Chapter 3 - the breaking point
Celeste had only taken half a step when she felt a grip like a steel vice clamp down on her wrist.
She gasped, her fair skin turning white beneath her makeup as her forward momentum was violently halted. She turned back, her eyes wide with sudden shock.
Vincent Romano had not moved his feet. He simply had one massive, calloused hand wrapped around her delicate wrist. He wasn't squeezing hard enough to leave a mark or break the skin—there was no brutality to it—but the sheer, immovable strength of his grip sent a shockwave of primal panic straight into her brain. It was the grip of a man who had ended lives with those hands.
"Let go of me," Celeste hissed, her voice trembling slightly beneath the anger. "Are you insane?"
Vincent did not speak. His face remained frighteningly calm. With his free hand, he reached over to the velvet-draped table beside them. He picked up her personal bidding paddle, a ridiculous, custom-made piece of wood encrusted with small diamonds along the handle.
He held it up so she could see it. Then, with a casual, almost lazy flick of his wrist, he brought the wooden paddle down against the sharp marble edge of the table.
Snap.
The thick wood splintered perfectly in half. Diamonds popped loose and scattered across the carpet like cheap glass beads. Celeste stared in horrified disbelief as the symbol of her wealth and status was effortlessly destroyed.
Vincent dropped the broken pieces onto the table. He released her wrist, his hand sliding away smoothly. Then, he placed his large hand squarely on the back of the heavy, gilded VIP chair she had pulled out from under him.
With one smooth, powerful thrust, he pushed the heavy chair. It scraped loudly against the floor, sliding violently out of the front row and crashing into a waiter’s tray in the second row, sending champagne glasses shattering to the ground.
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The crowd gasped. Several men in tuxedos took a step back. Security guards at the edge of the room began to reach for their radios, but a strange, heavy tension kept them frozen in place.
Vincent turned his back on Celeste, his posture perfectly straight, ignoring her completely as if she were nothing more than a minor annoyance. He stood in the empty space where his chair used to be, waiting.
