Crossing her arms, Isabella poured every ounce of malicious venom into a single haughty glare. “Why is this bitch here, Gideon? Didn’t I make myself clear—divorce her, marry me, and everything will be as it should be.”
Kendra couldn’t fathom that level of arrogance, but she didn’t miss how Isabella spoke about having this conversation with Gideon previously. But when?
“I believe you are under the misconception that I give a shit what you think, Ms. Mancini,” Gideon drawled, intense power in his voice. “I am also confused as to why you think you have the power to dictate to me regarding any fucking thing, let alone my marriage.”
So that was what the Maddox Emperor, ruler of New York, King of Manhattan, and Billionaire Alpha-hole sounded like.
It was like a whole other person took over his body; her husband was gone, and standing there in the same tux, wearing the same face was a god among men, flexing his power by simplybeing.
Power…terrifying power barely contained, strength on the brink of snapping, deadly intent on the edge of enemy annihilation.
Darkly sexy, potent, predatory…and all hers.
Dammit, why did it make her all achy like that?
Lord, open up the ground and let it swallow me whole before I become a human puddle.
Isabella hissed, all pretense of superiority gone. Loud enough for the people around them to hear, she shrilled, “We had a deal, Maddox?—”
Kendra tensed, her breath catching. Deal? What deal? God, she hated being clueless, especially with a viper so close.
“I don’t think so, Ms. Mancini. I never made any such deal with you, and considering where we are, and making a scene, I honestly question your upbringing.”
With the drama hitting right out the gate, Kendra had nearly forgotten where they were, too. There was at least two hundred people packed into the beautifully decorated ballroom, some dancing, some picking at the foods on the banquet tables, some imbibing free top shelf booze at the bar, and many of those people were staring in their direction, their attention rapt on the tense threesome.
Isabella gasped, her face turning almost as red as her lipstick. “Howdareyou, Maddox?”
Gideon grunted, pulling Kendra even deeper into his side. “What is it you want, Isabella? I don’t have all evening to deal with you and your tantrums; I came to spend a delightful evening with my lovely wife, and you’re ruining it.”
If a woman could stomp her foot while wearing five-inch red soles then Isabella Mancini would have done it.
She thrust a clawed, be-ringed finger at Kendra, and snarled, “Sheis not your wife—not anymore; Daddy already told me I could have you?—”
Jerking her face up to peer at Gideon in breathless shock, Kendra nearly missed the approach of a familiar, stocky, quintessentially Italian-American middle-aged mobster.
Adolfo Mancini was a well-known “businessman” in NYC. Kendra wasn’t an idiot, so she knew he had direct ties to organized crime, and she knew her own husband had his fingers in Mafia pies, but as long as he left “family business” at the office, she didn’t ask questions.
Unfortunately, it looked like “family business” had come to the Winter Gala.
“Maddox,” Mancini barked, “it’s about time you showed your face. Have you any idea the trouble you’ve caused me?”
At that, Kendra saw something she’d never seen before but had heard about in terrified whispers and NYC folklore.
Her husband, Gideon Maddox, smiled a smile so dark and lethal all the blood drained from her body.
“Trouble?” Gideon drawled, death and menace in his voice. “The trouble for you, Mancini, has only just begun.”
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.
