Avery POV

The heavy, rhythmic footsteps materialized into a towering figure stepping through the frosted doorway of the meat locker. It was Dionicio. Demetrius’s Chief Enforcer moved with the silent, lethal grace of a phantom, his tailored suit impeccably clean despite the bloody, whimpering mass he dragged by the collar.

With a flick of his wrist, Dionicio tossed the man onto the icy concrete.

It was Foy. His face was a swollen, unrecognizable mess of purple bruises and dried blood, but the pathetic whimper that escaped his lips was unmistakable.

Hailey let out a strangled gasp, stumbling backward until she hit the frozen carcasses hanging behind her. My grandmother, Carmelita, swayed on her feet, while my father, Christian, looked as though he might vomit.

Demetrius didn't spare the bleeding associate a single glance. His abyssal eyes swept over the trembling Bolton family members before finally settling on me. The possessive weight of his stare sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the freezing temperature.

"To my place," Demetrius commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that left no room for negotiation. "Now."

The ride to Maddox Tower was a suffocating blur of dread. Now, we were in the sky. Demetrius’s penthouse office was a sprawling monument to absolute power. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the glittering, indifferent expanse of the Chicago skyline, but inside, the atmosphere was just as freezing as the meat locker.

Demetrius sat behind a massive obsidian desk, a dark king holding court in his sanctuary. At his silent, subtle gesture, Dionicio forced my father, my grandmother, and Hailey to their knees on the unforgiving Italian marble floor. Only Ken and I were permitted to stand.

Dionicio grabbed a silver ice bucket from a nearby liquor cart and dumped the freezing water over Foy’s battered head.

Foy sputtered, his swollen eyes snapping open. The moment his blurry gaze landed on the Don sitting behind the desk, he broke completely.

"Please!" Foy sobbed, blood and snot dripping down his chin as he scrambled onto his knees, bowing his head to the floor. "I didn't know she was yours, Don Maddox! I swear on my mother's life! Hailey Bolton paid me! She gave me the money to do it!"

A collective gasp echoed from my family. Hailey’s face turned the color of ash.

I didn't wait for Demetrius to speak. Drawing on a well of strength I didn't know I possessed, I stepped forward. The military-grade aphrodisiac still hummed faintly in my blood, but my mind was razor-sharp.

"What exactly did she pay you to do, Foy?" I asked, my voice eerily calm as it cut through the cavernous office.

Foy flinched at the sound of my voice but didn't dare look up. "To ruin you. To make sure everyone saw you defiled so your engagement would be broken."

"And the drug?" I pressed, taking another step closer, forcing Hailey to hear every word of her own undoing. "What did she give you?"

"I don't know the name!" Foy cried out, his voice cracking with terror. "She said it was military-grade. Said it would make you beg for it so it wouldn't look like a struggle. She promised me ten thousand dollars and a place in her father's crew once he took over!"

The truth hung in the sterile air, an undeniable execution order. Hailey was weeping silently on the floor, her manicured nails scraping against the marble as she trembled. She had been stripped bare, her malicious plot exposed in front of the most dangerous man in the city.

I glanced at Demetrius. He was leaning back in his leather chair, his expression an unreadable mask. He didn't look surprised, nor did he look satisfied. His dark, calculating gaze was fixed on Foy, and I knew exactly what the Don was thinking. A bottom-feeding associate like Foy couldn't source military-grade chemicals, and Hailey certainly didn't have the underworld connections to acquire them either. There was a deeper rot here, a dangerous external variable that had just breached his territory.

The silence stretched, suffocating and absolute. The weight of Demetrius's unspoken judgment pressed down on the room until the sheer terror of her impending death began to shatter the last of Hailey’s fragile sanity.

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.

Avery POV

Hailey’s venomous gaze burned into mine, a mixture of agony and pure, unadulterated spite. She was a trapped animal, and like any cornered beast, she decided to bite the only hand that could potentially offer mercy—or in this case, the hand of the man who held the leash.

