Chapter 4
The heavy doors clicked shut, plunging the vast, luminous dining room into a profound, ringing silence. The cascading crystal chandeliers continued to cast their warm golden light over the abandoned gold-rimmed porcelain and half-empty crystal wine glasses. The opulent space, designed for a lavish celebration, now felt like a gilded execution chamber.
Viviana 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.
"Elliot, you cannot believe this is real," Viviana 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 hallucination and a lying maid?"
Elliot stood immovably in his dark three-piece suit. He slowly turned his head, his handsome, angular face looking directly at his wife.
"Can you tell me how you survived the crash, Helena?" Elliot asked, his deep voice softening only slightly.
Helena leaned heavily against the doorframe, her bare feet stark against the polished floor. She looked at Viviana, her eyes filled with a weary, profound terror.
"I wasn't in the car, Elliot," Helena explained, her voice trembling but remarkably clear. "I was intercepted before I reached the garage. Viviana’s men took me. They drugged me. When I woke up, I was locked in the old servant corridors. She told me you ordered the hit, and that she was keeping me alive only to torment me."
Viviana 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!"
Elliot turned his broad, powerful shoulders toward his fiancée. The extremely short stubble on his jawline seemed to bristle with barely contained violence.
"Would my wife risk her life to manufacture such a claim?" Elliot asked.
"Yes!" Viviana shrieked, pointing viciously at Helena. "Look at her! She is crazy! She wants to ruin us!"
Elliot didn't look at Helena. He kept his perceptive eyes locked entirely on Viviana, 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, Viviana, or must I extract it from you?" Elliot asked, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her.
"I love you, Elliot!" 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 an heir from your first marriage would threaten our bloodline! I didn't want to hurt her!"
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"Did you believe that burying my wife alive would secure your place at the head of this empire?" Elliot asked.
His voice dropped to a terrifying, gravelly whisper. It was a sound that had preceded the end of many men's lives. Viviana 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.
