Chapter 6 - The Commission at The Grand PlazaThe following evening, the private top-floor ballroom of The Grand Plaza Hotel in downtown Chicago was illuminated by massive crystal chandeliers and golden candlelight.
Outside, a heavy autumn rain washed over the city skyscrapers, but inside, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Seated around a massive mahogany banquet table were the leaders of Chicago’s five major families—the heads of the syndicate commission who governed the city’s underground logistics, real estate, and shipping networks.
At the head of the table sat Old Man Moretti—a ruthless, white-haired patriarch in his late sixties—flanked by his son, Paulie, whose nose was wrapped in heavy medical bandages from his encounter with Vincent yesterday.
The heavy double doors of the ballroom swung open.
Vincent stepped into the room.
He wore an immaculate black tuxedo, a black bow tie, and a golden lion crest pin on his lapel.
Walking beside him, holding his arm with absolute confidence, grace, and poise, was me.
I wore a breathtaking, floor-length dark emerald silk gown that hugged my figure, my dark curls styled in elegant waves over my shoulders. Around my neck hung my mother’s polished silver pendant, sparkling brightly under the chandelier lights.
Behind us walked Marco and six armed Viscari guards, standing like an iron wall near the entrance.
Every eye in the room locked onto us. A wave of shocked whispers rippled through the older bosses as they stared at my face.
“What is the meaning of this, Viscari?!” Old Man Moretti barked, slamming his palm onto the table. “You call an emergency Commission meeting and bring a cleaning girl into our council?!”
Vincent didn't answer immediately. He pulled out a leather chair at the head of the table, guiding me to sit down smoothly before taking his own seat beside me.
“She isn't a cleaning girl, Moretti,” Vincent spoke, his voice smooth, quiet, and echoing clearly across the ballroom. “This is Lucy Viscari. Daughter of Sofia Viscari, granddaughter of Lorenzo, and the sole legal heir to fifty percent of the Viscari trust.”
Paulie Moretti sneered, pointing a bandage-wrapped finger at me. “She’s a bastard raised in Queens! She has no standing here!”
“She has the ledger, Paulie,” I spoke up firmly, my voice clear and cutting through the room like a cold razor.
The entire ballroom descended into dead, absolute silence.
Old Man Moretti’s face drained of every drop of color. “What did you say?!”
I reached into my evening clutch, pulling out a polished stainless-steel tablet, and slid it across the mahogany table directly into the center of the room.
“On that screen,” I declared, looking directly into Old Man Moretti’s panicked eyes, “are the certified banking records showing forty million dollars in embezzled union funds that the Moretti family stole from the Commission’s joint pension accounts over the last ten years.”
The surrounding bosses instantly sat up straight, their eyes widening in furious shock, staring at Moretti.
“Furthermore,” Vincent added coldly, leaning forward on his elbows, “there are the audio recordings from June 2010—recordings of Old Man Moretti ordering the hit on my sister, Sofia, breaking the sacred Commission truce of non-violence against women and children.”
Old Man Moretti jumped out of his chair, reaching for his coat pocket, but before his fingers could even touch his holster, four Commission bosses raised their weapons, pointing them directly at Moretti’s head.
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“Sit down, Moretti!” Boss Lucchesi roared from the side of the table. “You stole from the Commission?! You killed a Viscari woman?!”
Old Man Moretti fell back into his chair, sweating profusely, realizing in a fraction of a second that his forty-year empire had just been obliterated by a twenty-four-year-old girl holding her mother’s pendant.
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