hands were shaking so violently that he knocked his leather chair backward onto the hardwood floor.
"Lorenzo, do something!" Dominic shrieked, backing toward the row of heavy velvet draperies along the west wall.
"We had an agreement!"
"You promised your men would control the perimeter!"
Lorenzo Moretti did not look at Dominic; the old mafia boss looked at Vincent with eyes filled with bitter resignation.
"Your cousin was always an impatient fool, Vincent," Moretti said, his voice raspy and devoid of sentiment.
"He wanted the throne without fighting the war."
"He offered me thirty percent of the riverfront shipping lanes in exchange for backing his succession."
"A good businessman does not refuse a gift presented on a silver platter."
"A good businessman knows when a gift is poisoned, Lorenzo," Vincent replied, his weapon never wavering from Dominic's forehead.
"You conspired to butcher the head of the Russo family."
"Under the nineteen seventy-two charter of this very council, the penalty for inter-family assassination is total extermination."
The oldest member of the Commission, Don Carmine Lucchese, stood up slowly from his seat at the far end of the horseshoe table.
Carmine was eighty years old, his face weathered like ancient parchment, the supreme arbiter of Chicago underworld law.
"Vincent has presented forensic, financial, and mechanical evidence that cannot be disputed," Carmine declared, his deep voice silencing the room.
"Dominic Russo is guilty of treason against his blood."
"Lorenzo Moretti is guilty of violating the sacred boundaries of the Tri-Borough treaty."
"The council strips both men of their standing, their territory, and their protection."
"Blood answers for blood."
As the final word left Carmine’s lips, Dominic reached inside his jacket with a manic, desperate screech.
"Kill them all!" Dominic roared.
Before Dominic could draw his weapon, three of Moretti’s private security guards drew concealed submachine guns from beneath their overcoats.
Muffled gunfire erupted through the ballroom, shattering crystal chandeliers into raining cascades of deadly glass.
Panic seized the assembly as the elderly dons and their legal counsels dove beneath the heavy walnut tables.
Vincent fired two rounds in rapid succession, dropping Moretti’s primary bodyguard before the man could bring his barrel to bear on Emma.
Vincent grabbed Emma by the lapel of her tailored suit, hauling her behind the thick, load-bearing marble pillar near the entrance.
"Marco, cover the secondary exit!" Vincent commanded, firing around the edge of the pillar with mechanical accuracy.
"Don't let Dominic reach the underground service tunnels!"
Emma pressed her back against the cold marble, her heart hammering against her ribs, but her mind remained razor-sharp.
She looked across the smoke-filled ballroom through the haze of muzzle flashes.
Dominic was sprinting toward the service kitchen doors, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries wearing unmarked tactical vests.
"He's heading for the freight loading bay beneath the kitchen!" Emma yelled over the deafening roar of automatic fire.
"The kitchen elevators connect directly to the underground vehicle tunnel beneath Michigan Avenue!"
"If he reaches the tunnel, he has three armored transport vans waiting with reinforced bumpers!"
Vincent reloaded his pistol with a single fluid, practiced motion, his eyes burning with lethal determination.
"Then we cut him off before he reaches the street."
"Marco, secure Don Carmine and the elders!"
"Ensure nobody leaves this hall alive if they wear a Moretti badge!"
"Understood, Boss!" Marco roared, advancing across the ballroom with his assault rifle spitting fire into the retreating Moretti loyalists.
Vincent took Emma’s hand, pulling her through the private service corridor that ran parallel to the ballroom.
The narrow hallway was dimly lit, smelling of industrial cleaning supplies and stale kitchen grease.
Footsteps echoed ahead of them, heavy and panicked.
They burst through the double swinging doors into the commercial kitchen just in time to see the heavy freight elevator descending.
The digital floor indicator on the wall showed the elevator dropping rapidly toward Sub-Level Two.
"The stairs!" Vincent said, kicking open the fire exit door leading downward into the concrete stairwell.
They took the concrete steps three at a time, the sound of their leather soles slapping rhythmically against the stone.
As they reached the subterranean loading dock, the roar of a high-displacement diesel engine echoed off the concrete walls.
A massive, matte-black armored transport van was already backing out of Bay Four, its steel-plated front grille pointed toward the exit ramp.
Dominic was sitting in the front passenger seat, screaming at the driver through the bulletproof glass.
Two mercenaries stood near the roll-up iron security gate, firing automatic rounds up the stairwell to cover their retreat.
Bullets chipped the concrete inches from Emma’s boots, showering her ankles in sharp stone fragments.
"Get down!" Vincent shouted, shoving her behind a steel trash compactor as he returned fire, neutralizing one of the gate guards.
The heavy armored van accelerated with terrifying force, its tires smoking against the smooth concrete floor as it lunged toward the ramp.
"We can't stop that truck with handguns, Vincent!" Emma yelled, her eyes scanning the industrial machinery lining the dock walls.
"The armor on that vehicle is rated for fifty-caliber armor-piercing rounds!"
"Then how do we stop it, Emma?" Vincent asked, firing his final rounds at the truck’s reinforced tires, which absorbed the impacts without losing pressure.
Emma looked up at the ceiling, where two heavy industrial high-voltage power conduits fed the building's emergency generators.
Beside the wall hung a heavy emergency fire axe in a glass case.
"Break that glass!" Emma shouted, pointing at the axe.
Vincent didn't ask questions; he shattered the glass with his elbow and pulled the heavy steel axe free in one swift movement.
"Cut the main grounding cable on the generator bypass switch!" Emma commanded, pointing to a thick, copper-wrapped cable running along the wall.
Vincent swung the axe with all his formidable strength, severing the heavy copper line with a shower of brilliant, blinding blue sparks.
Emma grabbed the severed high-voltage cable using the thick, insulated rubber handle of a maintenance broom leaning against the compactor.
As the armored van roared past them toward the ascending exit ramp, Emma jammed the live forty-thousand-volt conduit directly into the exposed trailer hitch assembly at the rear of the vehicle.
A blinding explosion of electric blue lightning enveloped the rear axle of the armored van.
The massive electrical surge bypassed the vehicle’s grounding straps, traveling straight into the primary electronic control unit and frying the digital fuel injection system instantly.
The van’s engine died with a violent shudder, the transmission locking up with a horrific screech of stripping gears.
The heavy vehicle skidded sideways across the concrete ramp, slamming violently into the steel retaining wall and coming to a complete, smoking dead stop.
Silence descended over the subterranean bay, broken only by the hiss of fried electrical wiring and the dripping of coolant.
Vincent stepped forward, lowering his weapon as the driver’s side door of the wrecked van swung open.
May you like
The driver stumbled out with his hands raised, coughing through the thick chemical smoke, collapsing onto his knees in surrender.
In the passenger seat, Dominic Russo sat trapped behind the jammed door, his face pale as death, staring through the spiderwebbed glass at his executioner.
