Chapter 13 - The Midnight Ultimatum
Three hours before sunrise, the grand mansion of the Moretti estate sat bathed in the golden glow of crystal chandeliers.
The council elders who had backed Vincent sat lined up along the high-backed chairs of the formal dining hall, stripped of their weapons, guarded by twenty heavily armed Moretti enforcers. Elder Anthony was trembling so hard his teacup rattled against the saucer.
Dominic sat at the head of the long table, dressed in a pristine bespoke black suit. Evelyn sat immediately to his right, wearing an elegant emerald dress Dominic’s staff had prepared for her, radiant and unbowed. Lily was safe upstairs in the master suite, asleep under the guard of four elite sentries.
Dominic placed his father’s signet ring on the polished mahogany table with a heavy, final click.
"Vincent is cornered at the abandoned rail terminal in Gary, Indiana," Dominic announced, his voice slicing through the terrified silence of the elders. "His accounts are emptied. His shipment at Pier 42 was seized. And the Ghost is dead."
Elder Anthony swallowed hard, raising shaking hands. "Dominic... please. We were misled. Vincent threatened our families. He said he would kill us all if we didn't endorse his contract—"
"Silence," Dominic cut him off with a quiet command that made Anthony instantly choke on his words. "You betrayed my father. You tried to sell this woman and her child to a madman for dock territory. By Syndicate law, your lives are forfeit."
Dominic looked at Evelyn. "What should their punishment be, Evelyn? You are the one they hunted."
The elders gasped, staring at the former waitress in horror. The fate of the most powerful mob elders in Chicago now rested entirely in the hands of a woman they had considered garbage hours before.
Evelyn looked at Anthony’s withered, terrified face. There was no pity in her eyes, but there was no senseless cruelty either.
"Strip their wealth, Dominic," Evelyn said with cool, unwavering authority. "Take their territories. Exile them from the city forever. Let them live out their days knowing they are penniless, powerless, and forgotten."
Dominic’s lips curled into an admiring smile. "A queen’s judgment. Marco, escort them to the state line before dawn. If any of them sets foot in Illinois again, shoot them on sight."
"Yes, Don Dominic!" Marco barked, signaling the guards to drag the sobbing elders out of the room.
As the heavy oak doors shut, leaving Dominic and Evelyn alone in the majestic hall, Dominic turned toward her, reaching across the table to entwine his fingers with hers.
"You handled them better than I would have," he murmured, his thumb caressing the back of her hand. "You were born to sit beside a king, Evelyn."
A genuine blush colored Evelyn’s cheeks. "I was just a waitress trying to pay rent two days ago, Dominic."
"You were never just a waitress," Dominic replied softly. "You were the one woman strong enough to shatter an empire and rebuild it with me."
Before Evelyn could answer, Arthur burst into the dining room, his face pale, clutching a secure military-grade tablet.
"Don Dominic! An urgent priority transmission just bypassed our firewall!" Arthur panted, setting the tablet down between them. "It's not from Vincent. It's routed from Washington D.C."
Dominic frowned, tapping the screen.
The screen lit up to reveal a shadowed office. Sitting behind a desk with an American flag pin on his lapel was a man whose face remained partially shrouded in darkness, but whose voice was unmistakable—Senator Gregory Sterling, the head of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee.
"Dominic Moretti," the Senator said in a smooth, chilling baritone. "Congratulations on cleaning up Vincent's mess. He was always too crude for the role we gave him."
Evelyn’s blood ran cold. "Who is that?"
"Vincent wasn't acting on behalf of the mafia, Dominic," the Senator continued, leaning slightly into the light, revealing cold, reptilian eyes. "He was working for us. The two point four billion dollars you just drained from those offshore accounts wasn't Vincent's war chest. It was the classified black-budget fund for Operation Vanguard."
The Senator leaned forward, his gaze piercing through the lens directly at Evelyn.
"You have twelve hours to reverse that wire transfer and deliver David Carter’s encryption key to the Federal Reserve in D.C., Dominic," the Senator stated with icy finality. "If the funds are not returned by noon tomorrow, we will designate the entire Moretti family as an international terrorist organization. Every federal agency in this country will descend upon Chicago with shoot-on-sight orders. And we will start by taking Evelyn and the girl."
The screen went black.
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A suffocating, perilous silence filled the grand hall.
Dominic slowly rose from his seat, his eyes blazing with a dark, terrifying inferno. He looked down at Evelyn, who gripped his hand with white knuckles, the shadow of a war far bigger than Chicago closing in around them.