Chapter 4
The wreckage of the gift table settled around Bastian’s groaning form. He lay clutching his jaw, a dark bruise already blooming across his rosy skin, his tailored suit ruined and covered in torn ribbons.
Bianca Coletti, her luxurious formal dress swishing furiously around her ankles, broke from her paralyzed stance. She rushed across the room, moving protectively toward her fallen son. She knelt beside the debris, her pearl jewelry clattering against her chest, her face a mask of furious, unhinged indignation.
"Are you insane, Alaric?!" Bianca shrieked, her American accent turning shrill and hysterical as she helped Bastian to his knees. She turned her venomous glare toward the other side of the room, pointing a trembling, heavily ringed finger directly at Serena, who was still weeping silently in the lieutenant's arms.
"You think you can humiliate my son?" Bianca screamed, her voice echoing violently through the bright, vivid ballroom. "My son is a Coletti! Without our soldiers, your borders are completely exposed! If you want to play this game, fine! Then take your daughter. My grandson inherits everything. The entire alliance, the businesses, the ports—it all goes to Bastian and his true heir!"
Bastian, wiping a smear of blood from his split lip, nodded along with his mother, glaring up at Alaric with a mixture of fear and pure hatred. "She's right, Alaric. The contracts state that the wealth passes to the firstborn male. You signed the papers yourself."
Alaric ignored the bleeding man. He turned his broad back on the Colettis entirely. He walked back to Serena. His deeply masculine features softened just a fraction as he looked at his pregnant daughter. He reached down and gently righted the ornate, velvet-cushioned chair that Bianca had shoved over.
With extreme care, Alaric gently guided Serena back into the seat of honor. He placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, a physical anchor in the storm of her shattered life.
Every single mafia-family member in the room remained completely silent. The tension was a razor wire pulled tight across the throats of the guests. The guards standing at the perimeter of the room had their hands resting on their holstered weapons, waiting for a single nod from the boss.
Alaric slowly turned his head. He looked directly at Bianca, his gaze boring into her soul with the weight of an executioner. The bright lights above caught the cold, dead emptiness in his eyes.
"Your grandson inherits nothing I own," Alaric stated. His voice was dead calm, devoid of anger, devoid of volume. It was a simple, terrifying statement of absolute fact.
Bianca froze entirely. Her pointing finger slowly dropped to her side. The arrogant, venomous fire in her eyes was extinguished instantly by the chilling reality of his words.
"The contracts..." Bastian stammered from the floor, his face completely draining of color. "The contracts are binding, Alaric."
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"Contracts are paper, Bastian," Alaric replied, his voice barely a whisper that carried perfectly through the silent hall. "And paper burns. I built this empire with my own hands. I bought your family’s loyalty with my money. You have profoundly misunderstood the nature of our arrangement. You do not own a single brick of my city. And as of this exact second, you do not possess a single breath that I do not grant you."
Bastian’s face went chalk white. The sheer, inescapable terror of his situation finally crashed down upon him. He had brought a mistress to a mafia king's table, expecting the rules of succession to protect him. He was wrong.
