Chapter 5 - The St. Regis Summit
The penthouse suite of the St. Regis Hotel overlooked Fifth Avenue like an obsidian fortress floating above the clouds. Rain lashed against the triple-paned acoustic glass, but inside, the atmosphere was as still and clinical as a surgeon’s tray.
Camilla Russo sat on the edge of a white leather chaise lounge, her red evening gown pooling around her ankles like spilled blood. Her hands were shaking—not from the cold, but from the terrifying realization that she had just played a bit part in a game far larger and more lethal than she had ever imagined.
"I did what you asked," Camilla said, her voice tight with panic. "I picked the bottle. I humiliated the girl. But then Moretti... Alessandro cleared the room. He closed the entire restaurant. He looked at her like she was the only person in the world."
Across the minimalist, black-marble living room, a man stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, his back turned to her. He wore an impeccably tailored charcoal suit that mirrored Alessandro’s, though his hair was completely white, brushed back with military precision. In his right hand, he held a crystal tumbler filled with clear gin and a single lemon twist.
"Alessandro Moretti is a sentimental boy playing at being a mobster," the man said smoothly, his voice a low, cultured purr that carried an unmistakable European accent. He turned slowly, revealing the sharp, aristocratic features of Viktor Vance—former deputy director of European financial intelligence, current chairman of the Orion Group. "He thinks he can protect a waitress from ghosts that have been buried for two decades."
"She read the French marginalia, Viktor," Camilla insisted, standing up and pacing across the imported Persian rug. "She didn't just read it—she translated the vintage notes like she wrote them herself. And then Moretti’s men... there was shooting. I heard gunshots as I got into my car."
Viktor Vance took a slow sip of his gin. A thin, cold smile played across his lips. "Good. That means Étienne is finally coming out of the shadows."
"He’s alive?" Camilla stopped dead in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat. "The report said he died in Lyon seventeen years ago."
"Reports can be expensive to write, Camilla," Viktor said softly, walking toward her with the slow, predatory grace of a wolf closing in on a wounded deer. He stopped two feet away from her, towering over her slight frame. "And expensive reports can be rewritten when the stakes are high enough. Five hundred million euros is a very persuasive argument for a coroner."
"What do you want me to do?" Camilla whispered, her eyes wide with terror as she realized she was entirely expendable.
Viktor reached out with his left hand, his fingers gently brushing a strand of dark hair away from her cheek with terrifying intimacy. "Nothing, my dear. You’ve done your part. You opened the door."
Before Camilla could scream, the heavy mahogany door of the penthouse suite swung open with a loud, echoing bang.
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Viktor didn't even flinch. He simply turned his head toward the entryway.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the harsh white light of the hallway, was Alessandro Moretti. Behind him stood Matteo and Luca, their weapons drawn and leveled straight at Viktor Vance's chest. And walking slowly between them, leaning heavily on an ebony cane topped with a silver wolf, was Étienne Dubois.
