Page 197 of Heartless Sinner

“Your son is the one who punched me.” Bellamonte dabbed his split lip. “I didn’t lay a hand on him.”

“No, but you put your fucking hands on her!” I shoved away from the chair and headed straight for him.

Philip’s forearm hit my chest before I made it two steps.

My father pinched the bridge of his nose, careful not to knock his glasses crooked. “Of course,” he muttered.

“It’s sickening, the way you stick up for her,” Bellamonte sneered, no longer in my line of sight. “If someone had helped my father get shot, I wouldn’t be defending them.”

The room went so quiet I could hear the muffled music from the dinner through the double doors.

“Dad? What the hell are you talking about?” Cory asked. I heard the disbelief in his voice.

Philip stepped aside just enough to give me a view of Bellamonte. I nodded my thanks. His brows lifted in a warning look: look, don’t touch.

Bellamonte spat a bloody glob into the cloth and pointed straight at Daphne. “She planted a recording device in your office the night your son fucked her in the Oval Office … only days before you were shot. She helped those men put a bullet in your chest.”

“You lying piece of shit!” I roared before lunging toward him with everything I had.

A wall of Secret Service agents threw themselves into my path, slamming me backward into a table. A porcelain vase rattled so hard that one of the agents reached back to steady it while still holding me.

“I’ll tear your fucking throat out!” I screamed over the men.

I drove one shoulder into one agent, twisted free of another’s grip, and nearly made it around the table before a hand caught the back of my suit jacket. Then I saw my father.

He stood entirely still, staring Daphne down with pure venom. He believed Bellamonte.

I waited for Daphne to call Bellamonte a liar. To scream out her fucking innocence.

Instead, she broke down.

Her chest hitched on a startled breath as she choked back a sob.

She wouldn’t look at him.

Wouldn’t look at me.

All the air left my lungs, as if I’d been hit by a train.

“Is it true?” my father asked her.

“He’s lying!” Adelina stepped in front of Daphne like a shield.

“Shut up, Adelina!” he barked, looking straight past her at Daphne.

Adelina spun toward Daphne and caught both her hands. “Tell them, Daph! Tell them he’s lying!”

The girl who always had a comeback completely disintegrated in front of me.

Daphne stared down at the floor. A tear rolled off her jaw and disappeared into the pink sequins of her gown. Her tiara was now crooked.

Her silence answered the question better than any confession ever could.

She wasn’t crying because Bellamonte was lying.

She was crying because he wasn’t.

Secret Service agents were still holding me, but I no longer felt them. I just felt fucking numb.