Chapter 2
The air around the gift table seemed to drop ten degrees. The clean daylight beating against the glass panes lost every ounce of its warmth, turning the conservatory into a brightly lit autopsy suite.
"Nola, stop making a scene," a sharp male voice snapped.
Ashcombe approached from the terrace, his polished Italian oxfords clicking against the white marble. At thirty-eight, Lachlan’s only surviving son shared his father’s sharp jaw and rosy complexion, but none of his stillness. His tailored navy suit was expensive, his gold watch glinted in the sunlight, but his eyes darted nervously between the gathered associates and the broken toy in his father’s hand. He reached out an impatient palm toward the ruined fabric.
"Give that here, Dad," Ashcombe said, his tone irritated, trying to mask his anxiety with casual authority. "Expensive occasions deserve proper gifts. The child doesn't know any better. Ottoline was just trying to keep the table presentable for the governor’s arrival."
Lachlan did not yield the fabric. With a slow, deliberate sweep of his left arm, he shifted the empty silk rabbit behind his back, simultaneously placing his heavy frame directly between his son and the trembling little girl.
Lachlan’s slate-gray eyes locked onto Ashcombe’s face. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe hard. He simply watched his son with the lethal patience of a magistrate reading a death warrant.
Ashcombe’s irritation flared into reckless humiliation. Seeing the eyes of three dozen high-ranking syndicate lieutenants, city councilmen, and corporate lawyers fixed on him, he lost his temper. He reached violently around his father’s hip, his fingers clawing into the shoulder of Nola’s knit cardigan to yank her away.
"I said get that garbage out of here—"
He never finished the sentence.
Lachlan’s left hand struck like an iron vice, snapping shut around Ashcombe’s wrist. With a short, vicious twist of his forearm, he broke his son’s grip off the child’s shoulder, wrenching the younger man off-balance.
Before Ashcombe could recover his footing, Lachlan delivered one short, compact counterpunch with his right fist straight across Ashcombe’s jaw.
The impact was sickeningly solid—a dull, wet crack of bone and knuckle that sent a shockwave through the room.
Ashcombe was thrown violently backward. His knees buckled as he crashed into the padded velvet bench, his shoulder slamming into the edge of the gift table. The jolt knocked two large, silver-wrapped boxes off the linen cloth, sending them tumbling onto the deep Persian rug with a hollow thud. Ashcombe lay sprawled against the cushions, his head spinning, blood pooling instantly inside his split lip.
A collective gasp rippled through the eighty guests. Men in four-thousand-dollar dinner jackets stiffened; women froze with crystal champagne flutes halfway to their lips. Nobody breathed.
Ottoline gasped, her hand flying to her throat, her diamonds trembling against her collarbone. Desperate to assert control, she lunged forward, her red-tipped fingers clawing toward the empty rabbit shell still held in Lachlan’s grasp.
"Give me that!" she hissed.
Lachlan didn't even turn his head. His left hand shot out and clamped around Ottoline’s wrist like a steel shackle.
He didn't strike her, but he twisted her arm with steady, agonizing torque, forcing her hand down and away from the child until her knees bowed under the pressure. A muscular bodyguard in a dark suit stepped silently out from behind the marble pillars, positioning his broad frame directly between Ottoline and Nola.
Lachlan released her wrist as if casting aside soiled linen.
He bent down, his three-piece suit flexing without a crease, and gently placed the hollow silk rabbit into Nola’s trembling hands.
Nola didn't cry out loud. Her small fingers immediately went to work, desperately shoving tufts of white polyester stuffing back through the torn seam of the rabbit’s belly, her cheeks blotched with tears as she tried to make it whole again.
Lachlan slowly straightened to his full height. His gaze drifted down to his son, who was struggling to sit up on the bench, wiping a crimson smear from his chin with the sleeve of his tailored suit.
The entire ballroom was entombed in absolute silence.
Lachlan spoke. His voice was not loud, but it possessed the low, crushing density of grinding granite.
"A proper gift?" Lachlan asked, his eyes burning into Ashcombe’s pale, sweat-sheened forehead. "Shall I tell her what you gave your mother?"
May you like
Ashcombe’s eyes widened with pure, undisguised terror. His gaze immediately flicked sideways toward Ottoline.
Ottoline, clutching her bruised wrist, took one involuntary step backward, retreating from the gift table as if the floor beneath her had caught fire.
