Chapter 4 - The Shadow on the WallThe color drained entirely from Dante’s face. He spun around, staring frantically at the chandeliers and the surround-sound speakers mounted along the gilt-trimmed walls. Across the room, several high-ranking board members dropped their champagne flutes, the crystal shattering against the marble floor like gunfire.
“A toast,” Nicholas’s voice continued, smooth as aged whiskey and twice as lethal, echoing from every corner of the room. “To new beginnings, false funerals, and the unfortunate habit some people have of measuring a king's chair before his body is even cold.”
"Cut the feed!" Dante roared, spinning around to signal his head of security. "Find out where that broadcast is coming from! Trace it now!"
Three burly men in earpieces bolted toward the control booth at the back of the balcony, but they didn't even make it halfway. The heavy double doors at the main entrance—the ones I had walked through moments ago—slammed shut with a deafening, automated click. The security locks engaged with a heavy thud, sealing every exit from the inside.
Panic rippled through the elite crowd. Women clutched their pearls; politicians scrambled for their phones, only to stare in horror at their screens.
No signal.
"Dante," I said softly, stepping closer to him while the room dissolved into chaos. "You really shouldn't have planned your coronation on a Friday the 13th. It’s bad luck."
Dante turned back to me, his suave facade completely shattered, revealing the desperate, cornered animal underneath. His hand dropped instinctively toward the holster hidden beneath his tailored jacket. "What did you do, you little bitch? You knew, didn't you? You've been playing us all along."
"I told you," I smiled, my eyes locking onto his with cold triumph. "The dead don't like to be forgotten."
Before Dante could draw his weapon, the wall behind the dais—a massive, custom-built mahogany display shelf featuring the Moretti family crest—began to grind mechanically. Gears groaned, and the heavy wooden partition slid inward and pivoted to the side, revealing a private, hidden corridor behind the ballroom.
From the darkness of the corridor stepped Nicholas Moretti.
He wasn't wearing a tuxedo. He wore a dark tactical turtleneck and a tailored charcoal overcoat, his shoulders broad, his dark eyes burning with absolute fury. Behind him stood a dozen heavily armed men in black tactical gear—loyalists who had gone into deep cover the night of the warehouse explosion, waiting for the signal to strike.
The entire ballroom fell into a graveyard silence. You could hear the faint patter of rain against the reinforced glass windows high above.
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Dante’s hand froze on the grip of his gun. He stared at Nicholas as if looking straight into the eyes of a demon. "You... you died. I checked the manifests. I planted the charges myself."
"And you did a remarkably sloppy job of it, Dante," Nicholas said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl as he walked down the steps onto the ballroom floor. "You always were better at counting money than planning a murder."
