Chapter 11 - The Rat in the Trap
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Panic, raw and unadulterated, finally broke through Dominic’s arrogant facade. He was a man who understood leverage, and he suddenly realized he had absolutely none. Without the Vale Holdings fortune, he couldn't pay his enforcers. He couldn't bribe the judges. He couldn't protect himself from the dozens of rival families he had brutalized over the past decade.
He was a dead man walking.
“Evelyn, please,” Dominic choked out, his voice entirely stripped of its former venom. He took a step toward her, his hands raised in a pathetic gesture of surrender. “We can fix this. I made a mistake. I was stressed, the merger was making me crazy. I didn't mean any of what I said in the penthouse.”
A collective scoff echoed through the room from the observing crowd. Even criminals had standards, and begging in public was a cardinal sin.
Vanessa, realizing that the ship was sinking faster than she could comprehend, took three rapid steps away from Dominic, physically distancing herself from the collateral damage.
Evelyn watched her husband grovel. She felt no satisfaction, only a deep, profound exhaustion at the sheer pathetic nature of the man she had wasted her youth on.
“Don't beg, Dominic,” Evelyn said coldly. “It makes you look exactly like what you are. A rat caught in a trap.”
Gabriel Cross stepped forward, putting himself between Dominic and Evelyn. The playful, mocking demeanor Gabriel had worn was entirely gone. His amber eyes were flat and devoid of mercy.
“You have a choice to make, Mr. Vale,” Gabriel stated, his voice a low, lethal rumble. “You have fifty heavily armed men working security at this gala. You can try to signal them. You can try to start a war in this ballroom to keep your money. But I promise you, before your men draw their weapons, my men will turn this hotel into a slaughterhouse, and you will be the first one to bleed.”
Dominic looked toward the perimeter of the ballroom. His head of security, a massive former mercenary named Vargas, was standing near the exits.
Dominic locked eyes with Vargas and gave a subtle, frantic nod. Take them out.
May you like
Vargas looked at Dominic. Then he looked at Gabriel Cross. Then, very slowly, Vargas crossed his arms over his chest, stepped away from the door, and looked at the ceiling.
He was refusing the order.
