Chapter 6 - THE RED CARPET CRASHThe Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago was locked down tighter than a federal prison.
At 8:00 PM, Michigan Avenue was closed off by private security barricades. The red carpet leading into the Grand Ballroom was swarming with high-society photographers, politicians, corrupt judges, and armed mobsters from all Five Families.
Inside the ballroom, two hundred guests drank four-hundred-dollar champagne beneath crystal chandeliers.
On the elevated VIP stage, Tommy Gallagher stood beside his bride-to-be, Lady Genevieve Lucchesi—a tall, painfully thin blonde woman wearing a five-carat diamond ring and a sneer.
Tommy raised his glass of champagne, his voice booming through the sound system.
"Friends! Family! Leaders of Chicago!" Tommy announced, his face flushed with pride and power. "Tonight, we close a tragic chapter in Gallagher history. My brother Declan was a strong man, but he was old school. He lacked the vision to take this city into the future..."
Beside the stage, Don Silvano Lucchesi nodded approvingly, smoking a Cuban cigar.
"...Tonight," Tommy continued, raising his hands, "the Commission officially ratifies the unification of Chicago and New York! We own the docks, we own the mayor, and we own the future!"
The crowd erupted into polite, wealthy applause.
Suddenly—
BOOM!
The heavy ten-foot oak doors of the Grand Ballroom didn't just open. They were blown off their heavy brass hinges by a breaching charge.
The explosion shook the crystal chandeliers, sending dust and shattered wood raining down onto the terrified guests. Women screamed, dropping their champagne flutes, while fifty syndicate guards immediately drew their weapons, aiming toward the smoke-filled doorway.
Through the drifting grey smoke walked six heavy tactical soldiers carrying submachine guns, sweeping the room.
And behind them stepped Don Declan Gallagher.
The ballroom went dead silent.
Tommy dropped his glass of champagne. The heavy crystal shattered across the marble stage, but no one heard it.
"Is that... is that Declan?" whispered a corrupt senator sitting in the front row. "He's alive?!"
"Impossible!" Don Silvano yelled, standing up, his cigar falling from his mouth. "He died in the river!"
Declan walked down the center aisle with the slow, deliberate stride of an executioner. He was immaculate in his black-and-silver tuxedo, his hazel eyes burning with a lethal, absolute authority that made three hundred wealthy guests shrink back in terror.
"You should have checked the body, Tommy," Declan’s voice echoed through the silent ballroom, clear as glass, cold as steel.
Tommy’s face went completely ghost-white. He backed away toward his guards, trembling violently. "Shoot him! Shoot him now! He's a ghost! He's a rogue!"
"Stand down!" Marco roared, stepping through the smoke with twenty heavily armed loyalist soldiers, training high-caliber rifles on Tommy’s guards. "Anyone who pulls a trigger dies before Don Declan takes another step!"
Declan stopped twenty feet from the stage. He didn't look at Tommy. He turned around, extending his gloved hand toward the doorway.
"Allow me to introduce," Declan announced, his voice booming across the room like thunder, "the real ruler of Chicago. My wife... Donnessa Abby Gallagher."
The crowd gasped.
Through the shattered doorway stepped Abby.
The light of thirty crystal chandeliers caught the Star of Lake Michigan around her neck, blazing like a blue sun against her midnight-blue dress. Her full, voluptuous figure moved with breathtaking grace, her dark hair cascading down her back, her chin held high as her dark eyes scanned the astonished faces of the mob elite.
She didn't look like a maid. She looked like a empress claiming her domain.
"Is that... the housekeeper?" whispered a woman near the front. "My God... look at her diamonds!"
"She's gorgeous," murmured a young lieutenant. "Look at the way she walks!"
Tommy stared at Abby, his brain failing to process the reality in front of him. "Abby?! You... you fat, worthless maid! You were hiding him?!"
Declan stepped onto the stage in a flash of terrifying speed.
Before Tommy’s guards could move, Declan grabbed his younger brother by his silk necktie, lifting him off his feet with one arm, and slammed him face-first onto the marble podium!
CRACK!
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Blood sprayed across Tommy’s white shirt as his nose broke against the wood.
"Speak about my wife again, Tommy," Declan growled into his brother's ear, his hand tightening around his throat until Tommy turned blue, "and I won't just take my empire back. I will feed you to the fish in that river you tried to drown me in."
