Chapter 12 - The Toast
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The murmur of the crowd died down as all eyes turned to the groom at the head table.
“They say that marriage is about finding the one person you can trust completely,” Alessandro began, his voice echoing clearly through the microphone. “The one person who knows all your secrets, all your weaknesses, and still chooses to stand by your side.”
He looked directly at Arthur Vance, sitting in the front row. The older man raised his glass in a silent, mocking salute.
“But trust is a dangerous currency,” Alessandro continued, his tone dropping its jovial edge, becoming something sharper, darker. “In my line of work, trust is often just a delayed betrayal. You let someone into your home, you let them eat at your table, and you wait to see if they reach for a knife.”
The guests shifted uncomfortably in their seats. This wasn't a standard wedding toast.
“Tonight, my beautiful bride Genevieve and her loving uncle Arthur have taught me a very valuable lesson about what happens when you open your doors to strangers.”
Arthur Vance’s smile vanished. His hand dropped to his side, realizing the tone of the speech had shifted from metaphorical to literal.
“They taught me,” Alessandro said, his voice now a cold, booming threat, “that when a snake enters your house, you don't politely ask it to leave. You cut off its head.”
Alessandro dropped the microphone. It hit the stage with a deafening screech of feedback.
Before the guests could even react, the heavy canvas doors of the reception tent were violently zipped shut from the outside. The lights in the tent cut out entirely, plunging the crowd into pitch blackness.
Screams erupted from the tables. Panic set in instantly.
“Nobody move!” a voice yelled in the dark.
The twenty heavily armed men Alessandro had hidden in the basement armory stormed into the tent using night-vision goggles. They didn't target the guests. They moved with surgical precision, tackling and disarming every single fake caterer and valet before Silas’s men could even draw their concealed weapons.
Arthur Vance tried to run for the exit, but Matteo emerged from the shadows and slammed the butt of his rifle into the old man’s jaw, dropping him to the grass instantly.
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The guests were screaming, trapped in the dark, but the battle in the tent was over in less than sixty seconds.
Alessandro didn't stay to watch. He stepped off the back of the stage and walked swiftly toward the mansion. It was time to deal with the bride.
