Chapter 7
The ringing silence in the backstage reception area was profound, broken only by the wet, rattling groans coming from Harrison as he lay buried beneath the shattered prop columns and scattered theatrical masks. The bright video colors of the spilled costume fabric created a surreal, messy portrait of total destruction against the pristine theater carpet.
Scarlett stared at her brother’s ruined body, her fair, rosy face turning a sickly, translucent white. The elegant, untouchable aristocratic mask she wore shattered entirely, replaced by a surge of pure, unadulterated panic. The horrific reality that her status, her beauty, and her ruby-red satin gown offered absolutely zero protection against the wrath of the Black American patriarch finally crashed down upon her.
Driven by cornered, hysterical desperation, Scarlett’s mind fractured. Believing that the little girl was the only leverage she had left to negotiate her way out of the room alive, she made a catastrophic, unhinged decision.
"Give her to me!" Scarlett shrieked, her voice cracking into a desperate, shrill wail.
She lunged forward, bypassing the paralyzed Nathan entirely. Her silver stilettos clicked frantically against the carpet. She reached her heavily jeweled hands out aggressively, aiming directly for Zuri, violently grabbing the sleeve of the child's white cashmere cardigan, intending to drag the weeping three-year-old toward the exit.
Roland’s eyes turned into black, soulless voids.
He moved with the terrifying, explosive speed of a predator protecting its young. Before Scarlett could even pull on the cardigan, Roland’s massive, powerful hand shot out. He caught Scarlett’s wrist in an iron, inescapable grip, his fingers digging brutally into her fair skin.
With a sudden, devastating exertion of raw masculine power, Roland violently tore Scarlett’s hand completely away from his granddaughter.
He didn't pause. Utilizing the momentum of her own frantic lunge, Roland delivered one thunderous, catastrophic open-handed slap directly across Scarlett’s powdered face.
The sound of the impact cracked like a whip, echoing fiercely through the brightly lit room.
The immense kinetic force behind the blow was absolute. It lifted the thirty-one-year-old woman completely out of her designer heels. Scarlett spun violently backward, entirely out of control, her striking ruby-red satin gown twisting awkwardly around her legs.
She hurtled backward across the floor, flying directly toward the freestanding acoustic-panel stack positioned near the edge of the stage.
She crashed into the heavy structure with staggering force. The tall, padded acoustic panels immediately buckled under her weight, folding over one another in a rapid, cascading collapse. As the panels fell, a large swath of heavy, dark backdrop fabric slid violently from a nearby stand, raining down over the wreckage.
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Scarlett collapsed heavily against the padded rehearsal bench, completely buried beneath the scattered acoustic panels and the suffocating weight of the thick backdrop material. She lay in a pathetic, groaning heap, her heavy diamond choker askew, her cheek already swelling an angry, dark purple.
There was no dialogue. The white American guests, the hardened capos, and the estate bodyguards stared in absolute, breathless horror. In less than ten seconds, the veteran Mafia boss had physically dismantled two high-ranking syndicate members without breaking a sweat, ensuring the absolute safety of his bloodline under the bright, cinematic lights.
