I should have banned her years ago; would have saved me the trouble of her popping in whenever the fuck she wants.
Gideon answered after the fourth ring; any desire to be accommodating quickly dissipating.
Adolfo Mancini’s thick Jersey accent filled the other line, “Took you long enough, Maddox. My time is fucking money, and I don’t want to waste either of those things on a man who failed me more times than I can count.”
His time was money…. The man didn’t make more than twenty million a year, according to Logan’s reports, which was utterly laughable compared to the four billion Gideon had amassed the year before. If anyone was wasting anyone’s time it was Mancini who was, not for the first time, trying to be the big dog in the fight.
A fight he lost over and over because Gideon couldn’t be intimidated by a man who depended on Maddox businesses to keep himself out of prison or off the bottom of the Hudson.
Mancini continued, not knowing he’d just pulled the pin on a grenade with his name on it.
“You better damn well explain how you let the photo get out, and I want some motherfucking compensation—and I’m not talking about money here, Maddox; I want to see you bleed.”
Stiffening, his gaze still on Isabella who’d begun a slow walk through his office, taking in the view, the furniture, the art, and the man behind the desk like she owned it all.
“Mancini,” Gideon began, his voice hard as iron and just as cold, “I know you’ve already received the report, and I know that you know it was all well-manufactured bullshit.
Mancini huffed, but Gideon continued, “AI is the newest and most dangerous technology, and guarding against it was meant to be difficult?—”
“So you’re saying that you’ll be of no use to me?—”
Growling, Gideon interjected, his patience as thin as a hair, “What I’m saying, Mancini, is that you need to realize that whoever set this up knew that you would react, they knew you would call me to the mattresses, and that you’d demand compensation.
Across the office, her back to him as she stared at a framed photo of him and Kendra at last year’s Maddox Media Winter Gala, Isabella tensed, her fake nonchalance slipping a fraction.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Maddox?” Mancini demanded, spluttering like an overtired toddler.
“What I’m saying is is that someone who knows you well staged the whole thing, hoping to plant a wedge between us, and hoping that you’d demand something from me, something they are hoping I’ll give.”
Mancini grunted, then snarled, “You’re full of shit, boy—no one pulls one over on Adolfo Mancini!”
Gideon wanted to laugh, to tell the man he was just the mummified remains of what was once the Tempesta Familia Underboss, holding onto the illusion of power simply because the Don hadn’t made his move yet.
How did Gideon Maddox know what Adolfo Mancini did not? Because Gideon Maddox was the fucking god of Manhattan, and there wasn't a thing he didn’t know.
Except where his wife went.
Ignoring the pang of unease from that reminder, he got right down to it.
Both enraged and bored with the conversation, Gideon, still holding his cards close to his chest, decided to let things play out.
“What is it you want from me in compensation, Mancini?”
Without a single moment of hesitation, the older man replied, “Isabella knows. Do what she says, and we’ll call it even—but, Maddox, this better never happen again. The next time you fail me, you’ll lose more than just a few empty vows.”
The pompous asshole hung up before Gideon could wrap his mind around the man’s last words.
Lose more than just a few empty vows? What the fuck did that mean?
An alarm bell shrilled in his mind.
Isabella, a demon summoned by some curse cast upon him, stepped up to the desk, her smirk in place once more.
“Done talking to Daddy?” she purred, her blue eyes hooded. “I guess that means you owe me an answer, doesn’t it?”
Another red flag. Another alarm bell.
“Answer to what?” Gideon asked, not bothering to hide the disinterest in his voice. He sat in his desk chair and leaned back, looking for all the world like the titan peering down his nose at a witless, worthless mortal.
