Chapter 7
The grand, airy room felt impossibly small as Eamon took a slow, deliberate step around the edge of the banquet table. His leather shoes clicked against the marble floor, a rhythmic, terrifying sound that promised absolute destruction. He did not pull his gun. He didn't need to. His sheer presence was enough to paralyze everyone in the room.
He bent down seamlessly and picked up the discarded DNA report from the floor. He held the paper loosely in his heavily tattooed hand, the clean whites of the page stark against the dark ink on his fingers.
He walked directly toward Winona. The older woman shrank back, pressing herself against the dining table, her face pale and covered in a sheen of terrified sweat as she clutched her injured wrist.
Eamon stopped inches from her. He placed the suspicious report deliberately onto the table, right in front of her trembling hands.
He leaned in, his broad shoulders blocking the light from the nearest chandelier, casting a dark shadow over her.
"You forged this to take my place?" Eamon asked. His voice was quiet, dangerous, and completely devoid of any familial warmth. It was the voice of a man speaking to a ghost.
Winona stared at the paper, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. She looked frantically left and right, her eyes silently pleading with the sixty relatives and guests who had surrounded her just an hour ago.
But the crowd had turned. The people who had laughed when the garbage was dumped on him now looked away, refusing to meet her gaze. They understood the wind had shifted. Eamon was not the false heir; Winona was the traitor.
Desperate, Winona looked toward her two bodyguards. The men she paid handsomely to protect her were standing only a few feet away.
"Do something!" Winona hissed, her voice cracking. "Shoot him! I order you to shoot him!"
The Black American bodyguard swallowed hard, his eyes flicking toward Eamon, then down to the floor. The white American guard slowly took his hand away from his jacket lapel, raising his palms slightly in a universal gesture of surrender.
Neither man moved a single muscle to help her. They knew that drawing a weapon against Eamon Rothwell in a room full of syndicate members would result in their immediate, violent deaths.
"Are you waiting for a rescue, Aunt Winona?" Eamon asked, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that chilled the blood of everyone listening. "Do you see anyone in this luminous room willing to die for a forgery?"
Oriana stayed close beside Eamon. She hadn't retreated to the shadows. She stood just behind his right shoulder, still carefully holding the clean linen napkin against her chest. She watched the woman who had tormented her for years completely unravel in a matter of seconds.
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"It wasn't just me!" Winona suddenly cried out, her survival instinct overriding her pride. She pointed a shaking finger at the crowd. "I didn't forge it myself! I was given the document! You think I'm the only one who wants you gone, Eamon?"
Eamon’s eyes narrowed slightly. The dynamic of the room shifted once again, the tension spiking as Winona desperately tried to trade a name for her life.
