Chapter 7
The tension in the luminous dining hall stretched taut, a physical weight that pressed down upon the seated guests. The bright, airy colors of the room felt suddenly stark, exposing the raw, underlying brutality of the situation.
Dorian remained perfectly still, his tailored dark suit acting as an impenetrable wall between the weeping housemaid and the woman who had sought to destroy her.
“You can’t do this, Dorian,” Felicia hissed, panic mutating into cornered, vicious entitlement. “My family brings the eastern ports to this alliance. If you humiliate me based on the tears of a servant, my father will declare war. He will shut down your supply lines.”
“Will he declare war?” Dorian asked, tilting his head with dangerous curiosity. The loose strands of wavy hair falling over his forehead contrasted violently with the absolute, apocalyptic death promised in his cold eyes. “Or will he thank me for returning his defective, cruel daughter before she caused a war he could not possibly win?”
Felicia’s mouth dropped open. The color drained entirely from her lips. She realized she had absolutely no power left in the room. The alliance was dead, severed by her own psychopathic ambition.
“What are you doing?” Felicia asked, her voice trembling as she looked at the heavily armed guards standing in the shadows.
“Are we not finished with this charade?” Dorian asked the room at large.
He slowly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the silent, paralyzed guests. The refined artistic tattoos on his neck shifted as he addressed the entirety of the syndicate.
“Have we not concluded our business for the evening?” Dorian inquired, his voice carrying effortlessly to the back of the room. “Is the door not open for your departure?”
The questions were rhetorical, lethal commands disguised as inquiries. The guests immediately understood the dismissal. Chairs scraped softly against the polished marble floors as the most powerful men and women in the American mafia stood up in unison.
“Yes, Mr. Westbrook,” a senior capo answered quickly. “We are leaving.”
They didn’t speak another word. They didn’t offer their goodbyes or polite pleasantries. They simply turned and began a swift, silent exodus from the luminous dining hall, eager to escape the blast radius of the Boss’s impending wrath.
Within ninety seconds, the massive, opulent room was entirely empty of guests. The only people remaining in the dining hall were Dorian, Lottie, Felicia, and a dozen heavily armed, white American security guards standing quietly in the shadows near the carved marble fireplace.
“Get your hands off me!” Felicia screamed as two massive men in tailored dark suits stepped forward from the shadows and grabbed her by the arms. She thrashed wildly, her sculpted satin gown twisting awkwardly around her legs. “You are choosing a servant over a queen! You are a fool, Dorian!”
“Are empires built by men who allow their word to be broken in their own homes?” Dorian inquired, entirely unaffected by her venom.
“Will you escort Miss Crane to the lower levels, or will she walk there herself to await my judgment?” Dorian asked softly, gesturing with a heavily tattooed hand toward the armed guards.
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