Chapter 9 - The Denver Summit
The Grand Ballroom of the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver was a masterpiece of nineteenth-century architecture, featuring five tiers of cast-iron balconies rising up to a magnificent stained-glass atrium.
At 8:00 p.m., twenty-five of the most dangerous men in North America sat around a massive oval oak table on the private fifth-tier mezzanine, shut off from the public below by heavy velvet drapes and four teams of armed guards.
Joseph Moretti—a heavy-set, sixty-year-old man with a face like pitted granite and cold, dead eyes—sat at the head of the table. To his right was his brother Victor; to his left were representatives from Detroit and Philadelphia.
"Dominic Rossi thinks he owns the West Coast," Joseph Moretti rasped, slamming his thick hand onto the table. "He’s soft. He spends his time buying art, playing real estate mogul, and letting a woman run his hospitality divisions! We hit his transport hubs in Nevada next week, and by summer, we control the Strip!"
The men around the table nodded in agreement, murmuring assent.
At the service sideboard twenty feet away, a tall, striking woman in a sleek black supervisor's suit was quietly pouring red wine into a crystal decanter.
She set the bottle down, picked up the silver tray holding the decanter and six glasses, and walked calmly toward the head of the table.
Victor Moretti happened to look up as she approached.
His jaw dropped. The color drained from his face so fast he looked as though he were having a stroke.
"Joe..." Victor stammered, grabbing his brother’s sleeve with a trembling hand. "Joe... look."
Joseph Moretti frowned, turning to look at the supervisor. "What the hell is your problem, Victor? It’s just the help—"
Penelope Davis set the silver tray down in the center of the oak table with a deliberate, echoing clack.
She didn't bow her head. She didn't look down. She stood at her full, magnificent height, looking down at the four most powerful mob bosses in the country with cool, unyielding distain.
"Good evening, gentlemen," Penelope said, her voice clear and resonance filling the tight space. "I trust the 2015 Cabernet is to your liking?"
"Who the hell authorized you to be in this room?!" Joseph Moretti roared, starting to push his heavy chair back from the table. "Guards!"
"Your guards are currently enjoying a temporary administrative break in the stairwell," Penelope said smoothly, pulling a small silver remote control from her jacket pocket.
She pressed the black button in the center.
The heavy velvet drapes surrounding the fifth-tier balcony clicked on electronic tracks, pulling back instantly to reveal the atrium below.
Standing along the cast-iron railings of every single tier—from the second floor to the fourth—were twenty-four men in black tactical gear, their high-powered suppressed carbines trained directly on the heads of the twenty-five men seated at the table.
At the center of the fourth-floor balcony, leaning casually against the iron railing with a glass of scotch in his hand, stood Dominic Rossi.
"Evening, Joseph," Dominic’s voice boomed across the atrium, carrying effortlessly through the acoustic architecture of the historic hotel. "I heard you were throwing a party in Denver, and I felt hurt that I didn't receive an invitation."
Panics erupted around the table. Men reached for their suits, but the sharp red laser dots dancing across their foreheads instantly froze them in place.
"Rossi..." Joseph Moretti spat, his hands flat on the table, sweat breaking out on his forehead. "You can't do this! This is neutral territory!"
"Neutral territory ended when you put surveillance on my woman and tried to burn my catering partners," Dominic called down, his voice turning into cold, unyielding iron. "Every phone in this room has been mirrored to a federal server for the last forty-five minutes. Every word you said about your Midwest distribution routes, your shipping extortions, and your Nevada hits was recorded by Ms. Davis’s service equipment."
Joseph looked at Penelope, his eyes burning with pure, murderous hatred. "You..."
Penelope leaned down over the table, bringing her face inches from Joseph Moretti’s ugly, sweat-streaked mug, mirroring the exact posture Dominic had used on her weeks ago in his library.
"The federal prosecutor in Chicago will receive the unedited audio files in ten minutes," Penelope whispered, her voice carrying a terrifying, velvet smooth coldness. "If you or your brother ever step foot west of the Mississippi River again, Mr. Rossi won't bother calling the police. He'll let me organize your funeral."
She straightened up, adjusted her collar, and looked down at Victor Moretti, who was practically shaking in his chair.
May you like
"Enjoy the wine, gentlemen," Penelope said politely. "It's been paid for in full."
She turned on her heel and walked calmly toward the exit doors, her heels clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor while twenty-five of the most dangerous men in America sat frozen under the sights of Dominic Rossi’s rifles.
