Contents
Chapter 11
Overview
Keres infiltrates the charity event as catering staff and discovers Joey is absent, with Ace and Romeo guarding Mia Moretti instead. Adapting on the fly, Keres engineers a spill on Mia’s dress, isolates her under the guise of stain removal, chloroforms her, and exfiltrates through a staff route to a waiting van. The abduction shifts Keres’s leverage from Joey to Mia, escalating stakes with the Morettis and blindsiding Ace and Romeo.
Summary
Posing as catering staff at the Regency Hotel fundraiser, Keres scans the ballroom for Joey Moretti but instead spots Ace Giarrusso and Romeo protecting Mia Moretti. Realizing Joey isn’t attending, Keres decides to pivot her plan to Mia, noting Mia’s nervous tics and attachment to a favorite Chanel dress.
Keres maneuvers close, catches Ace’s eye, and purposefully spills red wine on Mia’s dress to create a plausible pretext. Playing contrite and helpful, she convinces Mia—and the wary Ace and Romeo—to let her try a “grandma’s remedy” in the staff bathroom, after Ace inspects the space and dismisses a locked janitor’s closet.
Inside with Mia, Keres produces a hidden chloroform-soaked cloth, subdues Mia quickly, and uses a cut key to access the janitor’s closet that leads to the kitchen. She carries the unconscious Mia through the busy back-of-house, unseen amid the rush, and exits to the loading area where a catering van waits.
Despite momentary scrutiny from a hotel worker lingering outside, Keres loads Mia into the van and drives off into light traffic, relieved and confident she now holds critical leverage against the Morettis. Ace and Romeo, left outside the bathroom, remain unaware until it’s too late.
Who Appears
- KeresProtagonist; infiltrates the gala as a server, pivots target, chloroforms and abducts Mia via staff routes.
- Mia MorettiTarget of opportunity; polite and nervous at the event, lured by stain-removal ruse, rendered unconscious and kidnapped.
- Ace GiarrussoBodyguard; recognizes Keres, inspects the bathroom, waits outside, unknowingly enables Keres’s abduction plan.
- RomeoBodyguard; flanks Mia with Ace, acknowledges prior meeting with Keres, remains outside during the abduction.
- Hotel employee in cheap suitBack-entrance staffer; briefly challenges Keres and later observes her loading Mia into the van.