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 4

My burner phone started buzzing inside my purse, which had been kicked a few feet away.

Lola flicked her wrist at Bella. "Get that."

Bella snatched the cheap black phone and handed it to her mistress.

Lola looked at the screen, her lip curling in disgust.

"Caller ID says 'Papa'," she mocked. "Aww. Is the little girl going to cry to her daddy?"

I lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling. The cold from the marble was seeping into my bones, numbing the pain, grounding me.

"Answer it," I said. My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Hollow. Dead.

Lola laughed. "You want me to talk to him? Fine. I’ll tell him to come pick up his trash."

She swiped the screen and hit the speaker button.

"Hello?" Lola screeched into the microphone. "Listen here, old man. Your daughter is a psycho stalker. You need to come get her before I have security throw her in the dumpster where she belongs."

Silence on the other end.

It wasn't a peaceful silence. It was the heavy, suffocating silence of a predator holding its breath before the strike.

Then, a sound.

*CRASH.*

It was the distinct, wet crunch of heavy crystal shattering against a wall.

"Who is this?"

The voice was deep, gravelly, and vibrated with a suppressed violence that made the air in the lobby drop ten degrees.

Lola didn't notice. She was too high on her own power trip.

"I’m the future Mrs. Moretti," she announced. "And you need to teach your daughter some manners. She’s embarrassing herself. Tell her to stay away from Dante, or I’ll make sure she never works in this city again."

"Is she alive?" the voice asked.

It was a simple question, devoid of inflection.

"Barely," Lola laughed. "I had to teach her a lesson. Touched her up a bit. Broke her ugly little necklace."

"You touched her," the voice repeated.

It wasn't a question anymore. It was a confirmation of a death sentence.

"Yeah, I slapped her. What are you going to do about it, grandpa? Sue me?"

"Put her on the phone," the voice commanded.

Lola rolled her eyes but held the phone down toward my face, like she was offering a treat to a dog.

"Daddy wants to say bye-bye."

I looked at the black plastic.

"Papa," I whispered.

"Seraphina," my father said. His voice cracked, just a fraction. "Did they take the necklace?"

"Yes," I said. "They crushed it."

A long exhale on the other end. It sounded like a dragon waking up.

"The pact is void," my father said. "Burn them."

Something sparked in my chest, melting the ice.

"Burn them all," I agreed.

"I am three minutes away," he said. "Stay down. The sky is about to fall."

The line went dead.

Lola scoffed and threw the phone onto the floor, smashing it next to the remains of my mother’s locket.

"Drama queen," she muttered. "Like father, like daughter."

I closed my eyes and listened.

Far off in the distance, over the hum of the city traffic, I heard a rhythmic thumping sound.

*Thwup. Thwup. Thwup.*

It was getting louder, a beating heart of steel closing in.

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