Chapter 10 - Clearing the Room
The doors of the Monarch Room pushed open once again, but this time it wasn't police sirens or more thugs entering—it was a squad of city health inspectors, structural code enforcement officers, and four armed private security supervisors carrying official clipboard manifests. The head inspector, a nervous middle-aged man who owed his political appointment to a quiet nod from Dominic Vale years ago, briskly walked over to Dennis Crowe, who was still weeping on the floor. "We've received multiple anonymous reports of severe health code violations, illegal electrical modifications, and unregistered structural alterations on the penthouse level," the inspector announced loudly, reading from a pre-printed notice. "This establishment is hereby ordered closed indefinitely pending a full federal and municipal investigation." The remaining diners in the restaurant didn't wait to be asked twice. Grabbing their designer coats, purses, and unfinished drinks, patrons scrambled toward the service elevators and emergency stairwells in a chaotic rush to escape the blast radius of Dominic Vale’s wrath. Within five minutes, the grand, glittering Monarch Room—once the exclusive playground of Chicago’s untouchable elite—was completely empty, save for the terrified Table Twelve group, Dennis Crowe, and Dominic’s elite security detail. Preston Hale stood frozen in the center of the devastated dining room, his expensive tailored suit looking suddenly oversized and ridiculous. His phone buzzed continuously in his pocket; pulling it out with shaking fingers, he saw a text message notification from his father: What did you do? The bank just froze all corporate credit lines. Call me immediately. Preston let the phone slip from his fingers, watching it shatter against the marble floor. The illusion of his generational invincibility had been thoroughly dismantled in less than twenty minutes.
