Chapter 14 - The Devil's Ballroom
Forty-eight hours later, the neon and chrome towers of Manhattan loomed above us like a glittering, modern fortress.
The High Commission was hosting its annual winter charity gala at the St. Regis Penthouse, a masquerade designed to launder billions of dollars of illicit syndicate revenue under the polite applause of governors, judges, and high-society philanthropists. To the public eye, Marco Moretti was Marcus Vance, a reclusive billionaire real-estate tycoon whose philanthropic donations bought him total immunity from federal scrutiny.
Matteo and I slipped through the service corridors wearing tailored tuxedos over lightweight Kevlar vests, our concealed firearms resting snug against our ribs. Beatrice had positioned herself across the avenue in a surveillance van we had acquired from an old underground quartermaster in Brooklyn, expertly monitoring the building's thermal security grids and listening in on the private security frequencies.
Her voice crackled smoothly through our microscopic earpieces, guiding us around the private patrol rotations with surgical precision. She reported that the penthouse floor was sealed off with biometric locks, but she had managed to inject a loop into the camera system during a scheduled server diagnostic test.
We stepped out onto the marble floor of the grand ballroom, where hundreds of guests in Venetian masks sipped vintage champagne under sprawling crystal chandeliers. Nobody noticed two wolves slipping among the sheep.
My eyes swept across the elevated VIP mezzanine, locking instantly onto a silver-haired man sitting in a throne-like leather armchair, flanked by four towering bodyguards in bespoke Italian suits. Even beneath the ornate black-and-gold mask covering the upper half of his face, I recognized the cold, predatory tilt of his jaw and the jagged scar running from his ear to his collarbone.
It was the man who had taught me how to hold a gun when I was eight years old.
May you like
I climbed the private staircase, my hand drifting inside my jacket toward the grip of my weapon. The two guards stepped forward to intercept me, but before they could draw, Matteo appeared silently behind them, pressing the cold barrels of two suppressed handguns directly against their spines.
I walked directly to the table and pulled out the empty chair opposite the old monster. Marco slowly lowered his glass of scotch, a razor-thin smile touching his lips as he looked at his resurrected sons.
