Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Adolfo Mancini, the fat, impotent fuck, sneered at Gideon as Isabella curled into her father and pouted petulantly.
She should have been strangled at puberty.
“Daddy,” she whined, all pretense of being a fucking adult disappearing. “Gideon came with that bitch, and now he’s talking crazy.”
Gideon, a grown ass man, wanted to roll his eyes so fucking hard his baby snuggled in its mama’s womb would feel it. But he refrained because he was many things, but right then he was the man about to tear out the throat of his enemy.
Mancini patted Isabella’s hand where it was planted on his chest, and turned to glare at Kendra.
“I see you aren’t with the program this evening, Maddox,” he denounced, his chin in the air like he had any sort of authority over Gideon.
The fool.
Beside him, Kendra was stiff, watching silently, her face pale.
Fuck, he needed to get this shit handled so he could get her some place to rest. His wife needed to be off her feet, and it was his duty as her husband to make sure she was comfortable. Which meant dealing with Mancini and his rabid pup.
Shifting on her feet, Kendra placed a gentle hand against her belly and sighed heavily, and something inside him twisted.
Goddamn, he was an asshole.
Kendra was already dealing with being pregnant, learning the truth about their marriage, the pain of what he’d said to her, and now she was dealing with drama he should have shielded her from, drama he knew was coming because it had fallen in his lap that same night he’d blown up his marriage.
I’ll fix this, baby, I swear it. Just trust me a little longer….
“And what program would that be, Mancini?” he asked dryly, using his left hand to flick invisible lint from his lapel. “Also, I shouldn’t have to remind you, Ms. Mancini, to watch how you speak about my wife. My wife, Kendra Maddox, and not you, despite your ridiculous delusions to the contrary.”
Isabella gasped, her blue eyes glinting with rage and malice—all of it pointed at Kendra.
Gideon, curled his lip, flashing his teeth; the beast inside him rearing up to protect their mate.
Just try, bitch. We’ll see how well you like being buried in a concrete bunker in Jersey City with nothing but other rats and roaches to keep you company.
Not liking the brush off, Mancini slunk closer, trying to seem imposing, intimidating, untouchable.
The dumb fuck.
“You screwed me over, Maddox, and rather than take repayment in blood, we made a deal—you’d scrape off the useless wifey, marry my princess, and we’d call it even,” Mancini said, pompous, arrogant, and obviously drunk on whatever power he believed he still had.
Thankfully, the man wouldn’t have such delusions long because just then, the man of the hour strode into the room, making every head turn in his direction.
Uragano Tempesta, the Don of the Tempesta Famiglia, the most powerful Mafia family on the East Coast. The man was in his mid-30s, tall at 6’3”, imposing, and dripping with intensity, money, and deadly power.
With his striking blue eyes and dirty blond hair, large, fit body, and visible tattoos, he was what Cora and Kendra would call dark romance catnip—whatever the fuck that was.
But Tempesta wasn’t like any of the other wealthy men at the gala; he was an emperor in his own right, ruling the New York underworld with a decisive and bloody hand.
He’d taken on the mantle after his own father had been murdered by a rival family while visiting a cousin in Las Vegas, and Uragano’s first act as the new Don was to call in favors with the local MC, and wipe the Rosetti family off the face of the earth.
Weeks after his father’s death, the man had finally taken his seat upon that throne while soaked to the bone in the blood of his enemies.
Needless to say, he was the man no one fucking messed with, second only to Gideon Maddox, and even he knew to tread carefully.
Sadly, Adolfo Mancini was too stupid with power to realize he’d already crossed too many lines, and Gideon had been waiting for the right moment to tell Don Tempesta all about it.
Before he’d stepped on the private jet that morning, after two quiet yet contented days in Schroon Lake with Kendra, he’d told Logan to send all the information they’d compiled on Mancini over the last twenty years to Uragano Tempesta.
Apparently, Tempesta had seen enough, because he’d wasted no time.
Stopping just outside their small, intimate group of four, Tempesta acknowledged Gideon and Kendra with a slight nod, ignoring Isabella altogether, and pinning all of his considerably potent attention on Adolfo Mancini.
