Chapter 2
The golden warmth of the dining room suddenly felt suffocating. No one dared to speak. The elite guests—captains of industry, politicians, and high-ranking members of Bastian’s syndicate—sat frozen in their cream velvet chairs, their eyes darting between the mafia boss and his beautiful fiancée.
Celine’s throat worked as she swallowed dryly. Her diamond earrings caught the chandelier’s light as she trembled. “Bastian, please. It’s just a security tag from the jeweler. They must have forgotten to take it off in their rush.”
Audrey’s grip on the watch case tightened. She knew what a security tag looked like, and the translucent, micro-textured square clinging to the leather strap was not it. It looked medical. It looked lethal.
“Is that what a security tag looks like to you, Celine?” Bastian asked, his tone devoid of any inflection. He did not look at the watch; his piercing gaze remained entirely locked on the woman he was supposed to marry.
“Yes! Of course it is,” Celine insisted, her voice pitching slightly higher. She took a half-step forward, reaching out a manicured hand. “Just give it to me, Audrey. I’ll have it sent back to the boutique tomorrow. It’s ruined the evening.”
Audrey took a subtle step back, instinctively sheltering the watch behind the line of Bastian’s broad shoulder. She looked down at Felix, ensuring the boy hadn't accidentally touched the adhesive side.
“Would you all mind leaving the room?” Bastian asked the table at large.
It was phrased as a question, but it was an absolute command. Within seconds, the scraping of chairs echoed across the polished marble floors. The guests moved quickly and quietly, abandoning their half-eaten meals and expensive wine, eager to escape the epicenter of Bastian Wells’s wrath.
Only Bastian, Celine, Audrey, and little Felix remained, surrounded by flickering ivory candles and the suffocating scent of white roses.
“Audrey, would you hand me the watch?” Bastian murmured, extending a hand adorned with refined, generously spaced artistic tattoos.
“Sir, please don’t touch the patch,” Audrey warned softly, placing the watch into his palm but keeping her own fingers strictly on the metal casing. “It looks like a transdermal delivery mechanism. If it touches bare skin, whatever is inside it will enter your bloodstream.”
Celine let out a harsh, incredulous laugh, pointing a shaking finger at the housemaid. “Are you actually listening to the help? What does a maid know about transdermal anything? She’s being dramatic, Bastian!”
“Does she sound dramatic to you, Celine?” Bastian asked, his thumb hovering a mere millimeter over the strange square patch. He tilted the watch, catching the light on the surface of the patch, revealing microscopic, needle-like structures designed to pierce pores.
“Bastian, you’re scaring Felix,” Celine deflected, her eyes wide and pleading. “Look at him. Put that away and let’s just salvage the night.”
“Is my son the one who is scared right now?” Bastian inquired softly.
Felix clung to his father’s tailored trouser leg, his big eyes looking up at Audrey for reassurance. Audrey offered the boy a gentle, comforting nod, though her own heart was hammering against her ribs. She had crossed a line tonight. A maid was meant to be invisible. But when she had seen that patch resting against the child’s delicate wrist, her instincts had violently overridden her training.
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Celine took another step forward, tears welling in her eyes. “Bastian, I love you. I bought that for your birthday. Why would you look at me like this?”
“Is this what love looks like, Celine?” Bastian asked, holding the watch up so the deadly patch faced her.
