Chapter 8
"Gareth, you must understand," Sienna gasped, her chest heaving as the reality of her situation finally breached her arrogance. "The girl was overstepping her boundaries! She acts as if she is the mother of that child! I merely needed to assert the proper hierarchy of this household!"
"Does asserting hierarchy require framing an innocent woman and calling my daughter a liar?" Gareth inquired, his perceptive eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"She is a maid!" Sienna shrieked, her voice pitching slightly higher with defensive panic. She pointed a shaking, diamond-adorned finger at the space behind Gareth. "She is nothing! I am the daughter of a king! You cannot humiliate me in front of our families over a meaningless servant and a childish misunderstanding!"
"You humiliated yourself the moment you brought your rot into my home," Gareth replied coldly.
He slowly swept his gaze across the room, taking in the numerous capos, donors, and relatives standing frozen among the burgundy velvet sofas. His eyes locked onto Silas, his most trusted lieutenant.
"Have you all finished your champagne?" Gareth asked the room at large.
It was phrased as a polite question, but the command hidden within it was unmistakable and absolute.
Guests practically scrambled toward the exits. There were no polite farewells, no lingering handshakes. Men in tailored suits and women in expensive evening gowns fled the bright, elegant room with frantic urgency, eager to escape the blast radius of Gareth Whitmore’s wrath.
"What are you doing?!" Sienna shrieked, watching her audience, her leverage, and her protection sprint for the heavy mahogany doors. "You can't just dismiss them! My family's capos are in this room!"
The men loyal to the Vale family did not stay. They took one look at the cold, calculating fury in Gareth's eyes and the armed men loyal to the Whitmore syndicate stepping out from the shadows, and they ran just as fast as the civilians.
Within ninety seconds, the expansive grand salon was completely empty, save for Gareth, Sienna, Megan, Penny, and four heavily armed Whitmore bodyguards.
The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut, sealing the room and locking Sienna inside with her greatest nightmare.
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"Did you truly believe you could run a psychological operation against my bloodline and remain standing in my home?" Gareth asked, turning his terrifying focus entirely back to the woman in the champagne gown.
Sienna backed away from the Christmas tree, her heels clicking unsteadily against the polished marble floor. She wrapped her arms around her waist, a defensive posture that crushed the luxurious satin of her expensive gown. Her ruby earrings shook as her aristocratic bravado finally shattered, leaving only primal terror in its wake.
