Chapter 5 No.5

Avery POV

The silence in the penthouse stretched, suffocating and absolute. The weight of Demetrius's unspoken judgment pressed down on the room until the sheer terror of her impending death finally shattered the last of Hailey's fragile sanity.

"She's lying!" Hailey shrieked, her voice a jagged, hysterical sound that shattered the quiet. She scrambled up from her knees, her manicured finger trembling as she pointed at me. "He's lying! Avery paid him to say this!"

She spun toward the obsidian desk, her tear-streaked face twisted in a desperate, suicidal gamble. "Don Maddox, please, you can't let her play you! She is a *puttana* (whore)! She orchestrated this entire setup to cover up the fact that she betrayed her fiancé and crawled into your bed! She just wanted an excuse to break her engagement!"

The temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero.

To insult a Don was a dangerous game. To insult his intelligence-to imply that Demetrius Maddox, the most feared man in Chicago, was a gullible fool being manipulated by a woman's legs-was a guaranteed death sentence.

Demetrius didn't move a muscle, but the shadows in his abyssal eyes darkened into pure, unadulterated murder. Beside me, my grandmother Carmelita and my uncle Christian turned the color of chalk. They realized instantly what Hailey's panicked outburst meant. She hadn't just doomed herself; she had dragged their entire faction of the Bolton family to the edge of the abyss.

I didn't wait for Demetrius to order her execution. The military-grade drug still hummed in my veins, but it was entirely eclipsed by the cold, burning need for my own Vendetta. I needed to prove to the man sitting behind that desk that I wasn't just a convenient cure to a poison. I was a Bolton.

I closed the distance between us in three swift strides.

Hailey barely had time to register my movement before I swung my arm. *Smack.* The sharp, explosive crack of my palm against her cheek echoed like a gunshot through the cavernous office.

The force of the blow sent her sprawling. She collapsed onto the unforgiving Italian marble with a pathetic cry, her designer dress tangling around her legs.

Before she could scramble away, I stepped forward and drove the needle-thin heel of my stiletto directly into the back of her right hand.

Hailey let out a bloodcurdling scream. Her fingers splayed wildly, pinned to the icy floor beneath my weight. I didn't flinch. I slowly crouched down, ignoring her agonizing sobs, and leaned in close so only the people in this room could hear the surgical ice in my voice.

"Your biggest mistake wasn't trying to ruin me, Hailey," I whispered, twisting my heel just a fraction of an inch. She wailed, her body convulsing in pain. "Your mistake was being stupid. You dragged our family's name through the mud and brought a filthy scandal to the Don's doorstep. That is unforgivable."

I paused, letting my gaze drift from her tear-soaked face to the pale, trembling figure of my uncle.

"Now tell me," I demanded, my voice ringing with absolute authority. "Was this pathetic scheme born solely from your own petty jealousy? Or did your father, our esteemed Capo Christian Bolton, help you plan this to undermine my father's seat as Underboss?"

A collective gasp rippled through the room. I had just escalated a petty sibling rivalry into a full-blown declaration of war for the family leadership.

I could feel Demetrius's heavy gaze burning into my skin. He remained entirely silent, but the oppressive aura radiating from him had shifted. It wasn't just anger anymore; it was a dark, intoxicating approval. He was watching me play his game, by his rules.

Beneath my heel, Hailey sobbed uncontrollably, her spirit fracturing under the physical agony and the terrifying realization that she was completely trapped. But a cornered snake always strikes blindly. Through her tears, her bloodshot eyes locked onto mine, filled with a venomous, desperate need to drag me down into the dirt with her.