Too Late To Apologize, Mr. Billionaire

For seven years, I scrubbed floors, cooked books, and hid my identity as the Vitiello heiress just to test if Dante Moretti loved me for me, not my father’s power. But the massive digital billboard in Times Square froze the blood in my veins. It wasn’t my face next to his under the headline "The King and his new Queen." It was a cocktail waitress named Lola. When I walked into the lobby to confront him, Lola slapped me across the face and crushed my late mother's locket under her stiletto heel. Dante didn't defend me. He didn't even look sorry. "You’re useful, like a stapler," he sneered, checking his watch. "But a King needs a Queen, not a boring clerk. You can stay on as my mistress if you want to keep your job." He thought I was a nobody. He thought he could use me to launder his money and then discard me like trash. He didn't realize that the only reason he wasn't in federal prison was because I was protecting him. I wiped the blood from my lip and pulled out a secure satellite phone. Dante laughed. "Who are you calling? Your mommy?" I stared him dead in the eyes as the line connected. "The pact is void, Papa," I whispered. "Burn them all." Ten minutes later, the glass doors shattered as my father’s military helicopters descended onto the street. Dante fell to his knees, realizing too late that he hadn't just lost a secretary. He had just declared war on the Capo dei Capi.

Chapters

Chapter 3

"Your kingdom is built on sand," I told her, my voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking in my blood.

Lola’s eyes widened, the whites showing all around. The veins in her neck strained against her expensive skin, ruining the facade of elegance she tried so hard to maintain.

"Get her!" she shrieked.

Bella lunged, her fingers digging into my bicep. Another girl clamped a fist into my hair.

I tried to twist away, my self-defense training kicking in automatically—shift weight, drop center of gravity. But I was outnumbered. Bella drove a boot into the back of my knee, and my leg buckled.

I went down, hitting the hard marble floor with a bone-jarring thud that rattled my teeth.

"Hold her down!" Lola commanded.

I felt hands pressing my shoulders into the cold stone, pinning me like a specimen. My blazer tore with a sharp *rip*.

Lola stood over me, looking like a vengeful deity in white chiffon.

"You need to learn your place," she said, breathing hard, her chest heaving. "You think you can just walk in here and disrespect me? I am going to be the First Lady of this family."

She leaned down and slapped me again.

Left cheek. Right cheek.

My head rang like a struck bell. The humiliation was worse than the pain. I was Seraphina Vitiello. My father cut the tongues out of men who spoke to me with the wrong tone. And here I was, being beaten by a cocktail waitress in a lobby I technically owned.

"I’m going to scar that boring little face of yours," Lola hissed, her spittle landing on my cheek. "Maybe then Dante will stop pitying you."

I looked up at her. My lip was split. I could feel blood trickling down my chin, hot and metallic.

"If you touch me again," I whispered, my voice a cold razor, "you will pray for death."

Lola threw her head back and laughed. It was a sharp, manic sound.

"Did you hear that? The stapler is threatening me!"

She raised her foot, aiming her sharp stiletto heel at my hand.

Then she stopped.

Her eyes caught the glint of silver at my throat.

It was an old locket. Tarnished silver, engraved with a simple butterfly. It wasn't flashy. It didn't have diamonds.

But it was the only thing my mother had left me before she died in a car bomb meant for my father.

"What is this garbage?" Lola sneered.

She reached down and yanked the chain.

"No!" I screamed, struggling against the hands holding me down, thrashing violently. "Don't touch that!"

The chain snapped with a sickening *pop*.

Lola held the locket up to the light, dangling it like a dead insect.

"So cheap," she said. "Dante buys me diamonds. And you wear... tin?"

"Give it back," I choked out. The air felt too thin, my lungs burning. That locket held my mother's picture. It was a sacred relic.

"It’s ugly," Lola decided. "Just like you."

She dropped it on the floor.

Time seemed to slow down. I watched the silver heart hit the marble. It didn't break.

Then Lola lifted her foot.

She brought her heel down, hard, right in the center of the butterfly.

*Crunch.*

The sound of metal twisting and glass shattering was louder than any gunshot I had ever heard.

My heart stopped.

Lola ground her heel into the fragments, twisting back and forth, ensuring nothing remained but dust and scrap metal.

"Oops," she said, smiling down at me. "I guess I broke your toy. Now you have nothing."

I stopped struggling. The hands holding me felt distant. The pain in my face vanished.

A cold, dark void opened up in the center of my chest. It swallowed the love I had for Dante. It swallowed my patience. It swallowed the girl who wanted a normal life.

I looked at the crushed silver on the floor.

The Pact was over.

Omertà was broken.

War had begun.

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