Chapter 6
The silence in the grand salon became a physical, suffocating pressure. The tall ivory candles flickering inside their glass hurricane holders seemed to be the only things moving in the entire, luminous space.
Dante kept his cold, unwavering gaze locked entirely on the trembling housemaid. He knew she held the missing pieces of the puzzle.
"Nora," Dante said, his deep, quiet voice echoing loudly in the dead-silent room.
He paused, a measured, agonizing silence that hung in the bright air like an executioner's blade.
"Where is it?" Dante asked.
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.
Nora swallowed hard, her pulse racing frantically. She faced Dante, her chest heaving rapidly beneath her slightly rumpled white apron. She knew the extreme danger of exposing the boss's fiancée. She knew the immense power of the Reed family, and she knew Isadora’s capacity for vindictive, fatal violence.
But looking into Dante’s eyes, feeling the absolute, terrifying demand for the truth radiating from his masculine frame, Nora found she had no choice. The presence of the mafia boss stripped away her fear of the socialite.
Nora steadied a trembling, ragged breath. She slowly raised her head, her clear, expressive eyes blazing with a sudden, undeniable clarity. She refused to look at the woman in the satin gown. She maintained unwavering eye contact with the man who commanded the city.
"Isadora locked it in the coatroom," Nora answered, her voice quiet but carrying a fierce, devastating conviction.
The admission 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 locking a disabled man's prosthesis in a closet during a Thanksgiving reception was an act of psychological manipulation that disgusted even seasoned killers.
Isadora’s elegant public smile faded completely, replaced by a mask of raw, unadulterated malice. She realized instantly that her carefully constructed narrative of the benevolent future wife was entirely destroyed.
She turned her gaze back to Dante, attempting to salvage her pride in a room where she was entirely exposed.
Isadora met Dante’s terrifying gaze. She lifted a manicured hand, waving it in a dismissive, utterly contemptuous gesture toward Walter in the wheelchair.
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"Let him crawl," Isadora sneered, stripping away the sweet facade and exposing the cruel, calculating monster beneath. "I'm eating."
The words hung in the bright, golden air, a staggering confirmation of profound insecurity and malice. To demand the patriarch of the family crawl like a dog in front of the entire syndicate was a level of instability that threatened the entire foundation of the mafia empire.
