Chapter 4
The cascading crystal chandeliers continued to bathe the room in their bright, airy light, but the charity dinner had fundamentally shattered. The guests remained paralyzed in their velvet dining chairs, watching the confrontation unfold with breathless terror. They were seasoned politicians and syndicate lieutenants, but none of them dared to intervene in a dispute of this magnitude.
Felicity’s fair, rosy skin lost its final trace of color, turning entirely translucent. She swallowed hard, her chest heaving beneath her sculpted satin gown.
"Ambrose, darling, please," Felicity finally gasped, her American accent pitching high and breathless with panic. "She is just a child! She misunderstood! I was on the phone with a boutique about a dress that had a defect! She is confused!"
"Does a six-year-old possess the imagination required to invent such a specific and damning context?" Ambrose asked.
His deep, low voice remained completely level. The measured pause between his words was a calculated instrument of psychological torture. He did not step toward her, but the sheer gravity of his presence pressed her against the wall.
"She put him up to this!" Felicity cried, pointing a shaking, diamond-adorned finger at the housemaid. "She has been trying to poison her against me since the day I moved in! She wants to ruin our evening!"
Hollie’s hand instinctively tightened around Maisie's fingers beneath the table, a fierce, maternal gesture of protection. She glared at the socialite, her soft features hardening with quiet outrage. Maisie shrank back slightly against her father’s leg, overwhelmed by the shouting, but Ambrose’s solid, unmoving presence kept her anchored.
"Would my daughter fabricate a narrative to destroy the foundation of this family?" Ambrose asked, his voice echoing off the ivory-paneled walls.
"Yes!" Felicity shrieked, tears of sheer desperation welling in her eyes. She looked frantically around the room at the seated guests, silently begging someone—anyone—to intervene. But the elite crowd sat immobilized, their fair faces pale with shock, utterly unwilling to cross the mafia boss.
Ambrose 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?" Ambrose asked the room at large.
May you like
It was phrased as a question, but the command hidden within it was unmistakable. Chairs scraped violently against the polished hardwood 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 Ambrose Calder’s wrath.
Within moments, the grand dining hall was entirely empty, save for the four figures standing near the head table. The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut, sealing the room and locking Felicity inside with her greatest nightmare.
