Chapter 6
The silence in the grand salon became a physical, suffocating pressure. The dozens of ivory candles flickering in their gilded candelabras seemed to be the only things moving in the entire, luminous space.
Tessa swallowed hard, her pulse racing frantically. She met Dorian’s dark, commanding gaze. Her chest heaved rapidly beneath the fitted black fabric of her creased dress. She knew the extreme danger of answering that question. She knew the power of Maribel's family, and she knew the socialite's capacity for vindictive, fatal violence.
But looking into Dorian’s eyes, feeling the absolute, terrifying demand for the truth radiating from his masculine frame, Tessa found she had no choice. The presence of the mafia boss stripped away her ability to lie, and the sight of Elinor looking so frail on the sofa shattered the last remnants of her fear.
Tessa’s breath trembled violently, parting her lips before she could force the fragile words out into the open. She refused to look at the woman in the burgundy gown. She kept her eyes locked on the man who could protect them all.
"Maribel took it yesterday," Tessa stated.
Her voice remained quiet and clear, carrying a fragile tremor that betrayed her exhaustion, yet it was devastatingly absolute.
The admission was a knife to the chest of the entire syndicate. The sheer, sociopathic malice of stealing a matriarch's heart medication and hiding it in a Christmas decoration sent a fresh wave of horror through the room. To attempt to murder the mother of the boss in his own home was an insult that demanded immediate blood.
Maribel’s face drained of all color. The fair, rosy skin turned a sickly, translucent white beneath her luxurious satin gown. The polished, elegant public manner she had maintained all evening fractured completely.
She realized in a fraction of a second that her carefully constructed narrative was entirely destroyed. The physical evidence was in the hands of a six-year-old, and the verbal testimony had just been delivered in front of fifty witnesses. To deny it now would only make her look weak and pathetic.
Maribel glanced quickly toward Elinor on the velvet sofa, her eyes flashing with pure, unadulterated hatred, before she returned her gaze directly to Dorian.
She took a shallow breath, forcing the muscles in her face to obey her frantic mind. A defensive, twisted smile tightened at the corners of her lips, a grotesque mask of aristocratic composure attempting to salvage her pride.
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"I'm tired of waiting to inherit," Maribel declared softly.
The sheer, brazen audacity of the confession echoed off the gilded mirrors. It was a callous, unapologetic admission of attempted murder, an arrogant attempt to gaslight the room into believing her actions were simply the harsh realities of syndicate succession.
