Chapter 8
"He opposed our marriage!" Isadora shrieked, pointing a shaking, diamond-adorned finger at Walter, though she shrank back under Dante's lethal glare. "He refuses to respect me! I am the daughter of a king! You cannot humiliate me in front of our families over a stubborn old cripple!"
"You humiliated yourself the moment you resorted to the tactics of a coward," Dante replied coldly.
He slowly swept his gaze across the room, taking in the numerous capos, donors, and relatives standing frozen among the copper bowls of miniature pumpkins. His eyes locked onto Vincent, his most trusted lieutenant.
"Vincent," Dante commanded, his voice echoing off the carved walnut furniture. "Take my keys. Go to the coatroom and retrieve my father's leg."
"Yes, Boss," Vincent replied instantly, catching the heavy ring of keys Dante tossed to him before sprinting out of the grand salon.
Dante turned his terrifying focus entirely back to the woman in the champagne satin gown.
"Isadora, you cannot believe this is worth ending our alliance over," a voice called out from the crowd. It was Arthur Reed, Isadora’s father and a powerful syndicate leader in his own right. "Dante, be reasonable. The girl made a mistake in her eagerness to lead."
"Does eagerness compel your daughter to demand my father crawl for his supper?" Dante inquired, his dark eyes locking onto the older man before returning to his fiancée.
"It was a joke!" Isadora cried, tears of sheer desperation welling in her eyes as she realized her father’s intervention was failing. "A harsh joke, Dante, please! You are making a catastrophic mistake! You are breaking an alliance that took two years to build over a piece of plastic and metal!"
"I am breaking a monster who dared to disrespect my blood," Dante replied with absolute, freezing finality.
He looked around the room once more.
"Have you all finished your appetizers?" Dante 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 Dante Rowe’s wrath.
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"What are you doing?!" Isadora shrieked, watching her audience, her leverage, and her protection sprint for the heavy mahogany doors. "You can't just dismiss them! My father's capos are in this room!"
The men loyal to the Reed family hesitated, looking toward Arthur Reed. But Arthur took one look at the cold, calculating fury in Dante's eyes and the heavily armed men loyal to the Rowe syndicate stepping out from the shadows. Arthur turned and walked out, abandoning his daughter to the fate she had chosen.
