Chapter 8 - The Grand Ballroom
At two o'clock, the Grand Ballroom of the hotel was filled with forty of the most powerful and dangerous men in the city.
Captains from the North District, political fixers, union bosses, and representatives from the rival South Side syndicates sat around long oak tables covered in white tablecloths.
At the head of the main stage stood Dominic Sable.
He wore a pristine white double-breasted suit, a red silk tie, and a gold watch that had belonged to Gabriel Vance twenty-four hours earlier.
"Gentlemen," Sable announced, raising his glass of champagne to the crowd. "We mourn today the unexpected passing of our leader, Gabriel Vance. A man whose heart... sadly failed him during last night’s gala."
A few captains nodded solemnly, though everyone in the room knew Sable was lying. In their world, survival meant accepting the new king's lie as long as the money kept flowing.
"As his rightful successor," Sable continued, leaning over the podium, "I move that we immediately execute the territorial redistribution plan for the docks—"
The grand crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling suddenly flickered and died.
The ballroom was plunged into dim red emergency lighting.
"What the hell?" Sable barked, looking toward the AV booth at the back of the room. "Fix those lights!"
High above the stage, the massive eighty-foot projection screen—used during charity galas for corporate slides—lowered automatically from the ceiling.
The room fell into dead silence.
Suddenly, Sable's own voice boomed through the ballroom's two-thousand-watt surround-sound audio system, amplified so loudly that the floorboards vibrated:
“Make sure the paralytic looks like a heart attack. If the other bosses find out I killed Gabriel myself, they won't respect the takeover. Tell them the heart defect ran in his family.”
The audio played twice, echoing off the gold-leaf walls in terrifying, undisputed clarity.
The forty bosses in the room stood up simultaneously, their chairs scraping violently against the parquet floor, their hands reaching inside their custom jackets for their sidearms.
"That's a fake!" Sable screamed into his microphone, his face turning pale as milk. "Turn it off! Cut the power!"
The heavy mahogany doors at the back of the ballroom swung open.
Gabriel Vance stepped into the room.
He wore a tailored dark grey suit, his dark hair slicked back, his amber eyes sweeping over the crowd like a returning god of war.
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Beside him stood Leah Moreno, wearing a sharp navy wool coat, holding a heavy tablet computer connected to the hotel's master media server.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Vance’s deep baritone voice echoed through the room without the need for a microphone. "I believe Dominic was just explaining how my heart failed."
