Chapter 160
Untitled
She's aware of the instant interest from her American rivals slowly keeping them at arms length. They are willing to find ways to get close to diplomats. She had opened a speakeasy back then and she has the less expensive wines from her vineyard in her establishment for all walks of life. Bootleggers also conducted business in discrete areas reserved for all kinds of business she acquired. She bought an old plantation fully staffed with 100 people. The gardens grew multicolored roses rival nearby property. Hidden is a property storing gems and fine silk and shipment of wine from previous years for speakeasy and local
The velvet rope outside the speakeasy swung with a practiced ease, a subtle signal to those in the know. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of illicit bourbon, expensive French perfume, and the faint, ever-present aroma of cigar smoke. The music—a lively, syncopated jazz rhythm—bounced off the mahogany paneling and the shimmering facets of the chandeliers, casting long, dancing shadows across the clientele. She stood near the main bar, a figure of serene, calculated composure amidst the controlled chaos. Her eyes, sharp and multilingual interpreters of human nature, cataloged every entrance, every gesture, every whispered confidence.
The American rivals were a constant, buzzing presence, like moths drawn to a dangerously bright, new flame. They circled, their intentions transparent beneath layers of expensive, ill-fitting silk. They sought proximity, not for genuine camaraderie, but for the reflected glow of her burgeoning influence. They saw the effortless blending of her daughter into the highest echelons of diplomacy and society, the whispered admiration from foreign dignitaries, and they coveted it all. Their envy was a palpable thing, heavy and cloying, yet she dismissed it with the subtle lift of an eyebrow, maintaining a precise distance that both intrigued and frustrated them. They were accustomed to immediate access, to knowing the lineage and the ledger of every newcomer. She offered neither immediately. They were welcome to the cheaper wines from the burgeoning Italian vineyard—robust reds that kept the common patrons content—but the true vintages, the ones she reserved for select, trustworthy partners, remained locked away.
Her holdings now spraw led across the territory like a slow-moving, elegant tide. The speakeasy, Elixir, was more than just a place to sell watered-down gin; it was a nexus of underground commerce. Discreet back rooms, shielded by thick tapestries commissioned from her own artists, served as meeting places for high-stakes negotiations that had nothing to do with bathtub alcohol. Bootleggers knew the hidden language of the coded knocks and the subtle changes in the music’s tempo. They conducted their business—the transfer of illicit goods, the planning of shipments larger than any federal agent could track—in shadows that she meticulously controlled.
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