Chapter 16 - The Black Gala
The grand facade of the Drake Hotel rose like a stone fortress over the rain-slicked pavement of the Magnificent Mile.
Searchlights sliced through the low-hanging fog, illuminating the black-tie crowd arriving beneath the green awning. Limousines and Rolls-Royces idled along Michigan Avenue, discharging Chicago’s old-money elite—real estate moguls, corrupt politicians, hedge-fund aristocrats, and the private-equity barons who truly ruled the city.
Tonight was the Centennial Gala of the Great Lakes Maritime Trust—an organization chaired by Cynthia Ward.
I sat in the back of an armored Mercedes Maybach parked half a block away, watching the arriving guests through the rain-streaked tinted glass.
I was no longer wearing the charcoal corporate suit from the morning.
I wore a backless, floor-length evening gown of midnight-blue silk, slit up to the left thigh. Around my neck hung a stunning necklace of raw, deep-blue sapphires set in platinum—a family heirloom recovered from the subterranean vault beneath the café. But sewn discreetly into the heavy silk lining of my gown’s right hip was a ceramic push-dagger that would clear any magnetic walk-through scanner, and hidden within the hollow pendant of the sapphire necklace was a miniature encrypted flash drive containing every offshore manifest Arthur Pendelton had signed before he vanished.
In my lap rested my mother’s black journal.
“Dante,” I said into the micro-transceiver concealed beneath my hair behind my left ear. “Are your teams in position?”
“Audio and tactical feeds are live,” Dante’s voice came back, crystal clear, sounding from a surveillance van parked in the hotel’s delivery bay. “Team Alpha is inside the service tunnels beneath the ballroom. We’ve hijacked the hotel’s internal closed-circuit television network. Cynthia has thirty private security contractors on the floor, all wearing gold lapel pins with the maritime crest. They’re carrying concealed subcompacts.”
“And Toby?” My voice cracked slightly on his name, but I forced it steady.
“We’ve traced the biometric signal from Cynthia’s personal security chief,” Dante replied. “The boy is being held in the penthouse suite—room 1014. Guarded by four heavy operators. Cynthia is keeping him on-site. If anything goes sideways in the ballroom, her extraction chopper is idling on the roof of the adjacent medical tower.”
“Good,” I said, opening the door of the Maybach. “You take the penthouse, Dante. Bring my brother back.”
“Maya,” Dante said, his voice tightening with rare emotion. “The moment I breach the tenth floor, the alarms will trigger. Cynthia will know she’s lost her leverage. You will be alone in a room full of thirty armed wolves.”
“I’m not alone, Dante,” I replied, looking up at the towering facade of the hotel. “I have my mother’s ghost.”
I stepped out onto the red carpet.
The flashing lights of a dozen society photographers immediately erupted, blinding in the dark rain.
“Ms. Vance! Look here!”
“Maya Vance, is it true you took controlling interest of Thorne Global this morning?”
“What is your response to the car bombing of Marcus Holloway?”
I ignored the screaming press, keeping my chin high, my posture regal, my eyes fixed straight ahead on the gilded brass entrance doors. Two private security guards wearing the gold maritime lapel pins stepped into my path at the velvet rope.
Their eyes dropped to my evening clutch, then lingered on my bare neck and shoulders.
“Name, ma’am?” the first guard asked, his hand hovering near his jacket lapel.
“Maya Vance,” I said, my voice carrying over the din of the rain and cameras. “And if you make me wait in the rain for another five seconds, I will buy this hotel by midnight and have you both scrubbing the grease traps in the basement for the next twenty years.”
The second guard swallowed hard, recognized my face from the morning news broadcasts, and quickly pulled back the velvet rope.
The doors swung open, and I stepped into the Grand Ballroom.
The room was a cathedral of gilded mirrors, crystal chandeliers, and white-gloved waiters carrying silver trays of champagne. Over three hundred people in tuxedos and couture gowns mingled beneath the painted ceilings, their laughter and the soft swell of a chamber orchestra masking the absolute savagery of the empire they represented.
And there, standing at the center of the raised VIP dais beneath the great maritime seal, was Cynthia Ward.
She wore an emerald-green gown that matched her cold, calculating eyes. In her hand was a flute of vintage champagne, and surrounding her were four of Chicago’s most powerful city commissioners and the deputy superintendent of police.
She looked like a queen holding court.
As I walked down the center aisle between the round banquet tables, the murmurs began. Like a wave moving through water, the conversations died, replaced by sharp gasps and frantic whispers. Heads turned. Glasses were lowered.
Cynthia looked up.
When her eyes locked onto mine, the polished smile on her face froze. The champagne flute in her hand tilted slightly, a single drop of pale wine spilling onto the white linen tablecloth.
She didn't run. She didn't panic. She simply raised her glass toward me in a silent, mocking toast, her lips curling into a predatory, victorious sneer.
I walked directly to the foot of the dais, the silk of my gown rustling like dry leaves in an autumn wind.
May you like
“Aunt Cassandra,” I said, my voice ringing out with terrifying clarity through the hushed ballroom. “You threw quite a party. But you forgot to send me an invitation.”
***
