Chapter 4 - Blood at the St. Regis
The penthouse ballroom on the sixty-fifth floor of the St. Regis was the picture of elite Chicago decadence. Crystal chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, casting warm golden light over diamond-encrusted socialites, corrupt judges, and high-ranking captains of the Chicago underworld. Soft jazz drifted from a string quartet near the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the frozen black expanse of Lake Michigan.
Lorenzo Moretti stood in the center of the room, holding a glass of vintage Cristal.
He was thirty-two, slender and sharp-featured, with slicked-back dark hair and an expensive Italian double-breasted suit. He was laughing warmly with a prominent Cook County commissioner, popping a white peppermint disc into his mouth from a monogrammed silver tin.
"I assure you, Commissioner," Lorenzo chuckled, his eyes gleaming with ambition, "the transition of port authority contracts will be entirely seamless. Adrien is... how shall I put it? Growing distracted by domestic life. Three infants can make even the fiercest lion lose his appetite for business."
The commissioner laughed. "Well, let us hope the lion knows when to pass the crown, Lorenzo."
"Oh, I believe the crown will change hands sooner than anyone expects," Lorenzo smiled, glancing subtly at the Rolex on his wrist.
The time was 11:38 PM. Twenty-two minutes left on his countdown.
Suddenly, the elevator doors at the end of the private lobby slid open with a chime that seemed to cut right through the violins.
The quartet faltered. The chatter in the room began to die down like an engine running out of fuel.
I stepped out of the elevator.
I wasn't wearing an evening tuxedo. I wore a long black wool overcoat, unbuttoned, revealing the twin shoulder holsters beneath my jacket. Behind me marched Marco and six of my personal enforcers, their faces expressionless, their heavy coats draped over suppressed submachine guns.
The air in the ballroom vanished. Several women gasped. The commissioner Lorenzo had been speaking to immediately took three steps backward, his champagne glass trembling.
Lorenzo’s smile froze. The color drained from his lips, though he quickly forced his features into a mask of cousinly affection.
"Adrien!" Lorenzo called out, opening his arms wide as he walked toward me. "What a wonderful surprise! We didn't expect you tonight. Marco told the council you were at home dealing with a family matter. How are my beautiful niece and nephews?"
I didn't break stride. I walked across the marble floor, my heavy boots drowning out the whisper of silk gowns and shifting feet.
When I was two feet from Lorenzo, he reached out to clasp my shoulder in a familiar fraternal greeting.
I didn't clasp his shoulder.
I drove my left palm upward into the base of his nose with sickening force.
The crack of cartilage echoed through the ballroom like a gunshot. Lorenzo let out a choked shriek of agony, stumbling backward and crashing into a pyramid of crystal champagne flutes. The glassware shattered in a deafening cascade of gold liquid and broken shards.
Instantly, six of Lorenzo’s private security guards drew their sidearms.
Before their barrels could level, Marco and my enforcers raised their suppressed MP5s. Six simultaneous clicks sounded through the room.
"Draw a weapon in my presence," I said, my voice echoing across the silent ballroom, "and not a single person on this floor leaves this building alive."
Lorenzo’s men froze. They looked at the cold, ruthless eyes of Marco’s men and slowly lowered their weapons to the floor.
Lorenzo rolled onto his hands and knees among the broken glass, blood pouring freely from his shattered nose onto his white silk tie. He looked up at me, coughing, spitting blood and mint onto the marble.
"Adrien... are you insane?!" Lorenzo choked out, trying to push himself up. "In front of the council?! In front of our guests?! What is the meaning of this?!"
I walked over, stepped firmly onto Lorenzo’s right hand, and pressed down until the bones in his fingers ground together. Lorenzo screamed, a high-pitched wail that made the socialites cower against the bar.
I reached down into his inside breast pocket.
My fingers touched cold silver. I pulled out the tin of imported peppermints and let it drop onto his bloody face.
Then, my hand reached deeper, into his inner vest pocket.
My fingers closed around a sleek, rectangular carbon-fiber remote. It had a glowing digital screen displaying a digital countdown: *16:42... 16:41...*
And on the face of the remote were three distinct, backlit buttons.
The entire room watched in horrified silence.
I leaned down until my lips were inches from Lorenzo’s ear.
"Sophie sends her regards," I whispered.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. Every drop of blood remaining in his face vanished, leaving behind the pale, pathetic visage of a condemned man.
"Adrien... wait... please..." he wheezed, his voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated terror. "You don't understand... they made me do it... they have my sister..."
"Who made you do it?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
Lorenzo looked at the countdown on the remote in my hand: *15:10.*
"I need the deactivation code, Lorenzo," I said softly. "Give it to me, or I will use this remote to detonate the bomb while your hand is taped to the gas line."
"Four-eight-nine-two!" Lorenzo shrieked, spitting blood. "The code is 4-8-9-2! Enter it into the keypad on the side!"
I immediately punched the four digits into the carbon-fiber remote. The digital timer on the screen froze at *14:55*, and the red LED shifted to solid green. A second later, my earpiece buzzed with the technician's voice: *“Boss, the unit just disarmed! The manifold is secure!”*
A wave of relief swept over me, but it did nothing to quench the fire in my blood.
I looked down at my cousin. "Now answer my question, Lorenzo. Who made you put an ultrasonic weapon in my babies' room?"
Lorenzo looked up at me, his eyes wild with a different kind of terror.
"It wasn't about the money, Adrien," Lorenzo wept, shaking his head. "They don't want your territory. They don't want Chicago. They want what your wife buried before she died."
My breath locked in my lungs.
My late wife, Julianna, had died of a sudden brain aneurysm six months before the triplets were born via surrogate. Or so I had been told.
"What did she bury?" I demanded, grabbing Lorenzo by the collar and hoisting him six inches off the floor.
Lorenzo grabbed my wrists, choking. "Button number three... Adrien... button number three wasn't for the house..."
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Before he could finish his sentence, the heavy plate-glass window behind us shattered into a million glittering shards.
***
