Chapter 3 3

Avery POV

The blinding glare of the gas lantern cast long, distorted shadows against the frosted metal walls of the walk-in freezer. The air was thick with the metallic scent of my blood, the biting cold, and the heavy, dangerous aftermath of what had just transpired between me and the Devil himself.

Hailey stepped further into the freezing room, her face twisted into a mask of triumphant disgust. She didn't look at the man's face. She was too busy staring at my torn dress and the bruises forming on my pale skin, drinking in my ruin like fine wine.

"I knew you were a disgrace, Avery, but this?" Hailey's voice echoed shrilly off the ice-coated walls. She pointed a manicured finger at Demetrius's broad, scarred back. "You throw away your engagement and defile the Bolton name for some random enforcer? What is he, some nameless muscle you picked up from a back-alley casino?"

My grandmother, Carmelita, clutched the pearls at her throat, her face pale with dramatic horror. "To think I raised you to be a proper lady. You are a disease to this family, Avery. Christian, look at what your daughter has done!"

My father, Christian, stood rigid near the doorway. His eyes darted between me and the massive silhouette of the man standing over me, a flicker of unease breaking through his initial anger. Beside him, my older brother, Ken, was entirely silent. Ken wasn't looking at me with disgust; he was staring at Demetrius's back, his posture stiffening as if he had just stepped on a landmine.

I pulled the shredded edges of my bodice together with trembling, numb fingers. The military-grade aphrodisiac was still a dull, toxic ache in my veins, but the sheer audacity of Hailey's ignorance gave me a sudden, sharp burst of clarity.

I forced myself to my feet. My knees shook, but I locked them, refusing to cower before the cousin who had tried to destroy me.

"An enforcer?" I rasped, my voice a broken, breathless sound that still managed to cut through the freezing air. I let out a cold, humorless smile. "Hailey, the man you paid is a lot of things, but he is certainly an upgrade from that useless piece of trash, Foy."

The triumphant sneer vanished from Hailey's face as if I had slapped her. All the color drained from her cheeks, leaving her looking sickly in the harsh lantern light.

"Foy?" she stammered, her eyes darting frantically toward our grandmother. "I-I don't know what you're talking about! Don't try to deflect your disgusting, whorish behavior onto me! You're the one caught half-naked with a thug!"

She was digging her own grave with a silver spoon.

Throughout her entire hysterical outburst, Demetrius hadn't made a single sound. He didn't yell. He didn't defend himself. He simply finished adjusting the cuffs of his tailored trousers, the movements slow, deliberate, and utterly terrifying.

Then, the Iron King of Chicago turned around.

The lantern light caught the brutal, jagged scars slashing across his chest, and then illuminated his face. His expression was a mask of absolute, lethal calm. His abyssal black eyes locked onto Hailey.

The temperature in the room seemed to plummet another twenty degrees. The silence that followed was so heavy it felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest.

Hailey's mouth opened to hurl another insult, but the words died in her throat. Her primal instincts, buried deep beneath her arrogance, finally woke up and screamed at her. You didn't look at a man like this and see a thug. You looked at him and saw the end of your life.

"M-Maddox," my father choked out, the name tearing from his throat like a death rattle. Christian stumbled back a step, bumping into the heavy iron door. All the self-righteous anger evaporated from his face, replaced by sheer, unadulterated terror.

Hailey stopped breathing. Her eyes widened to the point of tearing as she finally realized exactly whose shadow she had stepped into. She hadn't just insulted a man; she had publicly humiliated a Don. In our world, that was an automatic death sentence.

Demetrius didn't acknowledge my father's terror. He didn't even blink. He just kept his dead, hollow gaze fixed on Hailey, radiating a murderous intent so pure it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The vendetta was already written in his eyes.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from the concrete corridor outside the freezer, breaking the suffocating silence. Someone was coming.