Chapter 6
The question was not born of curiosity; it was a deadly demand for confirmation, dripping with the absolute promise of violent retribution for whoever had orchestrated the cruelty.
The silence in the grand ballroom became a physical, suffocating pressure. The dozens of ivory candles flickering in their ornate brass candelabras seemed to be the only things moving in the entire, luminous space.
Mia swallowed hard, her pulse racing frantically. She met Damian’s dark, commanding gaze. Her chest heaved rapidly beneath the fitted black fabric of her creased dress. She knew the extreme danger of answering that question. She knew the power of the Shaw family, and she knew Juliette’s capacity for vindictive, fatal violence. She could still feel the cold metal of the sewing shears against her neck.
But looking into Damian’s eyes, feeling the absolute, terrifying demand for the truth radiating from his masculine frame, Mia found she had no choice. The presence of the mafia boss stripped away her ability to lie. He had just physically defended her, stopping her from enduring the ultimate public humiliation.
Mia steadied a trembling breath, parting her lips before she could force the fragile words out into the open. She kept the severed braid lowered safely beside her rumpled apron. She refused to look at the woman in the deep-plum gown. She kept her eyes locked on the man who commanded the city.
"No," Mia answered, her voice quiet but devastatingly clear.
The single word was a knife to the chest of the entire syndicate. A collective, quiet gasp rippled through the elite guests standing near the velvet sofas. The sheer, audacious malice of mutilating a servant in the boss's own home was shocking even to seasoned syndicate members who dealt in violence daily.
Mia closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, the memory of the laundry room flashing through her mind. She looked back at Damian, the undeniable truth spilling from her lips.
"Juliette held me down," Mia finished, her voice breaking slightly.
Damian Voss stopped breathing. His jaw tightened instantly, the extremely short stubble on his face bristling with suppressed, explosive violence. The artistic tattoos on his hands flexed as his fists clenched at his sides. He realized in a fraction of a second that the woman he was supposed to marry had physically assaulted and mutilated his staff simply out of a twisted, psychotic jealousy.
He slowly turned his head, his naturally swept-back hair catching the light. He locked his cold, lethal gaze directly onto Juliette.
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Juliette’s eyes flicked nervously toward Mia’s uneven, choppy hair, glaring with absolute venom at the visible evidence of her crime. She realized instantly that her carefully constructed narrative of the benevolent future wife was entirely destroyed.
She turned her gaze back to Damian. Her careful, polished public smile hardened into a mask of raw, unadulterated malice, though she desperately tried to maintain her aristocratic arrogance.
