Chapter 4 - The Execution at the PlazaAt 8:30 AM, a bright, clear morning sun painted the sky over Manhattan in brilliant shades of amber and pale blue.
The grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel was packed with two hundred of New York’s most prominent billionaires, corporate directors, supreme court justices, and maritime board members.
Standing near the main podium, wearing an exquisite gold silk evening dress, holding a crystal glass of champagne, was Vanessa Moretti. Beside her stood her sixty-two-year-old father, Don Marcus Moretti, looking triumphant and arrogant as he chatted with four senior legal advisors.
Vanessa smiled brilliantly for the press cameras. "Today is a solemn day for the Moretti family," she announced into the reporters' microphones, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. "My husband, Dante, tragically perished in a mountain accident last night. As his widow, I am assuming total executive command of the Moretti Maritime Trust."
BOOM!
The massive, reinforced double doors at the rear of the grand ballroom were thrown open with thunderous force.
The ambient chatter and camera flashes died instantly into a total, breathless, freezing silence.
Walking down the central red-carpeted aisle, flanked by Leo, Marco, and thirty armed Vescari operators in immaculate dark suits, was Dante Moretti.
He wore a custom black three-piece suit, his posture tall, broad, and unyielding, a simple white bandage covering the small line on his forehead.
And resting on his right arm, her spine straight, her posture royal, wearing a breathtaking, floor-length midnight-blue silk dress that highlighted every curve of her figure, holding her head like a queen, was me.
Vanessa dropped her champagne glass. The crystal shattered against the marble floorboards, gold liquid splashing across her expensive shoes. CRASH.
Her face turned from a flush of arrogant victory to an ugly, mottled shade of paper-white in less than two seconds. Her bloodshot eyes bulged out of her head as she stared at her living husband and the waitress she had treated like furniture at Bellini's.
"Dante...!" Marcus Moretti stammered, taking two fast, clumsy steps backward, his knees knocking together in sudden, frantic panic. "YOU... YOU'RE ALIVE?!"
Dante didn't hurry. He guided me smoothly through the parting crowd, stopping three feet from the podium.
May you like
The silence in the room was so absolute that the hum of the air conditioning sounded like a rushing storm.
"I'm alive, Marcus," Dante spoke. His deep baritone carried effortlessly to every corner of the vast ballroom, cold and sharp as an iron guillotine. "And your secondary mechanics at Terminal 4 are currently signing full confessions with federal prosecutors downtown."
Related Stories
