Chapter 4 - A Queen for the Empire
The Grand Hotel in downtown Chicago was a monument to old-world luxury. Crystal chandeliers hung from painted vaulted ceilings, and red velvet carpets swept across the marble ballroom where two hundred high-society guests and mob aristocrats were gathered.
At the head table sat Reed.
He wore a tailored white tuxedo, a diamond ring gleaming on his finger, sipping vintage champagne as he accepted congratulations from regional capos.
“To Reed Moretti!” a senior capo shouted, raising his glass. “The new King of the South Side!”
The crowd cheered, raising their glasses in unison.
Suddenly, the massive double doors of the ballroom exploded inward with a deafening crash.
The music stopped instantly. Glass shattered as security guards were thrown back into the room.
Through the drifting dust and smoke walked Cash Moretti.
He was flanked by twenty elite, fully armed soldiers clad in black tactical gear led by Dominic. But Cash wore a tailored charcoal suit, looking every inch the sovereign king he was, his dark eyes fixed entirely on the head table.
Walking proudly beside him, her hand tucked safely inside the crook of his arm, was Bryer.
She wore an exquisite emerald-green silk gown Cash had procured for her, her dark hair styled in elegant waves, her posture straight and regal. Beside her walked Perry, dressed in a sharp little suit, looking around the grand room with wide, fear-free eyes.
Gasps echoed through the room. Glasses dropped and shattered against the marble floor.
“C-Cash?” Reed stammered, the color completely draining from his face. His hand shook so violently his champagne glass slipped from his fingers, smashing against his plate. “You’re... you’re dead!”
“I was dead, Reed,” Cash’s deep voice boomed across the silent ballroom, carrying a chilling authority that rooted every man in place. “Until a seven-year-old boy found the trail of blood you left when you locked me in a dumpster to rot.”
The room erupted into shocked whispers. The senior syndicate bosses turned their heads slowly toward Reed, their expressions darkening with disgust and lethal fury. In the underworld, killing a rival was business; leaving your own boss to die like garbage in a trash bin was an unforgivable sin against code.
“He’s lying!” Reed shrieked, backing away toward his bodyguards. “Kill him! He’s an impostor!”
Reed’s personal guards reached for their weapons, but before they could draw, Dominic and Cash’s men trained heavy red laser sights directly onto their chests. Reed’s guards slowly raised their hands, stepping away from him.
Cash walked slowly up the red carpet, stopping ten feet from the head table.
“You turned off the cameras,” Cash said calmly, pulling a black flash drive from his jacket pocket and tossing it onto the main table. “But you forgot about my private server in the study. Dominic recovered the footage. It shows you shooting me in the back, Reed. It shows you dragging my body out the side door.”
Reed looked around the room, seeing only cold, murderous eyes staring back at him. The other mob bosses were already drawing their own weapons, disgust plain on their faces.
Desperate, Reed reached into his coat, pulling a small silver pistol and aiming it directly at Bryer.
“If I go down, the maid goes with me!” Reed screamed.
Before Reed could pull the trigger, Perry—remembering a trick from his detective stories—slid a heavy bronze ice bucket off a nearby serving tray, sending it crashing directly into Reed’s shins.
Reed stumbled with a cry of pain, his aim going wild as his gun fired harmlessly into the ceiling.
In a split second, Cash stepped forward, grabbed Reed’s wrist, twisted it until the bone snapped, and slammed the traitor’s face directly onto the marble table.
The ballroom went dead silent.
Cash leaned down, his face inches from Reed’s bloodied, weeping face.
“You tried to kill me, Reed,” Cash whispered softly so only the traitor could hear. “And I might have forgiven that. But you threatened my family.”
Cash pulled his sleek black pistol, pressing the barrel against the back of Reed’s knee, firing a single, disabling shot that ensured the traitor would never walk again, before throwing him to Dominic’s waiting men.
“Take him to the basement,” Cash commanded coldly. “The council will decide his final fate.”
Cash turned back to the crowded ballroom. He adjusted his suit jacket, taking Bryer’s hand in his and pulling her up to stand beside him at the center of the grand stage.
He looked out over the two hundred silent, bowing leaders of Chicago’s underworld.
“Listen to me carefully,” Cash’s voice echoed like thunder. “The Moretti family is under new management. We are cleaning house. And this woman... Bryer Sullivan... is your new Queen. Anyone who looks at her with disrespect... anyone who even thinks about hurting her or her son... will answer to me.”
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The senior capos bowed their heads in absolute submission, followed one by one by every soldier in the room.
Bryer looked up at Cash, her heart swelling with an overwhelming love. Cash turned to her, a soft, devoted smile breaking across his hard face as he lifted her hand and pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles.
