The Mafia Heiress's Scorched Earth Revenge

I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé's club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi.

I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet.

The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress.

Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet.

The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly.

I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world.

Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked.

He chose to sacrifice me to save face.

"Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves."

He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress.

He thought he was showing strength.

He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call.

I didn't cry. I didn't beg.

I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors.

Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared.

"Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers."

"And send the wolves."

Chapter 1

Blake POV:

The one-year covenant with my fiancé was of a simple design: I was to labour, unacknowledged, within the walls of our own company, while he, as its public face, would erect our empire. That covenant was annulled on the day he, our Chief Executive, commanded me-a junior developer-to offer an apology to the very woman who was methodically dismantling my existence, and did so while pleading his case to our most vital investors.

That was the termination. But the beginning of the termination commenced on a Tuesday, my first day as a junior developer at Bishop Innovations.

I stood in the grand, austere lobby, where my worn knapsack was a thing of coarse thread and scuffed leather against the cold gleam of chrome and plate glass. I awaited the arrival of a clerk from Human Resources, another anonymous novitiate in the company I had helped conceive. The idea had been my own, a compact born of a genuine, if perhaps artless, desire to comprehend our corporate anatomy from its most foundational tissues.

"A year," I had proposed to Connor, my fiancé, the acclaimed architect and CEO of our joint creation. "Allow me to be a shade within these walls for one year. I wish to know the true minds of our employees, the actual shape and texture of their days. We cannot hope to build a sound enterprise from the heights of an ivory tower."

He had offered a low laugh, a kiss, and his assent. "Anything for my brilliant, clandestine co-founder."

The memory possessed a warmth, as if from a prior lifetime, though it was but a few months past.

A sudden violence of motion disturbed the lobby's calculated tranquility. The great glass doors swept open with a pneumatic sigh, and a woman entered as if propelled by a gale. She was an apparition of couturier's labels and a palpable, radiating entitlement. Enormous sunglasses of smoked glass obscured the upper half of her face, and the sharp reports of her heels against the marble floor formed an irate staccato.

She made a direct line for the reception desk, striking it with a platinum credit card. The sound was a sharp crack that caused the young woman at the desk to flinch.

"A black Americano," she commanded, her voice suffused with a disdain that suggested she found the utterance of such a pedestrian request physically painful. "And inform Connor that I have arrived."

The receptionist, a girl with wide, unnerved eyes, gave a slight stammer. "Ma'am, this is a corporate office, not a café. Mr. Bishop is presently in a meeting..."

The woman's laugh was a brittle, mirthless thing. She slid the sunglasses down the bridge of her nose, revealing eyes that regarded the world with a flat, chilling contempt. "Have you any notion of who I am?"

She did not pause for a reply. She jabbed a finger, its nail a perfect crimson talon, toward her own face. "Jaden Juarez. Does that name signify anything? No? Very well. Simply fetch the coffee. Now. And do not think to use that foul instant powder you secrete in the breakroom. I require fresh grounds. You have five minutes."

I remained perfectly still, a silent witness to this small, unfolding tyranny. My employee handbook, its pages still warm from the press, outlined a precise code of conduct: professionalism, respect, integrity. Jaden Juarez had managed to violate all three within the first half-minute of her arrival.

I kept my features impassive, my posture at ease. My function was to observe, not to intercede.

"Ma'am, I am not authorized to abandon the desk, and our pantry..." the receptionist attempted again, her voice acquiring a tremor.

"Then find someone who is," Jaden snapped. Her gaze swept the lobby, a predator scanning for prey, and it came to rest upon me. Upon my plain denim trousers, my simple sweater, my unremarkable knapsack. She saw a functionary. A nullity.

She stalked toward me, her perfume preceding her like a suffocating miasma. "You. You are employed here?"

I met her gaze without expression. "Yes. I am new."

"Perfect," she said, and the corners of her mouth tilted in a way that held no warmth, only a faint, clinical cruelty. "Then you have not yet been taught how to be entirely useless. Go and fetch my coffee. Black Americano. Fresh grounds. You now have four minutes."

My first impulse was a surge of heat behind my ribs. I was the co-founder of this company. My name was inscribed upon the secret articles of incorporation, which lay under lock and key in my father's vault. But my public personage was Blake Steele, junior developer. And a junior developer did not offer retort to the CEO's... guest.

Anger flared like hot oil, a sharp retort already forming on my tongue. But I forced the words down, the heat of them scalding my throat. I tasted the faint, metallic tang of blood and realized I had bitten the inside of my lip. "Of course," I said, my voice measured and civil. "I will see what can be done."

My civility seemed to incite her more than open defiance might have. Her eyes narrowed. "What you will do is procure my coffee. Do not look at me with that placid, bovine expression. Simply incline your head and depart."

She stood so close I could discern the fine grain of powder in the pores of her skin. She was attempting to cow me, to establish her dominion in this space she so clearly regarded as her own.

"Who is responsible for hiring in this department?" she mused, her voice pitched to carry across the lobby. She cast a glance down at my sensible, flat-soled shoes and then, with pointed emphasis, at her own precarious Louboutins. "The standards have demonstrably eroded."

She leaned nearer still, her voice a venomous sibilance. "When you return with it, you will address me as Ms. Juarez. Is that understood?"

Before I could frame a response, a man hastened from the hallway, his face a pale mask of alarm. It was Mark, the head of the development department. My new superior.

"Ms. Juarez! My deepest apologies for the delay," he said, his posture nearly a bow. "We did not realize you would arrive so soon."

He shot a terrified glance in my direction. "I apologize for my new hire. She is not yet acquainted with the protocols."

Jaden waved a hand in dismissal, not deigning to look at him. "See that she learns them. Swiftly."

She pushed past him and vanished down the corridor that led to Connor's executive suite.

Mark exhaled a long, unsteady breath and turned to me, his expression a compound of pity and fear. "Listen, Blake. That is Jaden Juarez. She is... a special case."

"Special in what manner?" I asked, though I felt a heavy certainty I already knew.

"She is Connor's guest. His permanent guest," he said, his voice sinking to a conspiratorial whisper. "She saved his sister's life years ago. A donation of bone marrow. Connor feels he is indebted to her for everything. Consequently, she is given whatever she desires. She can make or unmake a career here with a single complaint. Just... keep out of her way. Apologize, do as she says, and keep your head lowered."

I nodded, my thoughts racing. Jaden Juarez. The "savior." Connor had spoken of her, of course. But he had described a heroine, a selfless woman. Not this cruel, narcissistic creature. And he had certainly never intimated that she held a charter to terrorize our employees.

A dense, cold mass formed in the pit of my stomach. The founding documents, the true ones, listed two co-founders: Connor Bishop and Blake Shaw. Not Steele. Shaw. As in David Shaw, the titan of Silicon Valley. My father.

Connor knew Jaden was not the mistress of this house she pretended to be. I was. This was my company as much as it was his.

Why was he permitting this to occur?

I suppressed the question. I was here to observe. This was merely my first trial. A trial of the company's character, and a trial of Connor's leadership.

Very well. Let us see how he leads.

And let us see just how far Ms. Juarez is prepared to push.