Chapter 5
The silence in the grand dining hall was absolute, a suffocating vacuum created by the sudden, terrifying shift in reality. The cascading crystal chandeliers continued to cast their soft elegant warmth across the room, but the atmosphere had turned as cold as a morgue.
"Julian, please, you have to understand," Natalia stammered, her American accent trembling uncontrollably. She took a stumbling step backward, her high heels catching on the thick patterned rug. "She was trying to leave you! She was going to take the boy and go to the federal authorities! I intercepted her at the docks! I was protecting the syndicate! I was protecting you!"
"Do you protect a man by drowning his heart and caging his soul?" Julian inquired, his dark suit absorbing the ambient light as he took a slow, deliberate step toward her.
"She is a liability!" Natalia shrieked, her panic mutating into cornered, vicious entitlement. "My family brings the eastern ports to this alliance! You need me, Julian! You cannot humiliate me like this over a weak woman who couldn't handle our world!"
"Is a woman who survives four months in captivity truly the weaker of the two of you?" Julian asked smoothly, tilting his head a fraction of an inch. The extremely short stubble on his jawline caught the golden light, highlighting the lethal tension in his facial muscles.
He didn't wait for her pathetic, scrambling answer. He slowly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the silent, paralyzed guests.
"Is this engagement dinner concluded?" Julian asked the room at large.
The question was rhetorical, a lethal command disguised as an inquiry. The guests immediately understood. Chairs scraped against the rugs as the most powerful men and women in the American mafia stood up in unison. They didn't speak. They didn't offer their goodbyes or polite pleasantries. They simply turned and began a swift, silent exodus from the luminous dining hall, desperate to escape the blast radius of the Boss's impending wrath.
Within ninety seconds, the massive, opulent room was entirely empty of guests. The only people remaining were Julian, Elise, the sleeping infant, Natalia, and a dozen heavily armed, white American security guards standing quietly in the shadows near the marble columns.
"What are you going to do?" Natalia whispered, genuine, unadulterated fear finally bleeding into her eyes.
"Will my men escort you to the lower levels, or will you walk there yourself?" Julian asked softly, gesturing with a heavily tattooed hand toward the armed guards.
"You can't do this!" Natalia screamed, batting her hands at the air as two massive men in tailored dark suits stepped forward and grabbed her by the arms. "My father will declare war! He will burn this estate to the ground!"
"Will he burn my estate, or will he thank me for returning his defective, murderous daughter before she caused a war he could not possibly win?" Julian questioned, entirely unaffected by her venom.
He turned his back on her, an ultimate gesture of dismissal. Natalia's furious, terrified screams echoed through the bright, airy room as she was dragged away, fading only when the heavy double doors slammed shut.
Julian turned his full attention back to the beautiful housemaid. The cold, terrifying edge of the Mafia boss softened considerably as he looked down at his sleeping son in her arms.
"Will you show me where my wife is hiding, Elise?" Julian asked gently, his deep voice returning to a warm, comforting rumble.
May you like
"Yes, Mr. Blackthorne," Elise replied, her voice steadying as the adrenaline surged through her veins. "She is in the old groundskeeper's cottage behind the south walls."
"Shall we bring my family back together?" Julian asked, offering a rare, subtle smile that completely transformed his handsome, angular face.
