Chapter 5 - A Maid in the Sovereign’s ShadowA collective, murderous roar rumbled down the table.
Forty hardened men who had survived gang wars and territorial strikes leaned forward, their eyes locking onto the scarred rosary with lethal comprehension.
In the underworld of the Great Lakes, territory was traded with contracts. Turf wars were fought with lead.
That was the life. That was the code.
But smashing the altar of a revered matriarch’s tomb, looting the sacred relics of the dead, and framing an innocent servant girl to cover the desecration—that was an unforgivable, cowardly sacrilege that carried an immediate, permanent death sentence under the council charter.
Henri Dupont pushed his chair back, his hands clawing at the mahogany edge, his face turning the color of sour cream.
“Dante! This is an outrageous frame-up! You place construction debris on my table and accuse an international partner based on the fantasies of a kitchen maid?”
“The maid didn't invent the security feeds, Henri,” I said, not raising my voice by a single decibel.
I tapped the central console.
The sixty-inch display above the fireplace flickered to life, projecting the crystal-clear digital feed from the sacristy corridor:
15:18 PM.
Genevieve Dupont stepping through the iron crypt portal carrying the leather pouch, followed by Julian Sterling hauling the heavy duffel bag of looted chalices.
And then the audio from the china pantry echoed through the hall, Genevieve’s voice shrill and venomous:
“Swear to the guards that you stole it from Dante’s dressing room, Clara. Say one word about the crypt tunnel, and your mother’s dialysis bed will be canceled before midnight.”
The ballroom turned into an arctic vault.
Don Carmine Falcone, the legendary eighty-year-old capo of the South Side docks, slowly pushed back his heavy armchair.
The elderly underboss stood tall, leaning both hands on his carved ash walking stick, his face twisted in ancient, merciless disgust.
He stopped two feet in front of Henri Dupont.
“Henri,” Falcone rasped, his voice vibrating with absolute fury. “Your father was an honorable man who shipped wine in wooden barrels. And you sent your daughter to dig through Isabella Moretti’s crypt like a sewer rat?”
Dupont collapsed onto his knees on the parquet floor, clutching the hem of Falcone’s overcoat in desperate, groveling terror.
“Falcone! Listen to me! The European cartels were liquidating our credit facilities! We needed Isabella’s bearer codes to prevent total bankruptcy! I was going to seal the slab back before sunrise!”
“You don't smash an altar to pay your gambling debts, Henri,” Falcone replied with chilling finality.
May you like
He turned toward me.
“Don Dante. The Commission recognizes the blood debt. The house of Dupont is stripped of all charters, all territories, and all protection.”
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