Chapter 4
The silence in the bridal suite was suffocating, broken only by Preston’s ragged, uneven breathing and the distant, muffled strains of Pachelbel’s Canon floating up from the garden terrace below.
Warren’s arrogant posture was beginning to fracture at the seams. "Even if you have the wire logs, Giulietta, you cannot execute us here. Look outside that window! The governor is sitting in the front row! Half the federal judiciary is drinking mimosas on my lawn! If a single shot is fired in this suite, the FBI will tear your entire syndicate to shreds!"
A faint, breathtaking smile touched Giulietta’s lips. It was a smile completely devoid of warmth, radiant with sovereign menace.
"You still believe this is your estate, Warren?" she asked quietly.
She raised her left hand, snapping her fingers once.
Silvio reached into his tailored breast pocket, withdrew an encrypted tactical tablet, and handed it directly to Giulietta. She tapped the screen with a manicured fingernail and turned the display toward the two Hales.
On the screen was a live video feed from the estate’s grand ballroom and garden terrace.
The guests were no longer drinking champagne. Across the lawn, thirty Marconi enforcers dressed in formal morning suits were moving discreetly between the tables, politely escorting the politicians, judges, and foreign dignitaries toward the circular driveway where a fleet of black town cars was already lined up.
"What are they doing?" Preston gasped, his voice cracking into high-pitched panic. "They're clearing the reception!"
"Governor Miller received a priority briefing twenty minutes ago," Giulietta explained, her voice steady and conversational. "Informing his security detail that Warren Hale is the subject of an imminent federal indictment for racketeering, contract murder, and corporate fraud. The dignitaries are departing under diplomatic discretion. They don't want their names associated with a crime scene."
Warren lunged forward, his hand clawing into his pocket for his phone, but Silvio’s massive hand clamped down on his wrist, pinning the old man’s arm behind his back with effortless cruelty.
"Get your hands off me, you ape!" Warren yelled, his face turning an apoplectic purple. "Preston, do something! Grab the club!"
Preston looked down at the metal golf club lying near his shoes. He looked at the ten armed capos lining the room. He looked into Giulietta’s unblinking, pitiless hazel eyes.
He didn't move. He stood trembling in his tailored trousers, his hands raised in pathetic, instinctive surrender.
"He won't touch the club, Warren," Giulietta murmured, walking over to the full-length mirror. She reached up, calmly removed her pearl-trimmed veil, and laid the delicate fabric across the vanity chair. "Because your son only knows how to threaten women behind locked doors."
"What do you want, Giulietta?" Preston begged, tears of self-pity finally tracking through the sweat on his rosy cheeks. "We’ll give you the berths! We’ll sign over the maritime permits! Just let us walk out to our cars!"
Giulietta turned from the mirror, smoothing the bodice of her ivory gown.
"You don't have permits to give me, Preston," she said, her voice dropping into that chilling, executive cadence. "Everything your father built was mortgaged against my family's collateral. As of nine o'clock this morning, the Marconi Trust called the loans."
May you like
She looked at Silvio.
"Bring them down to the conservatory," Giulietta commanded. "It's time to announce the cancellation of the wedding."
