Chapter 5 - The Fall of Isabella Romano
|
A suffocating stillness descended over the twenty-eight guests seated at the table.
Several seasoned capos lowered their eyes, nodding in silent deference to their boss’s declaration.
Isabella stood at the end of the room, her chest heaving with humiliated fury.
“Dante, you are acting insane!” she screamed, abandoning all sense of propriety.
“You are throwing away an alliance that took three years to negotiate!”
“You are putting a spoiled child ahead of the Romano and Rinaldi families!”
A man seated halfway down the table stood up abruptly.
It was Julian Romano, Isabella’s older brother and the family’s chief financial strategist.
Julian was thirty-two, slick, arrogant, and accustomed to getting his way through extortion and bribery.
“Sit down, Julian,” Dante warned without looking at him.
Julian ignored the warning and stepped forward, adjusting his bespoke tuxedo jacket.
“Rinaldi, you’ve gone too far tonight,” Julian said, his voice laced with thinly veiled contempt.
“Our father signed off on this match to bring stability to the five boroughs.”
“If you think you can insult my sister in front of our associates without consequences, you are mistaken.”
Dante slowly lifted his hands from Mia’s shoulders and walked around the head of the table.
He walked slowly, with the measured grace of a panther closing in on cornered prey.
“Julian,” Dante said calmly, stopping three feet away from the younger man.
“You broke into my private study on the third floor this afternoon.”
Julian’s arrogant smirk faltered for a fraction of a second.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Julian lied, though beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
Dante pulled the forged boarding school authorization from inside his jacket and held it up.
“My security cameras in the study were disabled between two and three o'clock today.”
“Only three people in this house had the digital override codes.”
“Myself, my head of security, and the woman who shares my bed.”
Dante glanced toward Isabella, whose face was now completely devoid of color.
“Did you really believe I wouldn't have backup analog recording systems in my own sanctuary, Julian?”
Julian’s eyes widened in sheer panic.
“Dante, wait—”
“I watched the footage five minutes ago on my phone while walking upstairs,” Dante continued coldly.
“I watched you sit at my mahogany desk.”
“I watched you pull out my personal seal.”
“And I watched you trace my late wife’s signature onto the Swiss legal transfer documents.”
The room erupted into shocked whispers.
To forge a don's signature was an act of treason punishable by immediate execution in their world.
To forge it in order to discard the don’s motherless daughter was an unspeakable dishonor.
Julian took a desperate step backward, reaching toward his inner jacket pocket.
Before his fingers could touch leather, Dante’s right hand moved like lightning.
Dante seized Julian by the throat, slamming him violently against the marble sideboard.
Crystal decanters of Scotch shattered onto the floor, amber liquid spraying across expensive rugs.
Mia gasped at the table, and without thinking, I stepped forward and placed my hands over her ears.
She leaned back into my apron, burying her eyes against my waist.
Dante leaned in until his nose was an inch from Julian’s purple, suffocating face.
“You touched my desk.”
“You forged my name.”
“And you made my daughter believe her father didn't love her.”
Dante’s grip tightened until Julian’s feet lifted slightly off the floor.
“Dante, please! Don't kill him here!” Isabella shrieked, falling to her knees.
Dante held Julian suspended for three agonizing seconds before releasing his grip.
Julian collapsed onto the broken glass, coughing violently and clutching his bruised windpipe.
Dante looked toward the two guards stationed at the dining room entrance.
“Marco. Leo.”
“Yes, boss?” the two large men answered instantly.
“Throw Julian into the basement holding cells until Don Antonio arrives to beg for his life.”
May you like
“And take Miss Romano to her quarters so she can pack one suitcase.”
“If she is still on this property in twenty minutes, shoot her on sight.”
