Chapter 7
Antonia felt her knees go weak beneath the table. The sculpted satin of her evening gown seemed to offer no armor against his penetrating stare. The fair, rosy flush on her skin had turned to a sickly, translucent white. She realized that arguing against the visible sabotage of the chair and the clear, undeniable eyewitness testimony of the child was a losing battle.
"Marcus, darling, please," Antonia whispered, her voice a fragile, pathetic breath, entirely abandoning her polished social poise. "I... I was trying to protect you. Your mother was draining your resources, taking up all your time. You needed to focus on the syndicate. I was doing it for us!"
"Does love require a woman to orchestrate the murder of an old woman and sabotage the man she claims to protect?" Marcus finally asked, his deep voice slicing through the heavy air.
He slowly released his grip on her forearm. He didn't push her; he simply let her go, a gesture of absolute, terrifying dismissal.
"My family's rivals put me up to it!" Antonia cried, tears of panic and frustration finally spilling over her fair cheeks, ruining her pristine makeup. "The Vance family threatened me! They said they would kill my father if I didn't help them weaken you! I had no choice!"
"Do you believe my blood can be washed away by the cowardice of a traitor?" Marcus inquired, his cold, perceptive eyes dissecting her false narrative with surgical precision.
Antonia opened her mouth, her breath catching audibly in the quiet room. She looked at the towering, deeply masculine Mafia boss, realizing that the formidable intellect she had so arrogantly underestimated had just trapped her perfectly.
"My father will not stand for this insult," Antonia hissed, panic mutating into cornered, vicious entitlement. "If you humiliate me based on the ramblings of a child, my family will declare war. He will shut down your southern supply lines."
"Will he declare war?" Marcus asked, tilting his head with dangerous curiosity. The loose strands of wavy hair falling over his forehead contrasted violently with the absolute, apocalyptic death promised in his cold eyes. "Or will he thank me for returning his defective, murderous daughter before she caused a war he could not possibly win?"
Antonia’s mouth dropped open. The color drained entirely from her lips. She realized she had absolutely no power left in the room. The alliance was dead, severed by her own psychopathic ambition.
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"Get your hands off me!" Antonia screamed as two massive men in tailored dark suits stepped forward from the shadows and grabbed her by the arms. She thrashed wildly, her sculpted satin gown twisting awkwardly around her legs. "You are choosing a servant and a hallucinating brat over a queen! You are a fool, Marcus!"
"Are empires built by men who sleep beside their own assassins?" Marcus inquired, entirely unaffected by her venom.
