Chapter 5 - The Heir and the Outsider
Eight-year-old Ethan began to shake uncontrollably. The boy was crying openly now, his small chest heaving as he looked up at the terrifying man who had officially become his stepfather six months ago.
"Don't you move, Ethan!" Valentina screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria. She stepped between Vincent and the chair, her emerald gown swirling around her legs, her arms outstretched like a harpy defending its stolen nest. "Don't you dare move! You sit right there! Vincent, you will not humiliate my son in front of these people! I will call my father right now!"
Vincent didn't even look at her. "Mateo."
"Yes, Boss," Mateo responded, stepping up beside Vincent.
"Take Ruby," Vincent said softly.
Mateo immediately stepped forward with the utmost gentleness. He reached out his arms, his lethal hands transforming into soft pillars of support as he carefully transferred the little girl from Vincent’s arms into his own. Ruby whimpered slightly at the separation, but Mateo produced a small golden pocket watch from his vest, flicking it open to let the rhythmic ticking and shimmering dial distract the three-year-old.
"Take her to the courtyard," Vincent commanded quietly. "She does not need to see what happens next."
"Understood, Boss," Mateo bowed, turning on his heel and carrying Ruby away, flanked by four heavily armed guards who formed a human shield around the true heiress of the Falcone family.
Once the heavy oak doors shut behind them, isolating Ruby from the room, the final restraint holding Don Vincent Falcone back evaporated.
Vincent reached out with blinding, lightning speed. His large hand clamped down around Valentina’s slender, diamond-encrusted throat.
A collective scream erupted from the women in the room, choked back instantly by terror. Valentina’s eyes bulged in absolute, paralyzing shock as Vincent’s fingers tightened just enough to cut off her breath, lifting her slightly onto the tips of her designer heels. Her hands shot up, clawing desperately at his iron wrist, her manicured nails digging into his skin, but Vincent didn't even flinch. He looked at her as if she were an insect pinned to a board.
"You forgot whose house this is, Valentina," Vincent whispered, his voice vibrating directly into her ear. "You thought because your father sits in the Senate, you could come under my roof, insult my dead wife, and strike my blood?"
Valentina could only make wet, choking sounds, her face turning crimson, the emerald brilliance of her gown suddenly looking absurd against her gasping, helpless frame.
"Vincent! Please!" Ethan wailed from the chair, throwing himself to his knees on the seat, his small hands clasped in front of him. "Please don't hurt my mom! Please! I'm sorry! I'll get down! I'll get down!"
Vincent’s cold eyes flicked toward the boy. Slowly, Vincent released his grip on Valentina.
She collapsed onto the polished marble, hacking violently, her hands clutching her throat as she took in desperate, ragged gasps of air. Her diamond necklace snapped under the violent release, scattering millions of dollars of loose, flawless stones across the floor, bouncing and rolling against the guests' shoes like worthless hail.
Vincent turned his attention to Ethan.
The boy scrambled out of the oversized chair, tumbling clumsily onto the carpet, tears streaming down his face as he backed away toward his mother, his body curled in terror.
Vincent looked down at the boy. The sheer contrast between the sobbing boy and the stoic child who had been thrown to the ground minutes earlier was glaring.
"You are a child, Ethan," Vincent said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "And for that reason alone, you will leave this room on your own two feet. But understand this, boy: You carry the Vance blood. Weak. Treacherous. Parasitic. You will never, in this life or the next, sit at the head of the Falcone table."
Vincent turned his back on the boy, his long charcoal coat sweeping behind him as he stepped up to the head of the banquet table.
He didn't sit down. He gripped the heavy, ornately carved wooden chair—the chair meant for his daughter—and with one effortless, terrifying display of raw physical power, he hurled it across the room.
The heavy mahogany chair flew ten feet through the air before crashing violently into the marble plinth holding the decorative bronze statue, splintering into a dozen jagged pieces with an explosive, deafening crack.
Wood shards rained across the front row of the guests. No one dared flinch.
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"If my daughter does not sit at this table," Vincent proclaimed, his voice echoing like an executioner’s gong through the atrium, "no one sits at this table."
***
