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 salon 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.
Megan swallowed hard, her pulse racing frantically. She met Damon’s dark, commanding gaze. Her chest heaved rapidly beneath the fitted black fabric of her creased dress. The heat of the fire still warmed her face, a brutal reminder that her daughter's life was currently turning to ash on the logs behind him.
She knew the extreme danger of speaking out against the boss's fiancée. She knew the power of the Cross family, and she knew Vanessa’s capacity for vindictive, fatal violence.
But looking into Damon’s eyes, feeling the absolute, terrifying demand for the truth radiating from his masculine frame, Megan 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 plunging her hands into the fire.
Moisture gathered heavily along Megan’s lower eyelids, the tears glittering under the crystal chandeliers. She steadied a trembling, ragged breath, parting her lips before she could force the fragile words out into the open.
"My daughter's surgery money," Megan answered, her voice breaking on the final syllable.
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 burning the life-saving funds of a dying child was shocking even to seasoned syndicate members who dealt in violence and extortion daily.
Damon Sterling 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 grip on Megan's arm remained gentle, yet utterly immovable. He realized in a fraction of a second that the woman he was supposed to marry had effectively just murdered a child out of pure, sociopathic spite.
He slowly turned his head, his naturally swept-back hair catching the light. He locked his cold, lethal gaze directly onto Vanessa.
Vanessa’s eyes flicked nervously toward the burning envelope in the fireplace, watching the last remnants of the red ribbon curl into black ash. She then looked toward the watching guests, glaring with absolute venom at the crowd witnessing her exposure.
She realized instantly that her carefully constructed narrative of the benevolent future wife was entirely destroyed. The physical evidence was burning behind her, and the verbal testimony had been delivered by both a toddler and a victim in front of fifty witnesses.
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She turned her gaze back to Damon. Her careful, polished public smile tightened into a mask of raw, unadulterated malice. She desperately tried to maintain her aristocratic arrogance, refusing to show fear to the man who could end her life with a single word.
"Sick children are expensive mistakes," Vanessa stated, her American accent dripping with cold, unapologetic defiance.
