Chapter 5 - The Grand Ballroom of Wolves
The Crystal Ballroom of the Blackstone Hotel was an ancient, vaulted space lined with gilded mirrors, velvet draperies, and massive crystal chandeliers. It had been the neutral meeting ground for Chicago’s criminal elite for over eighty years.
At noon, thirty armed men guarded the exterior corridors.
Inside, sitting around a massive oval oak table, were the heads of the Chicago underworld.
At the center sat Don Silvano Moretti—a frail, eighty-eight-year-old man in a wheelchair, his eyes cloudy with cataracts, flanked by his ruthless thirty-five-year-old grandson, Marco Moretti.
To his right sat Julian Carter—Amelia’s uncle, a slick, forty-five-year-old corporate lawyer who had assumed control of Carter Logistics following her father’s sudden heart attack fourteen months ago.
Around them sat various underbosses, captains, and political liaisons.
The double oak doors swung open with a heavy, echoing thud.
Roman Duca walked into the room.
He did not walk in alone.
Walking beside him, her hand resting securely on his arm, was Amelia Carter.
She wore a breathtaking floor-length gown of dark emerald silk that draped elegantly over her slender frame. The gold Duca signet ring gleamed prominently on her hand. Her head was held high, her chin lifted, her gaze sweeping over the men at the table with cold, absolute disdain.
A collective, violent gasp echoed through the ballroom.
Julian Carter stood up so fast his heavy leather chair flipped backward, crashing against the parquet floor. His face turned the color of spoiled milk, his lips trembling violently.
“A-Amelia...?!” Julian choked out, his voice squeaking in absolute terror. “My god... you’re... you’re dead!”
Marco Moretti’s hand instantly twitched toward his shoulder holster, but before his fingers could touch leather, four of Roman’s tactical operatives stepped through the doorway behind them, their suppressed submachine guns raised in silent warning.
“Sit down, Julian,” Roman commanded. His voice was not loud, but it possessed a terrifying, heavy density that instantly crushed the room into silence.
Julian sank back into his chair, his hands shaking so violently he had to grip the edge of the table.
Don Silvano Moretti leaned forward in his wheelchair, his cloudy eyes squinting through the dim light at the woman standing beside Roman.
“Amelia Carter...” the old Don rasped, his voice sounding like dry paper rubbing together. “We were told you were killed by street thugs in Miami two years ago...”
“You were lied to, Don Silvano,” Amelia announced, her voice ringing out through the vaulted ballroom like a clear steel bell. “I was taken from my father’s home by Garrett Bell. I was kept in a dark warehouse on the Chicago River for seven hundred and thirty days.”
She stepped away from Roman, walking slowly toward the center of the table, stopping three feet from her uncle Julian.
“Seven hundred and thirty days, Uncle Julian,” Amelia whispered, her tone dripping with razor-sharp venom. “While you sat in my father’s office, spending my mother’s trust, and paying Garrett Bell fifty thousand dollars a month to keep me in chains.”
Julian gasped, looking frantically around the table at the other bosses. “She’s insane! She’s suffered brain damage! I loved my niece! I spent millions searching for her!”
“You spent millions burying her,” Roman interjected coldly, stepping up behind Amelia, placing his hand gently on her shoulder, claiming her before the entire underworld.
Roman looked directly at Marco Moretti and Julian Carter.
“Effective as of nine o'clock this morning,” Roman declared to the Commission, “Amelia Carter is my lawful betrothed. She carries the full power, protection, and sovereign authority of the Duca Syndicate.”
He leaned down, resting his hand on the back of Amelia’s chair.
“And I am declaring an absolute blood feud against every man, every captain, and every family who participated in her captivity.”
Marco Moretti sneered, standing up slowly. “You can’t declare a blood feud without proof approved by the Commission, Roman! This is high-handed treason against the treaty!”
Amelia reached into her clutch bag.
She didn't pull out a document.
She pulled out a heavy, water-stained leather ledger—Garrett Bell’s private record of offshore wire transfers, which Roman’s men had recovered from Garrett’s safe house an hour prior. She slammed it onto the oak table directly in front of Marco Moretti.
“Page forty-two, Marco,” Amelia said softly, a dark, terrifying smile touching her pale lips. “Your personal bank account in Nassau. Monthly payments signed under the anvil crest.”
The ballroom went deathly quiet.
Marco’s face drained of all color.
Don Silvano turned his head slowly toward his grandson, his old eyes flaring with shock and sudden, terrifying rage.
“You...” Don Silvano whispered to his grandson. “You did this behind my back...?”
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“I did it for the family, Grandfather!” Marco shouted, losing his composure. “The Carter ports were worth hundreds of millions! We needed—”
Before Marco could finish his sentence, Roman pulled his pistol and fired a single round straight through Marco Moretti’s forehead.
