Chapter 7 - The Unmasking
Walking down the marble steps into the golden light of the ballroom came Elena Vance.
She wore a dark green silk evening gown that covered the bandage on her arm. Her dark hair was styled elegantly, her face radiant despite the faint scar on her jawline.
Beside her walked Claire, holding six-year-old Lily, who was wearing her yellow dress.
The entire ballroom went completely, utterly silent.
Don Carmine dropped his silver cane onto the floor with a loud clack.
The Boston boss took two steps back, his mouth agape. "My God... that's Elena."
Marcus Vance went deathly pale. The crystal glass slipped from his fingers, smashing into a hundred pieces against the marble floor.
"Elena..." Marcus whispered, his voice cracking, all his refined composure shattering in a single second.
Elena walked down the center aisle, her eyes fixed entirely on her father. She stopped beside Adrian, placing her hand gently on his arm.
"Hello, Father," Elena said, her voice clear, icy, and echoing into every corner of the room.
"This... this is an impostor!" Marcus screamed, his voice turning high-pitched and hysterical as he looked toward the Commission bosses. "She's a hired actress! My daughter died three years ago in Boston! I buried her!"
"You buried a Jane Doe from the Suffolk County morgue, Marcus," Elena said, pulling a thick silver flash drive from her clutch bag and tossing it onto the Commission's head table. "On that drive are the financial logs from your private bank account in Zurich. It shows eighty million dollars paid to the medical team that kept me sedated in Upstate New York for thirty-six months."
Don Carmine picked up the silver drive, handing it to his private technical aide sitting behind him.
"You also paid five million dollars to the mercenary group that breached my husband's home last night," Elena continued, pointing her finger directly at Marcus. "You didn't do it to protect the syndicate, Father. You did it because you discovered that my daughter, Lily, is the sole legal heir to both the Vance and Kessler trust funds. If she lived, you lost total financial control of the family assets."
Little Lily, standing beside Claire, looked around at the two hundred people staring at her. She didn't look afraid. She pulled away from Claire’s hand and walked right up to Don Carmine’s table.
She looked up at the old Commission head. "My daddy isn't sad anymore," Lily said in her sweet, innocent voice. "Because my mommy came home."
Don Carmine looked down at the little girl, his hard, weathered face softening for a brief second. He looked up at the technician, who gave him a sharp, affirmative nod after reviewing the files on the screen.
Don Carmine slowly stood up, relying on his cane. He looked at Marcus Vance with a cold, disgusted glare.
"Marcus Vance," Don Carmine declared, his voice heavy with finality. "By the unanimous authority of the Commission, your voting rights are revoked. Your territories are seized. You are declared traitor to the families."
Marcus’s eyes darted wildly around the room. He realized in an instant that every single boss who had supported him five minutes ago had now stepped back, leaving him completely isolated in the center of the floor.
"No..." Marcus growled, reaching into his tuxedo jacket for his hidden weapon. "I built this city! You can't take it from me!"
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Before Marcus could pull his gun, Dante stepped forward and struck him across the face with the heavy handle of his pistol.
Marcus collapsed onto the marble floor, coughing, as two Commission enforcers dragged him away toward the rear exit, where the federal authorities—notified thirty minutes earlier by Adrian—were waiting in the alley.
