Chapter 10
The bodyguards shifted their stances, their hands firmly gripping their weapons, ready to apprehend whoever their boss identified. The capos looked at their own wives and dates with sudden, furious suspicion, terrified that the treason might be attached to their own households.
Marciano’s cold, sharp, intimidating eyes swept across the faces of the five women seated near the center of the table.
There was Elena, the wife of his top lieutenant. There was Vivian, a wealthy associate who managed the offshore accounts. There was Clara, the heiress to a rival family currently in a fragile truce with the D’Angelo syndicate. And there were two other women, dates of minor capos, trembling violently in their seats.
They were all white American women, all with fair and rosy skin, all wearing elegant party dresses. But only one of them was wearing a shade of lipstick that perfectly matched the violent red smudge on the napkin.
Marciano took a slow, measured step forward. The cinematic, bright sunlight caught the silver at his temples. He radiated a deeply masculine, terrifying authority that demanded total submission.
He looked around the silent birthday table, the ruined bookbinding cart and the shattered archival display serving as a grim reminder of the violence he was capable of unleashing.
He locked his eyes onto the group of women. The tension in the room was absolute, a suffocating, unbearable weight that threatened to crush the breath from their lungs.
Marciano tilted his head slightly, his expression completely devoid of mercy.
“That lipstick isn’t my sister’s,” Marciano whispered. His quiet, lethal voice echoed perfectly through the cavernous salon, freezing the blood in their veins.
He took one final step closer to the table, his gaze narrowing into a laser-focused point of pure, destructive fury.
“Which woman at this table,” Marciano demanded, the absolute certainty of an executioner ringing in his tone, “put it there?”
The silence shattered.
May you like
One of the women near the center of the table let out a sudden, ragged sob. Her hand flew to her mouth, her diamond rings catching the light, as she desperately tried to wipe the dark red color from her own lips.
Marciano did not blink. He slowly unbuttoned the jacket of his tailored suit. The interrogation had yielded its result, and the true bloodbath was only just beginning.
