Chapter 3 - The Cold Marble of the MezzanineCamilla looked around the room in frantic, suffocating disbelief.
She looked at the governor, who quickly turned to inspect an oil painting on the far wall. She looked at the chief justice of the state supreme court, who was staring intently into his champagne glass. She looked at her father, whose knees were visibly knocking together beneath his bespoke trousers.
Nobody was coming to save her.
“I... I am sorry,” Camilla wheezed, the words choking in her throat like crushed glass. “I did not realize... I was upset about the dress—”
“Look her in the eyes,” Dante whispered.
The sheer, concussive force of his voice made Camilla flinch as if she had been physically struck.
She forced her head up, meeting Maya’s quiet, bruised stare.
“I apologize, Maya,” Camilla sobbed, tears of pure, unadulterated humiliation ruining her flawless foundation. “Please... forgive me.”
“Now take off the emeralds,” Dante said.
Camilla froze, her breath seizing. “What?”
“The Colombian emeralds,” Dante murmured, taking one slow, deliberate step forward until his shadow blotted out the chandelier light above her. “They were mined from the Muzo concessions my family secured through blood in ninety-six. Given to your father as collateral for our pharmaceutical shipping merger.”
His eyes narrowed into pitch-black voids.
“You do not wear my family’s stones while striking the woman who pulled my daughter out of an inferno.”
Camilla’s trembling fingers flew to the clasp behind her neck. She fumbled with the platinum latch, her acrylic nails snapping against the metal, dropping small specks of blood onto her lavender collar before the heavy three-tiered necklace came free.
She held the glowing green stones out with shaking hands.
Dante did not reach for them.
He glanced down at the broth and broken porcelain pooling on the floorboards.
“Drop them.”
Camilla’s jaw dropped. “Dante, this piece is appraised at three million dollars—”
“Drop them into the filth where you ordered her to kneel,” Dante commanded, his voice devoid of human mercy.
Camilla sank to her knees, the ruined silk of her gown soaking up the greasy broth, her bare skin scraping against jagged porcelain shards. Weeping in raw, broken humiliation before two hundred members of the high society she had ruled since childhood, she opened her fingers.
The three-million-dollar emerald necklace struck the wet floor with a dull, sickening clatter, splashing dark broth over the glittering gems.
Dante turned to his second lieutenant, Luca.
“Call Dr. Elena Aris at Northwestern Memorial,” Dante ordered softly. “Have the private obstetric trauma team dispatched to the Drake’s private courtyard. Bring the armored medical transport to the side canopy.”
“Transport is already clearing the lower drive, Don Dante,” Luca replied with a sharp bow.
Dante looked down at his daughter.
“Bella.”
“Yes, Daddy?” the little girl asked, her hand still locked around Maya’s apron.
“Help me walk our angel to the car.”
Bella nodded fiercely, wrapping her arm around Maya’s waist.
Dante stepped to Maya’s left side, sliding his massive, warm arm beneath her shoulders, taking her full weight against his chest with effortless power as another sharp contraction pulled across her stomach.
“Lean on me, Maya,” Dante whispered into her hair, his baritone steady as an ocean tide. “You carried my daughter through fire. Tonight, the entire city of Chicago carries you.”
As they crossed the marble mezzanine toward the private elevators, Marcus Laurent scrambled forward on his hands and knees through the spilled broth, clutching at Dante’s polished oxfords.
“Dante! What about the pharmaceutical merger? What about the statewide distribution treaty?”
Dante stopped at the threshold.
He did not look back.
May you like
“The Laurent merger is dead, Marcus,” Dante said, his voice carrying clearly to every paralyzed soul in the ballroom. “Your pharmaceutical licenses are revoked under emergency syndicate receivership. Your bank notes are called as of midnight. And by Monday morning, your daughter will be scrubbing baseboards in the state women’s shelter on 47th Street.”
The heavy mahogany doors of the ballroom slammed shut with the concussive boom of a thunderclap, leaving the Laurent dynasty to drown in the mess they had made.
Related Stories
