Too Late to Love Me Now

Alessia "Blake" Falcone POV

The ride to my father's new life was silent. I sat in the back of his black Mercedes, the leather cool against my skin, and tracked the city lights as they bled into streaks of gold and red through the tinted windows.

It was a world away from the cracked pavement and flickering streetlights of the neighborhood I'd left behind.

His penthouse was in a tower that scraped the sky, a fortress of glass and steel. The doormen in their crisp uniforms studiously avoided my eyes.

We were whisked up in a private elevator that ascended with a silent, stomach-dropping speed.

My father glanced at me, a flicker of something-assessment-in his eyes. I kept my expression blank, made myself small. He saw a child, naive and easily molded. Good. Invisibility was the best camouflage.

The elevator doors slid open directly into the living room.

And there she was.

Karel Sellers.

She was even more beautiful than I remembered from the blurry photos. Tall and slender, with hair the color of midnight and eyes that were a startling, icy blue. She was art and elegance and cold, hard edges.

She stood by a floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of wine in her hand, and regarded me with the undisguised contempt of a queen surveying an insect.

"You're late, Clifton," she said, her voice low and melodic.

It was the same voice I'd heard laughing in the background of that final, devastating phone call.

My father, a man who made others tremble, melted.

"I'm sorry, my love. It took longer than I thought." He fawned over her, kissing her cheek, a powerful Capo reduced to a supplicant.

He gestured toward me. "Karel, this is Alessia."

Karel's eyes swept over me, dismissing me in a single, cold glance. She offered no greeting, no smile. I was a ghost from a past he was supposed to have buried, an unwelcome stain on her perfect new world.

My father, sensing the frost, cleared his throat and launched into a tour. I followed silently, my mind a whirring calculator. I cataloged everything: the expensive art on the walls, the location of the heavy steel safe behind a painting, the subtle signs of his immense, illicit wealth.

I was mapping his empire, searching for its vulnerabilities.

He showed me Karel's art studio, a bright, airy space filled with canvases.

"She's a genius," he whispered, his voice thick with adoration. "A tormented soul. It's my destiny to save her."

My room was last. It was at the end of a long hall, a small, windowless space that felt more like a storage closet than a bedroom.

A cage within a cage.

For a moment, a flicker of guilt crossed my father's face. He saw the stark contrast between this box and the rest of his palace.

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a thick fold of cash, pressing it into my hand. Five hundred dollars.

"For clothes," he said gruffly. "Whatever you need."

It wasn't a gift. It was hush money. An apology for the cage.

I took it without a word, my fingers closing around the bills. The first deposit into my mother's war chest.

My plan wasn't just to survive him. It was to bleed him dry.