Chapter 12 - The Screams of Victoria Sterling
Victoria Sterling suddenly let out a shrill, hysterical laugh that scraped against the ballroom’s silence like broken glass.
"She's lying to you, Salvatore!" Victoria screamed, thrashing against Dominic’s massive, immovable frame.
"The girl has always been unstable, and she's trying to ruin everything we’ve built together!"
"I acted alone out of frustration because she has poisoned your mind against me since the day we got engaged!"
Salvatore did not rush toward her; he moved with the chilling, calculated deliberate pace of an apex predator.
He gently passed Elena into Maria’s protective embrace, ensuring the loyal maid kept his daughter shielded behind him.
Every step his polished leather shoes took against the marble sounded like the countdown to an execution.
The crowd of Chicago elite parted before him like water, guests stumbling backward in sheer terror to clear his path.
Victoria’s voice cracked as Salvatore halted three feet from where Dominic held her pinned against the wall.
The festive crimson silk of her gown was torn at the shoulder, revealing pale skin flushed with violent panic.
"Look at yourself, Victoria," Salvatore said, his tone devoid of any human warmth, as cold as the blizzard outside.
"You are standing in my home, wearing diamonds bought with my money, dripping in the blood of my daughter's youth."
"You think you can play games with the Delacroix family and walk away into the Chicago snow?"
Victoria’s chest heaved as she tried to summon her former aristocratic arrogance, lifting her chin with trembling defiance.
"I am your fiancée!" she hissed through clenched teeth, though her knees shook uncontrollably beneath her ruined hemline.
"You cannot treat me like one of your street thugs, Salvatore! My family has connections that could destroy you!"
Salvatore leaned forward slightly, his tall muscular build completely overshadowing her trapped, trembling figure.
"Your family has nothing that can save you from what I will do if another breath of a lie leaves your lips."
"Elena does not lie, and she never has," Salvatore stated with terrifying certainty, his light stubble catching the chandelier light.
"Someone in this room helped you carry my daughter across the west wing and shove her into that antique box."
"Someone helped you hold down a heavy solid oak lid while she pounded her knuckles raw until she could barely breathe."
Victoria’s icy blue eyes widened in sudden, horrifying realization that her partner-in-crime was not stepping forward.
She glanced frantically toward the ranks of wealthy men and women lining the edge of the ballroom.
Her gaze swept past Salvatore’s senior capos, past the elegant bankers, past the cousins who had toasted their engagement.
Not a single person returned her desperate, pleading gaze; every head was lowered, every eye averted in collective shame.
The terrifying reality hit Victoria with the force of a physical blow: she was entirely alone, a disposable pawn in a darker scheme.
A choked sob finally escaped her lips, her manicured facade crumbling entirely into pathetic, shivering ruin.
"Salvatore... please..." she whimpered, her arrogant voice shrinking into a desperate, hollow rasp.
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"Don't let them do this to me... you don't know what they promised me..."
Salvatore’s eyes flared with deadly interest as his hand clamped down onto her shoulder like a vice of pure steel.
