Chapter 6
The ringing silence on the bright, cinematic tennis court was profound, broken only by the wet, rattling groans coming from Miles as he bled amongst the scattered foam grips and rackets. The vivid colors of the summer afternoon felt entirely disconnected from the dark, violent reality of the syndicate's justice.
Evelyn stared at her brother’s ruined body, her pale, porcelain skin turning a sickly, translucent white. The elegant, untouchable aristocratic mask she wore shattered entirely, replaced by a surge of pure, unadulterated panic. The horrific reality that her status, her beauty, and her engagement ring offered absolutely zero protection against the wrath of the Mafia Boss finally crashed down upon her.
"Damon, please," Evelyn wheezed, her American accent cracking into a pathetic, high-pitched whine.
Driven by cornered, hysterical desperation, her mind fractured. She believed that if she could just get to the child, she could use Hazel as leverage to negotiate her way off the court. It was an irrational, suicidal thought born of absolute panic.
Evelyn rushed forward, her athletic shoes squeaking frantically against the green surface. She lunged aggressively toward Hazel, her heavily jeweled hands reaching out to grab the soft fabric of the three-year-old’s pastel cardigan.
Damon’s eyes turned into black, soulless voids.
He moved with the terrifying, explosive speed of a predator protecting its young. Before Evelyn’s manicured fingers could even brush the child's clothing, Damon’s massive, tattooed hand shot out. He caught Evelyn’s wrist in an iron, inescapable grip, his fingers digging brutally into her fair skin.
Evelyn let out a sharp gasp of shock, her eyes widening as the immense, immovable power of her fiancé completely arrested her momentum.
"Let me go!" Evelyn screamed, struggling frantically to pull her arm free, her diamond bracelets clinking loudly in the tense silence.
Damon did not flinch. He did not utter a single word of warning.
With a sudden, devastating exertion of raw masculine power, Damon violently tore her hand completely away from his daughter's space. He didn't pause. Utilizing the momentum of her own frantic struggle, Damon pulled his right hand back and delivered one thunderous, catastrophic open-handed slap directly across Evelyn’s face.
The sound of the impact cracked like a whip, echoing fiercely through the bright, sunlit air.
The immense kinetic force behind the blow was absolute. It lifted the thirty-five-year-old woman completely off her feet. Evelyn spun violently backward, entirely out of control, her elegant tennis-club outfit twisting awkwardly around her body.
She hurtled backward across the court, flying directly toward the heavy padded court bench positioned near the sidelines.
She crashed into the padded bench with staggering force. The impact sent the bench sliding violently across the surface until it slammed into the practice-cone stack. Bright orange practice cones scattered explosively across the court. The vibration caused a pile of folded spare nets hanging on the fence to fall, raining down heavily over her shoulders.
The black plastic ball-machine remote dropped from her paralyzed fingers, clattering loudly onto the court.
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Evelyn collapsed into a pathetic, groaning heap, tangled in the spare netting and surrounded by practice cones, her cheek already swelling an angry, dark red.
There was no dialogue. The estate staff, the hardened bodyguards, and Cora stared in absolute, breathless horror. In less than ten seconds, the veteran Mafia boss had physically dismantled two high-ranking syndicate members without breaking a sweat.
