Chapter 2
The bright, airy warmth of the dining room suddenly felt suffocating. The golden light cascading from the crystal chandeliers illuminated the profound confusion etched into Luke’s delicate, rosy features. The boy stood frozen beside the mafia boss, his small hand still clutching the dark wool of Alistair's tailored sleeve. The innocent question hung in the luminous space, a heavy, jagged stone dropped into the perfectly polished surface of the high-society charity dinner.
Alistair did not immediately look down at his son. His cold, perceptive eyes had caught a sudden, violent flinch just inches away.
June’s slender fingers had frozen completely against the crystal handle of the water pitcher. The liquid inside sloshed wildly for a fraction of a second before she locked her muscles down. Her knuckles turned stark white. The graceful, elegant posture of the housemaid had suddenly turned as rigid and brittle as glass.
Alistair’s sharply defined jawline tightened. The artistic tattoos across his hand shifted as his fingers curled slightly against the velvet back of his chair. He possessed an uncanny ability to read the subtle shifts in the atmosphere, and the terror radiating from the beautiful housemaid was unmistakable. He slowly shifted his gaze from the trembling pitcher up to her face.
He met her eyes. June’s softly rounded face was pale, all the rosy warmth draining away.
"June? Where'd he hear that?" Alistair asked.
His deep, low voice was quiet and incredibly deliberate, vibrating with a measured, controlled pause after her name. The sheer, commanding authority in his tone sliced through the ambient chatter of the room like a straight razor.
The effect was instantaneous and absolute. Every single guest at the adjacent tables stopped eating. Forks hovered motionless over gold-rimmed porcelain. Crystal wine glasses were lowered slowly to the polished walnut tables. The polite, affluent American accents died in throats. Dozens of fair, rosy-cheeked faces turned toward the head of the room, watching the mafia boss direct his terrifying, unbroken focus onto a servant.
June held Alistair’s intense, unyielding gaze. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew the danger of crossing Selene Waverly, a woman who commanded her own ruthless influence. Selene had explicitly warned her to keep her mouth shut after she and Luke had inadvertently overheard a hushed, frantic phone call in the western corridor.
Her inner brows lifted slightly in a helpless, agonizing expression of dread. She swallowed hard, a visible, painful gulp in her throat, trying to force moisture into her dry mouth.
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"He heard her phone call," June answered.
Her voice was a small, frightened whisper, trembling under the weight of the luminous, crowded room. After speaking the devastating truth, she pressed her gently curved lips tightly together, her breathing shallow and erratic. She kept her hands locked on the pitcher, terrified of the violence that admitting this reality might bring upon her. The absolute silence of the dining hall amplified her fragile words, exposing the ugly, violent betrayal hidden beneath the lavish engagement dinner.
