Chapter 4 No.4

Damien POV

Fear is a useful tool. It keeps the sheep in the pen and the wolves at the throat of the enemy.

Isabella stood frozen against the glass wall, her chest heaving, her eyes wide and dark with the kind of terror that usually precedes a scream. She looked at me not as a savior, but as a predator who had just chased away a smaller scavenger to claim the kill for himself.

She wasn't wrong.

I didn't offer her a handkerchief. I didn't ask if she was okay. Instead, I pulled my phone from my suit pocket and dialed Irvin Pope, my Underboss. I kept my gaze locked on Isabella's trembling form as the line connected.

"It's done," I said, my voice devoid of inflection. "Silas Thorne. Terminate the contract. Effective immediately."

Isabella flinched at the sound of my voice.

"Burn him, Irvin," I continued, watching the color drain further from her face. "Contact every supplier, every bank, every partner in Chicago. Let them know that Maddox money no longer backs him. If he has a loan, call it in. If he has a shipment, seize it. By tomorrow morning, I want him destitute. Make sure everyone knows he touched what belongs to me."

I hung up. The silence in the room was heavy, suffocating. Isabella stared at me, realizing for the first time the magnitude of the monster she had signed a contract with. This wasn't corporate maneuvering; this was an execution.

"Come," I ordered.

I didn't wait for her. I turned and walked out of the fishbowl, my strides eating up the distance to the main floor. I could feel her scrambling to keep up, the click of her heels erratic on the polished floor.

The outer office was dead silent. Every head was bowed, every eye averted. Except for Colette Spears. She stood by her desk, a smug, poisonous smile playing on her lips, waiting for the fallout she had orchestrated.

She thought she was clever. She thought she was serving my aunt Charlene's interests by throwing a lamb to a wolf. She forgot that I am the only wolf allowed in this building.

I stopped directly in front of her desk. The office temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees.

"Mr. Maddox," Colette purred, smoothing her skirt. "I hope the meeting was-"

"Spears," I cut her off, my voice low enough that she had to lean in, ensuring her humiliation would be intimate before it became public. "I was under the impression that Prosperity Group hired elite talent, not incompetent children who can't run a basic background check."

Her smile faltered. "Sir, I-"

"You sent a known sexual predator into a room with a junior employee," I said, my eyes boring into hers. "Either you are dangerously stupid, or you are a Rat trying to sabotage my operations from the inside. Which is it?"

Colette's face went ashen. The word Rat carried a weight in my world that she understood all too well.

"I... it was an oversight," she stammered, her gaze darting nervously to Isabella, who stood behind me, pale and silent.

"An oversight," I repeated. "From today, you are stripped of all external client privileges. You will report to the archives in the basement. Re-file the last five years of transaction records. If I find a single paperclip out of place, you won't just lose your job."

I leaned in closer, letting the threat hang in the air like smoke. "Do not test me again."

I walked away, leaving her trembling in the wreckage of her career. I didn't look back at Isabella. I didn't need to. I had marked my territory.

Hours later, the sun had dipped below the skyline, casting long shadows across my office. Cortez Riggs, my Enforcer, materialized in the doorway. He moved like a shadow, silent and lethal, a man who was more comfortable with a knife than a conversation.

He placed a single sheet of paper on my ebony desk.

"The target made contact," Cortez said, his voice gravelly.

I picked up the report. My jaw tightened as I read the transcript. Isabella had called her cousin, Jovani Langley. The man who had pawed at her at the train station. The man who looked at her with eyes that were far too familiar.

"Langley confirmed dinner tonight," Cortez reported, his face impassive. "He was... vocal about his opinions on her husband."

I looked up. "Go on."

"He called 'Maverick' a coward," Cortez said. "A ghost. He told Mrs. Maddox that she deserves a real man, not a phantom who hides behind checks."

The pen in my hand snapped. Ink bled onto my fingers, black as pitch.

Coward.

The insult clawed at the scars of my past, at the bastard boy who had to fight for every scrap of respect in a family that wanted him dead. Jovani Langley didn't just insult a fake identity; he insulted me. He was courting my wife, touching my property, and laughing at my absence.

"Prepare the car," I said, standing up. The rage in my chest was a cold, hard knot. "I have a dinner reservation."

Vesuvio was the kind of restaurant where the lighting was dim enough to hide sins and the wine expensive enough to wash them down. I walked in, the maître d' bowing low, sensing the violence radiating off me like heat waves.

I didn't need a table. I needed a target.

I scanned the room and found him instantly. Jovani Langley sat in a semi-private booth near the back. But he wasn't alone.

Through the frosted glass partition, I saw the back of a woman's head. Long, dark curls cascaded down her back, identical to the hair I had smelled earlier today. Identical to Isabella's.

My blood ran cold, then boiled.

Jovani leaned across the table, his hand cupping the woman's cheek. He said something that made her shoulders shake-laughter? Crying?-and then he leaned in and kissed her. It wasn't a chaste peck. It was deep, hungry, possessive.

Red haze clouded my vision.

She was here. She was letting him touch her. After everything. After the station. After I saved her today. She was mocking me, playing the innocent victim in my office while whoring herself out to her cousin in my city.

I started forward, my hand drifting toward the gun holstered beneath my jacket. I was going to kill him. I was going to drag him out of this booth and beat him until his own mother wouldn't recognize him, and then I was going to make Isabella watch.

"Mr. Maddox?"

The voice came from behind me.

I froze. The sound was soft, hesitant, and laced with confusion. It was a voice I knew.

I turned slowly, the violence still coiling in my muscles, ready to strike.

Isabella stood there. She was wearing a simple black dress, clutching her purse like a shield. She looked from me to the maître d', her eyes wide with bewilderment. She wasn't in the booth. She wasn't kissing Jovani.

She was standing right in front of me, looking at her boss, completely unaware that she was staring into the eyes of the husband she hated.