"Don't look at me like I'm the villain!" Hailey shrieked, her voice cracking as she twisted her neck to look up at Demetrius. Tears streamed down her face, ruining her perfect makeup, but her eyes were wild. "Ask her, Don Maddox! Ask her what she said about you at the Ricci Gala three years ago! She called you a 'tasteless brute in a stolen suit.' She laughed at you! She despises everything you stand for!"

The air in the room grew heavy, suffocating. My heart hammered against my ribs, not out of fear, but from the sheer adrenaline of the gamble. Hailey was right. I had said those things. I was eighteen, arrogant, and desperate to distance myself from the violent world my father tried to protect me from. I had insulted the rising Wolf of Chicago to his face, thinking my Bolton name was a shield.

I felt Demetrius’s gaze shift. It wasn’t the burning heat of anger I expected; it was a cold, clinical assessment that slid over my skin like ice water. He remembered. Of course he remembered. Men like him didn't forget insults; they collected them like debts.

"She's a liar and a whore!" Hailey continued, her voice rising to a fever pitch as she sensed the shift in the room. "She seduced you to escape her engagement, just like she seduced half of Europe! She's using you!"

I didn't let her finish. I leaned down, my face inches from hers, and twisted my heel. The sharp stiletto dug deeper into the tender flesh between her metacarpals.

Hailey’s scream was a jagged, wet sound that died in her throat as I grabbed her chin with my free hand, forcing her to look at me.

"You talk too much, Hailey," I said, my voice a low, dangerous purr that echoed the silence of the room. "You think digging up the petty insults of a teenage girl will save you? You think the Don cares about high society gossip?"

I let a dark, humorless smile touch my lips. "I am shameless. I admit it. I did what I had to do to survive the poison you put in my veins. I crawled into the devil's bed because I wanted to live."

I leaned closer, my whisper meant only for her and the man watching from his throne. "But you? You poisoned your own blood. You dragged a family war to the doorstep of the most dangerous man in the city because you were jealous. I may be a bitch, cousin, but you are catastrophically stupid."

Hailey’s eyes widened, the realization finally dawning on her. She had tried to make this a moral trial about my virtue, failing to realize that in this room, virtue was dead. Only power and loyalty mattered. And she had just proven she had neither.

I straightened up, releasing her chin but keeping her hand pinned beneath my heel. I turned my gaze slowly, deliberately, toward the two figures standing by the door.

My grandmother, Carmelita, looked as if she had aged ten years in ten minutes. But it was my uncle Christian who held my attention. The Capo who had once terrified me with his booming voice and heavy hand now looked like a ghost. His face was the color of ash, his eyes darting between his weeping daughter and the silent Don.

"The punishment for poisoning a blood relative is death," I announced, my voice ringing with a clarity that surprised even me. "The punishment for bringing false witness before a Don is... well, we all know what that is."

I lifted my foot, releasing Hailey. She didn't scramble away. She simply collapsed, curling into a ball, sobbing into the cold marble floor. She was broken, no longer a threat.

I stepped over her, moving toward Christian. I stopped five feet away, close enough to see the sweat beading on his upper lip.

"Hailey is just the knife, Uncle," I said cold. "But a knife doesn't stab on its own. Someone has to wield it."

Christian opened his mouth, perhaps to deny it, perhaps to beg, but no sound came out. He looked past me, at Demetrius, terrified to speak without permission. But Demetrius remained silent, a dark god watching his coliseum. He was letting me hold the gavel.

"I am declaring a Vendetta," I said, the ancient word heavy on my tongue. "Not against this pathetic girl, but against the hand that guided her. You wanted my father's seat? You wanted to erase my line?"

I tilted my head, my eyes locking with his. "I’m going to start counting, Christian. And when I finish, if you haven't given me a reason to let you walk out of this tower alive, I will ask the Don for a favor. And I promise you, his price will be much higher than mine."

"One."

The silence stretched, taut as a piano wire.

"Two."

Behind me, the sound of Hailey’s sobbing abruptly cut off. The sheer terror of the moment, the weight of the death sentence hanging over her father, was too much for her fragile constitution. She slumped completely flat against the floor, unconscious.

Christian flinched as if he’d been struck. He looked at his fallen daughter, then back at me, his eyes wide with the dawning horror that the niece he had underestimated was about to burn his entire world to the ground.