Chapter 6
The cascading crystal chandeliers continued to bathe the room in their bright, airy light, but the charity dinner had fundamentally shattered. The guests remained paralyzed in their velvet dining chairs, watching the confrontation unfold with breathless terror. They were seasoned politicians and syndicate lieutenants, but none of them dared to intervene in a dispute of this magnitude.
Juliana stared up at Alden, her chest heaving beneath her sculpted satin gown. She opened her mouth to speak, to spin another lie, to deflect the blame onto the housemaid, but her vocal cords were paralyzed by the sheer, overwhelming terror radiating from the man standing opposite her.
"Are you struggling to find a suitable explanation for my silence, Juliana?" Alden asked.
His deep, low voice remained completely level. The measured pause between his words was a calculated instrument of psychological torture. He did not step toward her, but the sheer gravity of his presence pressed her against the wall.
"Alden, darling, please," Juliana finally gasped, her American accent pitching high and breathless with panic. "He is just a child! He misunderstood! I was trying to comfort him because his mother was working so much! He has an overactive imagination!"
"Does a six-year-old possess the imagination required to invent such a specific and damning cruelty?" Alden inquired, his perceptive eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"She put him up to this!" Juliana cried, tears of sheer desperation welling in her eyes. She pointed a shaking, diamond-adorned finger at the housemaid. "She has been trying to poison him against me! She wants to ruin our evening! She wants to take my place in this house!"
Mina held Owen tighter against her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs. She glared at the socialite, her soft features hardening with quiet outrage. Owen shrank back slightly, overwhelmed by the shouting, but Alden’s solid, unmoving presence kept them both anchored.
"Would this child fabricate a nightmare to destroy the foundation of our alliance?" Alden asked, his voice echoing off the ivory-paneled walls.
"Yes!" Juliana shrieked, looking frantically around the room at the seated guests, silently begging someone—anyone—to intervene. But the elite crowd sat immobilized, their fair faces pale with shock, utterly unwilling to cross the mafia boss.
Alden slowly swept his gaze across the room, taking in the numerous guests sitting frozen at their polished walnut tables.
"Have you all finished your meals?" Alden asked the room at large.
It was phrased as a question, but the command hidden within it was unmistakable. Chairs scraped violently against the polished hardwood and marble floors as the guests practically scrambled to their feet. There were no polite farewells, no lingering handshakes. Men in tailored suits and women in evening gowns fled the bright, elegant room with frantic urgency, eager to escape the blast radius of Alden Kincaid’s wrath.
May you like
Within moments, the grand dining gallery was entirely empty, save for the four figures standing near the head table. The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut, sealing the room and locking Juliana inside with her greatest nightmare.
"Did you truly believe you could run a shadow operation in my own home and remain seated at my table?" Alden asked, turning his terrifying focus entirely back to the woman in the satin gown.
