Chapter 3 - The Cold Stones of the Deep VaultArthur Vance pushed himself back against his chair, his hands coming up in a desperate, placating gesture.
“Christian... listen to me,” the prosecutor stammered, his baritone cracking into an undignified rasp. “The Moretti syndicate assured me the evidence was genuine. I was acting on confidential intelligence provided by an insider witness!”
“You were acting on a wire transfer to your sister’s trust in Grand Cayman,” Christian replied.
He didn't strike the man.
He didn't draw a weapon.
Christian reached out with his left hand, picked up the golden federal badge from the linen, and dropped it into Arthur Vance’s half-empty glass of vintage bourbon.
Splash.
The gold settled heavily against the cut-crystal bottom.
“Drink it,” Christian commanded softly.
Arthur Vance began to shake, his lips parting in soundless terror.
“I said drink it, Arthur.”
The federal prosecutor reached out with trembling, liver-spotted fingers, lifted the crystal tumbler, and tilted the amber liquor past his lips, his teeth clicking against the metal badge inside the glass as he choked down the alcohol under the unblinking, pitiless stare of the man he had come to destroy.
Beside them, Bianca Moretti lunged from her seat, her emerald taffeta gown hissing against the marble as she bolted toward the service doors.
She didn't make it three steps.
Marcus stepped out of the shadow of the doorframe like a concrete pillar, his massive, scarred hand clamping around the back of Bianca’s neck with the unyielding torque of a hydraulic clamp.
She shrieked as he forced her to her knees in the middle of the spilt champagne and melting ice, her emerald gown soaking up the dirty water, her diamond bracelets rattling against the floorboards.
“Get your hands off me, you ape!” Bianca screamed, her face contorting into an ugly, feral snarl. “Christian, you can't touch me! My father controls sixty percent of the deep-water tugs from New Orleans to Mobile! If I don't walk out of these gates tonight, he will burn your container terminals to the water line!”
Christian turned his back on Arthur Vance and walked slowly toward his kneeling fiancée.
He stopped directly before her.
He didn't look down at her face. He looked at me, standing trembling against the mahogany paneling, my hands still pressed over the dark, wet red gauze bound around my shredded forearm.
“Elena,” Christian said.
“Yes, Mr. Vance?” I whispered, my teeth chattering from shock and the cold blood sticking my shirt to my back.
“Come here.”
I took two hesitant steps forward, my work shoes crunching over the broken glass.
Christian reached out, his warm, calloused fingers wrapping around my uninjured left hand, pulling me gently to his side until I stood over Bianca Moretti.
His thumb smoothed over my knuckles, his touch steady and unyielding.
“Look at her back, Bianca,” Christian whispered, his voice dropping into that terrifying, subterranean hush that made every soul in the room hold their breath.
Bianca looked up, her breathing shallow, her eyes darting to my torn uniform.
“You dragged her across an industrial bolt in my cellar,” Christian said. “You split her face with your ring. You threatened to murder her sick brother in his clinic bed while she was carrying my wine.”
“She was an insolent little maid!” Bianca spat, though her voice lacked its earlier arrogance, shivering with rising panic. “She’s an hourly scrub who poked her nose into syndicate business! She deserved to be put down!”
Christian reached down.
With slow, measured, terrifying leverage, his large hand closed around the eight-carat emerald engagement ring on Bianca’s left hand.
He didn't twist it violently.
He simply pulled.
The platinum band scraped dryly over her knuckle, popping free in his palm.
Christian turned his hand over, letting the hundred-thousand-dollar ring drop into the champagne puddle at her knees.
Plink.
“You are not a Donna of this house, Bianca,” Christian said, his voice flat as an open grave. “You are an arsonist who tried to burn my family for scrap iron.”
He looked up at Marcus.
“Take Bianca Moretti and Arthur Vance down to the deep vault beneath the carriage house. The vault where the old slave chains are set into the stone. Strip their phones, their jewelry, and their credentials.”
May you like
He looked back at the twenty-six frozen guests along the table.
“And inform Don Salvatore Moretti that if he wishes to see his daughter draw another breath, he will report to this dining room before sunrise with the master deeds to every drydock in the Gulf.”
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