“Sono deluso, vecchio mio. Direi che è arrivato il momento di mettere in discussione la nostra amicizia,” Tempesta drawled, his blue eyes glinting with quiet menace.
Having worked with the Tempesta Famiglia for more than twenty years, Gideon was fluent in Italian, so he knew, immediately, why those words, spoken with such a subtle edge, drained Mancini of color, and made Isabella take a step away from her own father.
Lucian materialized beside Gideon, dressed impeccably in all black.
“Seems like there will be a corporate restructuring within the Tempesta family pretty soon,” he remarked flatly, his blue eyes blank.
The youngest but most emotionally traumatized of his brothers, Lucian showed less emotion than Gideon…
though, lately, the man seemed almost…human.
“It would seem so,” Gideon replied, smirking.
It was all according to his plan, after all.
Two men stepped up beside Uragano, and Gideon immediately recognized two of the man’s younger brothers, Nevicare and Tuono, or Nev and Tino, respectively.
They were dressed for the gala in tailored suits fit for men of wealth, but it was the darkness that seemed to cloak them that spoke of their true power.
The Tempesta men were danger personified, and Adolfo Mancini would learn that firsthand tonight.
“Don Tempesta,” Mancini spluttered, now a sickly green. “I didn’t expect you this evening.”
Uragano canted his head, his striking blue gaze sharp and filled with a killing chill.
“I received an invitation, Mancini, it wouldn’t be considerate of me to decline,” Tempesta replied, a knife edge carrying the words.
Gideon knew exactly the invitation Tempesta was talking about, and it wasn’t the one to the Winter Gala.
“Of course, fratello mio,” Mancini bleated, all that impotent power he’d been flashing before drained away in the face of true power.
Isabella, finally catching on to what was happening, simpered, “Gano, amore mio, I think we should all grab a drink, sit, talk, and—”
“I think we should take this conversation elsewhere,” Nev interjected, cool and precise like a scalpel, making Isabella’s face go white. She knew what he meant.
They all did.
Mancini, now facing down three Tempesta men could only nod and follow behind his Don as they made their way toward the back of the ballroom where the kitchens and service entrance were located.
No doubt, by the end of the night, Mancini would be dead, Isabella would be sent off to Italy to marry into another family, and the Tempestas would be calling Gideon to set up a time to meet regarding the “invitation” that Uragano had received, and what their business association would look like moving forward.
Good fucking riddance to a piece of shit traitor and his crazy-as fuck-daughter.
Thirty minutes later, seated at a table just in front of the small stage set up for the string quartet, Kendra was nursing a sparkling water, Gideon was sipping a fifteen-year-old bourbon, Lucian was throwing back whiskey, and Cora was glaring into a glass of Moscato.
Logan and Lucian had seats at the table, but neither of them stuck around.
Logan had come to give face, as his eldest brother commanded, but then left soon after when his cell pinged a notification that sent him running, and Lucian had come because he’d been tasked with following Mancini.
Now that Mancini was a Tempesta problem, Lucian had slunk back into the shadows to do whatever it was he’d been doing lately now that he was healing from injuries he didn’t want to talk about.
Checking the time on his watch, Gideon wasn’t surprised to hear the orchestra stop and the buzzing sound of the mic begin.
Straightening his sleeves, Gideon pressed a soft kiss to Kendra’s head and turned in his chair to face the stage.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer, an influencer who’d amassed millions of fans with clever makeup tutorials, said, “and thank you for coming to the tenth annual Maddox Media Winter Gala.”
Applause filled the room, drowning out the sound of Gideon’s pounding heart.
He’d faced down his father’s fist, potential company-wide failure, the fear of failing his brothers, billion-dollar deals, and a displeased mob boss, but none of that made him as nervous as he was right then.
It had to go perfectly.
“Please, welcome to the stage, the man who made Maddox a name we all love and fear,” nervous titters smattered around, “Mr. Gideon Maddox.”
The applause now was deafening, but still his pounding heart was louder.
He turned to look at his wife who was staring at him in disbelief. Typically, he’d leave such things as playing host to others like Adrian, but tonight he was changing things up, and she would soon learn why.
Leaning down, he pressed another kiss to his wife’s lips and stood, walking toward the stage, devastatingly aware that he was either headed toward victory or death.
Only his wife could determine which.