Chapter 3
The innocent, toddler-phrased fears shattered Elise’s heart, but she refused to let Camille’s psychological poison take root in the boy's mind. She gently squeezed Leo’s small, warm hands, offering him a radiant, encouraging smile that completely defied the terror she felt toward the woman in the emerald gown.
"Leo, sweetie, I promise you," Elise whispered urgently, pressing a trembling kiss to his soft curls. "Daddy will never, ever leave you. He will be so happy to see you walking. You are his whole world. Please, be a brave boy for me. Let me help you up."
"Okay, Elise," Leo nodded hesitantly, his round rosy cheeks flushing with a mixture of fear and determination. "I will be brave. I want to see Daddy."
Elise stood up, her breath hitching as she offered her hands to the toddler. Slowly, carefully, Leo took her hands and pushed himself up from the seat of the stroller. His soft brown shoes touched the polished marble floor. He wobbled for a fraction of a second, his ankle perfectly healed and strong.
Just a few feet away, Damon was concluding his conversation with the capos. His sharp, angular jaw tightened as his dark eyes swept the room, continuing his relentless observation of the estate. His gaze landed on the towering Christmas tree, and the scene unfolding in its golden light snapped his attention entirely to the present moment.
He saw his son standing up from the stroller.
Leo released Elise's hands. He took two steady, confident steps away from the stroller and toward the maid. But as he turned, he saw his father approaching.
Seeing Damon, Leo suddenly paused. The confident stride halted abruptly. He looked up at his towering, imposing father with a heartbreaking expression of innocent uncertainty. The toxic lie Camille had planted blossomed in his young mind, paralyzing him.
Damon stopped dead in his tracks. The cold, unyielding armor he wore as the mafia boss slipped for a fraction of a second, replaced by sheer, unadulterated surprise. He had been told for weeks that his son was too terrified to bear weight on the ankle, that the trauma was deep and lingering. Yet here the boy was, taking confident, steady steps.
The clinking of fine porcelain ceased entirely within Damon's immediate radius, the silence spreading down the long salon until it consumed the entire grand space. One by one, every single dinner guest stopped eating and speaking. Fifty of the most dangerous men and women in the city turned their heads, all staring toward the Christmas tree.
Before Damon could speak, before he could offer a word of encouragement, Leo looked up at his father, his small voice carrying clearly across the silent marble floor.
"Auntie says walking makes Daddy leave," Leo stated, his young American accent breaking the silence with devastating innocence.
The words dropped into the immediate vicinity like a live explosive charge. The ambient noise of the nearby conversations had already vanished, but the weight of the child's heartbreakingly honest statement plunged the room into an absolute, apocalyptic void.
May you like
A collective, audible gasp erupted from the surrounding guests. The murmurs of the elite syndicate members died instantly. The room was suddenly paralyzed. The innocent observation of the child had just brutally translated the crime for everyone in the room. The fiancée had not been comforting a traumatized boy; she had been actively terrorizing him, using the threat of paternal abandonment to keep him confined.
Damon’s dark, sweeping gaze moved slowly from his son's fearful face directly to Camille. The artistic negative-space tattoos on his hands flexed as he gripped the edge of his suit jacket.
