Chapter 7 - Breakfast at the Drake
The Presidential Suite on the tenth floor of the Drake Hotel was an exercise in mid-century aristocratic excess: hand-painted wallpaper depicting Venetian canals, a ten-seat dining table carved from Italian walnut, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the white-capped waves of Lake Michigan.
Victor Moretti sat at the head of the table, cutting into an eggs Benedict with a gold-plated fork.
He was sixty-five years old, with slicked-back silver hair, a manicured goatee, and the cold, hooded eyes of a loan shark who had spent forty years laundering heroin proceeds through municipal bond issues. Behind him stood two bodyguards in dark grey suits, their arms folded across their chests, their expressions bored and institutional.
The service doors to the suite swung open without the preliminary knock of room service.
Gabriel walked in.
He did not kick down the door. He did not draw a weapon. He walked in with the calm, proprietary stride of a man inspecting an investment property he had already purchased. Behind him came Daniel, carrying the black leather portfolio we had recovered from the tarmac at O'Hare.
And behind Daniel walked me. I had shed Isabella’s coat, wearing a simple, dark green wool dress that Daniel’s people had procured from the hotel boutique twenty minutes earlier, my hair combed back, my legal pad tucked beneath my arm.
Victor Moretti’s fork paused three inches above his plate.
His bodyguards moved instantly, their hands reaching inside their jackets toward their shoulder holsters.
"Don't," Daniel said, taking one step to the side and raising a customized automatic pistol fitted with an oversized sound suppressor. The red laser dot settled directly onto the bridge of the lead bodyguard’s nose.
The man froze, his fingers touching the butt of his gun, not daring to draw.
"Gabriel," Moretti said slowly, setting his fork down with a delicate, porcelain click. "You're out of your district. And you didn't call ahead for an appointment."
"I was in the neighborhood, Victor," Gabriel said, pulling out a heavy dining chair at the opposite end of the table and sitting down. He gestured for me to sit beside him. I took the seat, placing my pad on the linen tablecloth.
"I understand you’ve been looking for Clara’s ledgers," Gabriel said, leaning back and lacing his fingers together.
Moretti’s face remained an unreadable mask of weathered leather. "I don't know what you're talking about. Clara was a lovely girl. Tragic about her heart."
"Clara didn't have heart failure, Victor. She was poisoned with digitalis provided by your associates in Brighton Beach."
Moretti didn't flinch. He picked up his linen napkin and carefully dabbed at the corners of his mouth. "That is a very dangerous accusation to bring into this hotel without the Commission's approval, Gabriel."
"I don't need the Commission's approval," Gabriel replied softly. He nodded toward Daniel, who tossed the black portfolio onto the center of the table. It slid across the damask cloth, coming to a halt against Moretti’s crystal water goblet.
"Open it," Gabriel said.
Moretti hesitated, then reached out with liver-spotted fingers and unzipped the leather pouch.
Inside was not the blue ledger.
Inside was a series of eight-by-ten glossy photographs taken forty-five minutes earlier at O'Hare: Evelyn Vance sitting in the back of a police cruiser, flanked by two special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s organized crime division. Beside her lay three signed affidavits detailing the Moretti family’s involvement in the interstate abduction ring and the unauthorized sale of federal witness relocation records.
"Evelyn Vance turned state’s evidence thirty minutes ago, Victor," Gabriel said, his voice ringing with quiet, absolute finality. "She gave up the transport routes, the holding facility in Quebec, and the names of the seven judicial clerks on your payroll who were leaking the sealed custody files."
Moretti’s knuckles turned white against the edge of the mahogany table. "You went to the feds? A DeLuca went to the Department of Justice?!"
"I didn't go to the feds," Gabriel said, pointing to me. "Hannah did."
Moretti stared at me, his eyes bulging with disbelief. "A domestic servant?!"
"Miss Brooks is a private citizen," Gabriel explained coolly. "She discovered evidence of an active conspiracy to kidnap a nine-year-old child from an estate within Cook County. Under federal statute, she reported the crime to the Special Victims Division. I simply provided the security detail that ensured she arrived at the Dirksen Federal Building without being intercepted by your people."
Moretti’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked at the photographs, then back at Gabriel. He understood the trap instantly.
If Gabriel had executed Evelyn Vance, the Morettis could have called a sit-down with the other five families and demanded a blood price. But by routing the evidence through an independent civilian—a woman whose brother had been a disabled ward of the state, whose mother was a blue-collar hospital worker—Gabriel had insulated his syndicate behind the unassailable fortress of a federal child-trafficking indictment.
Any family that attempted to back Victor Moretti now would find themselves swept into a Department of Justice investigation that carried mandatory life sentences without parole.
"What do you want, Gabriel?" Moretti rasped, his voice suddenly sounding every one of his sixty-five years.
"Three things," Gabriel said, holding up three fingers.
"First: you will immediately surrender all operational rights to the cold-storage cargo facilities at O'Hare to the Bellandi Trust."
"Done," Moretti whispered.
"Second: you will retire to your villa in Scottsdale by Friday afternoon. You will resign your seat on the Commission, and your nephew will take over the construction contracts under Sal Morelli’s direct supervision."
Moretti’s jaw twitched, but he nodded once. "And third?"
Gabriel leaned across the table, his eyes locking onto Moretti’s with the cold, unyielding weight of an iron vault.
"Third: you will write an unreserved, formal letter of apology to Sophie DeLuca. In English. And in sign language."
Moretti blinked, completely bewildered. "What?"
"You heard me, Victor," Gabriel said. "You will hire an instructor. You will learn the signs for I am sorry for what I did to your house. You will record the video yourself. And you will send it to my estate before you board your flight to Arizona."
Moretti looked at Gabriel for a long, silent moment, realizing that the mob boss before him was no longer just protecting territory or racketeering routes.
May you like
He was building a wall around his daughter that no monster in Chicago would ever dare to climb again.
"It will be delivered by Thursday," Moretti said, bowing his head in total, unconditional surrender.
