Chapter 7 - The Last Dinner
The second-floor office was decorated in cheap, garish luxury: plush red carpets, dark wood paneling, and a massive mahogany desk covered in landline phones, stacks of cash, and a half-empty bottle of expensive bourbon.
Dominic Moretti was a broad, heavy-set man in his late sixties, with thin gray hair slicked back over his scalp and a thick gold chain hanging over a dark silk shirt. He was leaning back in his leather executive chair, his feet propped up on the desk, talking loudly into a speakerphone.
“...I’m telling you, the whole damn building is going up!” Moretti roared into the phone with a gravelly laugh. “Vale’s empire is done! By noon, we control every freight dock from here to New Orleans!”
“You’re thirty minutes early on your celebration, Dominic,” a cold, smooth voice spoke from the doorway.
Moretti froze. His feet slipped off the mahogany desk, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
Standing in the doorway was Marcus Vale. Behind him stood Raymond with his suppressed weapon raised, and beside Marcus stood Evelyn, her tall, broad frame completely filling the entrance, her arms folded quietly across her chest.
Moretti’s hand lunged toward the top drawer of his desk where his revolver was kept.
THWACK.
A single suppressed round from Raymond’s gun slammed into the mahogany desktop an inch from Moretti’s fingers, sending a shower of wood splinters into the air.
“Don't,” Raymond said softly.
Moretti pulled his hand back as if he had touched a hot iron. He stared at Marcus, his face turning from red to a pale, sickly gray.
“Marcus...” Moretti stammered, his gravelly voice losing all its bravado. “How... how the hell did you get in here?”
“Your security is as cheap as your suit, Dominic,” Marcus said, taking three slow steps into the room and pulling out a leather chair across from the desk. He sat down, crossing his legs casually. “And your hit team in Detroit is currently lying unconscious on the floor of Terminal 4, waiting for the ATF to process their thermite charges.”
Moretti gasped, his eyes darting frantically toward the speakerphone on his desk.
“Don't bother calling Krol,” Evelyn spoke up, her voice calm, clear, and utterly devoid of pity as she stepped into the center of the room. “He’s currently experiencing acute carbon dioxide poisoning. He won't be answering calls for the next twelve hours.”
Moretti turned his head, his small, piggy eyes glaring at Evelyn.
“Who the hell is this fat bitch?” Moretti spat.
Marcus stood up so fast the heavy leather chair crashed backward onto the floor.
Before Moretti could react, Marcus reached across the desk, seized the front of Moretti’s silk shirt in a vice-like grip, and slammed the older man’s face down onto the mahogany desk, crushing his cheek against the hard wood.
“You will speak to Director Carter with respect, Dominic,” Marcus growled into Moretti’s ear, his voice carrying a dark, terrifying malice. “Because she is the reason you’re still breathing right now. If it were up to Raymond, you’d already be in a concrete drum at the bottom of Lake Michigan.”
Moretti groaned, his breath rattling in his throat as his cheek was pressed hard against his own desk.
“What... what do you want, Marcus?” Moretti choked out.
Marcus released his grip, stepping back and straightening his dark jacket.
“I want your entire operation, Dominic,” Marcus said softly. “Every rail route in Gary. Every cold-storage facility in Detroit. Every shell company you’ve used to bribe city councilmen in Chicago. You will sign them over to my holding company by noon today.”
“You’re crazy!” Moretti gasped, pulling himself up, clutching his chest. “The family in New York will never allow it!”
Evelyn stepped forward, pulling a thin tablet from her parka pocket and laying it flat on the desk in front of Moretti.
“The family in New York has already been informed,” Evelyn said calmly. “At 4:30 this morning, we transmitted a complete digital ledger of your private offshore accounts to the commission in Brooklyn—including the five million dollars you’ve been skimming from their New Orleans shipping revenues for the last three years.”
Moretti’s eyes bulged out of his head. He looked from the tablet screen up to Evelyn’s unyielding face.
“You... you leaked my personal ledgers?” Moretti whispered in terror.
“New York gave us their full permission to liquidate your assets in Indiana,” Evelyn added with a faint, chilling smile. “In exchange, we agreed not to hand the rest of your financial records to the IRS. You have ten minutes to sign the transfer documents on that screen, Dominic. Or we press 'send' on the IRS package and leave you to deal with Brooklyn alone.”
Moretti looked at the tablet. He looked at Marcus standing like an executioner beside the window. He looked at Raymond’s gun. And finally, he looked at Evelyn—the woman who had dismantled his forty-year criminal empire in less than six hours without firing a single lethal shot.
May you like
With shaking, trembling fingers, Dominic Moretti picked up the digital stylus from the desk.
“Sign on the dotted line, Mr. Moretti,” Evelyn said softly. “And make sure your signature is clear. I’d hate to have to make you do it twice.”
