Chapter 4
Julian slowly swept his gaze across the room, taking in the numerous guests sitting frozen at their polished walnut tables.
"Have you all finished your meals?" Julian asked the room at large.
It was phrased as a question, but the command hidden within it was unmistakable and absolute. Chairs scraped violently against the cream marble floors as the guests practically scrambled to their feet. There were no polite farewells, no lingering handshakes. Men in tailored suits and women in evening gowns fled the bright, elegant room with frantic urgency, eager to escape the blast radius of Julian Vale’s wrath.
Within ninety seconds, the expansive dining hall was completely empty, save for Julian, Seraphine, Lena, and Eleanor. The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut, sealing the room and locking Seraphine inside with her greatest nightmare.
"Did you truly believe you could run a shadow prison in my own home and remain standing at my table?" Julian asked, turning his terrifying focus entirely back to the woman in the satin gown.
Seraphine backed away from the head table, her heels clicking unsteadily against the polished floor. She wrapped her arms around her waist, a defensive posture that crushed the sculpted satin of her expensive gown. Her diamond earrings shook as she wept, her carefully constructed public smile entirely destroyed.
"Julian, you cannot believe this is real," Seraphine sobbed, her chest heaving. "My family arranged this marriage! We are supposed to unite our syndicates! Are you going to throw all of that away because of a lying maid and a confused old woman?"
Julian stood immovably in his tailored dark three-piece suit. He slowly crouched down, bringing his handsome, angular face level with his mother’s.
"Can you tell me exactly why she put you down there, Mother?" Julian asked gently, his deep voice softening significantly to comfort the older woman.
Eleanor coughed, leaning heavily against Lena’s supporting arm. She looked at the housemaid, who gave her an encouraging, tearful nod, before looking back into her son's cold, but loving, eyes.
"I found her ledgers, Julian," Eleanor explained, her voice trembling but remarkably clear. "I found the records of the money the Voss family was siphoning from your accounts. I confronted her in the library. She told me I was going to disappear to a facility in Switzerland. The next night, her men grabbed me from my bed and dragged me down here. She came down once a week to tell me you were dead and that she owned the house now."
Seraphine let out a blood-curdling scream of denial. "She is lying! The maid told her to say that! She has been stealing information and trying to frame me for it!"
Julian rose slowly to his full height. He turned his broad, powerful shoulders toward his fiancée. The extremely short stubble on his jawline seemed to bristle with barely contained violence.
"Would my mother risk her life in this room to manufacture such a claim?" Julian asked.
"Yes!" Seraphine shrieked, pointing viciously at the housemaid. "Look at her! She thinks she's better than me just because she plays the innocent victim!"
Julian didn't look at Lena. He kept his perceptive eyes locked entirely on Seraphine, dissecting her panic, reading the absolute guilt written plainly across her flushed, rosy skin. He had survived in the criminal underworld by being an unparalleled judge of human character. He knew when someone was lying to him, and he knew the awful, crushing weight of the truth.
"Are you capable of telling the truth, Seraphine, or must I extract it from you?" Julian asked, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her.
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"I love you, Julian!" she wept, falling to her knees on the luxurious rug, the sculpted satin of her gown pooling around her. She clasped her hands together in a begging gesture. "Please, darling! My father forced me to do it! He said your mother was standing in the way of the merger! She wouldn't let me take control! I didn't want to hurt her! I just needed her out of the way until the wedding!"
"Did you believe that torturing the former matriarch of this family would secure your place at the top of this empire?" Julian asked, his voice dropping to a terrifying, gravelly whisper.
