Chapter 5 - The Reckoning of Table Four
The silence in Belladonna was now absolute.
Brandon Pierce sat back in his chair, his face completely drained of color. The expensive watch on his wrist—the one he had flashed for the live audience twenty minutes earlier—suddenly felt like an iron shackle.
"Mr. Vance," Brandon stammered, his hands raised in a posture of complete surrender. "Look, man... I didn't touch her. It was just a joke... we didn't know she was—"
"Stand up," Dante said.
Brandon didn't move. He looked at his friends, but no one moved a muscle.
"I said stand up," Dante repeated, his voice dropping an octave.
Brandon scrambled out of his chair so fast he knocked a wine glass over, sending dark red liquid spilling across the white cloth. He stood trembling, his head bowed, unable to meet Dante’s eyes.
Dante turned his gaze slowly to Eleanor, who stood beside him, wrapped in the cashmere blanket.
"Eleanor," Dante said softly.
Eleanor stepped forward. Her hazel eyes were clear, her posture straight. She was no longer the server shivering in a damp sweater in the alley. She was Eleanor Vance, standing beside the man who had given her his name and his protection.
"Which one held the camera?" Dante asked her.
"Brandon," Eleanor said quietly. "He asked her to get the whole shot so people could appreciate the scale."
Dante nodded once. He looked at Viktor.
"Take Mr. Pierce’s phone," Dante ordered. "Delete his social media accounts. Then call his father at Pierce & Associates and inform him that his firm’s retainer with Vance Shipping has been revoked."
"No!" Brandon gasped, his eyes wide with horror. "My father's firm... sixty percent of our billing comes from Vance Shipping! Please, Mr. Vance! It was just a stupid comment!"
"It was a comment that cost your family its livelihood," Dante replied coldly. "You wanted scale, Brandon. Now you have it."
Viktor stepped forward, grabbed Brandon’s phone from his hand, smashed it beneath the heel of his heavy boot until the screen was pulverized glass, and shoved Brandon toward the front door. "Get out."
Brandon didn't wait. He ran for the doors, pushing past the guards, disappearing into the dark rain outside.
Dante turned back to Tiffany Monroe.
She was sitting frozen in her chair, tears of terror smearing her designer eyeliner. The phone in her hand was still live—the comment section scrolling past at an insane speed as hundreds of thousands of viewers realized they were watching a real-time execution of the city's elite.
“Holy shit who is this guy??” “Is that Dante Vance??” “Tiffany’s dad is ruined live on stream OMG” “She picked the wrong server to mess with”
Dante reached down, took the phone gently from Tiffany’s trembling fingers, and brought it up to his face.
He looked directly into the camera lens.
"To the people watching this," Dante said, his voice smooth, cold, and echoing through the microphone. "This woman is Eleanor Vance. She is my wife. If I see a single image, video, or comment mocking her on any platform by midnight tonight, I will buy the company that hosts it and destroy every account associated with it."
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He dropped the phone into Tiffany’s full glass of Cabernet.
The device sizzled once, the screen flashed purple, and went black.
