Chapter 5
The heavy doors clicked shut, plunging the vast, luminous dining hall into a profound, ringing silence. The cascading crystal chandeliers continued to cast their warm golden light over the abandoned fine porcelain and half-empty crystal wine glasses. The opulent space, designed for celebration, now felt like a gilded interrogation chamber.
Lucille 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 facade entirely destroyed.
"Maxwell, you cannot believe this is real," Lucille 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 boy?"
Maxwell stood immovably in his tailored dark three-piece suit. He slowly crouched down, bringing his handsome, angular face level with his son’s.
"Can you tell me exactly what she made you do that day, Bobby?" Maxwell asked gently, his deep voice softening significantly to comfort the boy.
Bobby sniffled, rubbing his nose with the back of his small hand. He looked at Anita, who gave him an encouraging, tearful nod, before looking back into his father's cold, but loving, eyes.
"She gave me the gun," Bobby explained, his voice trembling but remarkably clear. "She said it was a special toy that made a loud bang. She told me to sneak up behind Grandpa in the garden and play cops and robbers. When I pulled the trigger, he fell down. I was so scared. Then she took the gun away and told me you would hate me forever if I ever told the truth."
Lucille let out a blood-curdling scream of denial. "He is lying! The maid told him to say that! She has been stealing information and trying to frame me for it!"
Maxwell 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 Anita risk her life in this room to manufacture such a claim?" Maxwell asked.
"Yes!" Lucille shrieked, pointing viciously at the housemaid. "Look at her! She thinks she's better than me just because she plays mommy to your little brat!"
Maxwell didn't look at Anita. He kept his perceptive eyes locked entirely on Lucille, 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, Lucille, or must I extract it from you?" Maxwell asked, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her.
"I love you, Maxwell!" 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 father was standing in the way of the merger! He wouldn't step down! I didn't want to pull the trigger myself!"
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"Did you believe that weaponizing my own son would secure your place at the head of this empire?" Maxwell asked.
His voice dropped to a terrifying, gravelly whisper. It was a sound that had preceded the end of many men's lives. Lucille stared up at his movie-star handsome face, realizing with absolute, horrifying clarity that there was no escape. The mafia boss had heard enough, and the consequences would be paid in blood.
