Chapter 6 - The Fall of MorettiMarcus Moretti took two fast steps forward, his voice dripping with arrogant, desperate rage as he looked at Emma.
"Vescari!" Moretti sneered loudly enough for the entire ballroom to hear. "You canceled our maritime negotiations to parade a fourteen-dollar seamstress around the Plaza?! Has the king of New York lost his mind over a piece of trash?!"
The entire ballroom went freezing, breathlessly cold.
Julian didn't draw a weapon. He didn't shout.
He slowly let go of Emma's hand, taking two unhurried steps toward Marcus Moretti. The sheer, apocalyptic temperature in his storm-gray eyes made Moretti’s four bodyguards instinctively take half a step backward, sweat beading along their foreheads.
"Moretti," Julian spoke, his baritone carrying cleanly across the silent room. "Thirty minutes ago, my cyber-forensics team acquired eighty-five percent of the primary debt mortgages on your shipping terminals in Brooklyn."
Moretti’s face drained completely of color. "What... what did you say?!"
"You are bankrupt, Marcus," Julian revealed deadpan, every word dropped into the room like a slab of cold granite. "Your accounts in Zurich are frozen. Your lieutenants have surrendered their colors to Leo. And as for the sniper you hired for my penthouse..."
Julian raised his satellite phone, displaying a live video feed from the federal prosecutor's office downtown, where the sniper was signing a full confession implicating Moretti in attempted homicide and corporate extortion.
"In my territory," Julian announced, his voice carrying an absolute, sovereign weight, "traitors are dealt with by federal marshals."
Two uniformed Federal Marshals stepped out from the rear entrance, slapping heavy steel handcuffs around Marcus Moretti’s wrists, dragging his weeping, groveling frame out through the glass doors in chains.
The two hundred guests in the ballroom stood silent, then erupted into a warm, respectful applause as Julian turned back toward Emma.
He walked up to her, taking her hand into his broad palm, bringing her knuckles to his lips for a slow, reverent kiss under the glittering chandeliers.
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"Your seamstress just conquered New York, Don Julian," Emma smiled softly.
"She didn't conquer New York, my queen," Julian promised, his gray eyes fixed on her face. "She claimed her throne."
