The Waitress

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 second the text from my fiancé vibrated against my hip, carrying the order to "keep the peace," I knew the year I had spent scrubbing floors to prove my loyalty was about to end in blood.

Because the woman storming past security wasn't just a difficult customer.

She was the mistake that was going to cost Connor Bishop his empire.

I tugged at the cheap, scratchy polyester apron cutting into my waist.

It stood in stark contrast to the silk and Italian leather I was raised in.

I was Blake Shaw.

Daughter of David Shaw.

The Capo dei Capi.

The man who made grown killers tremble in their sleep.

But here, within the dim, smoky walls of The Velvet Lounge, I was just Blake the runner.

A nobody.

A ghost in the machine of the Bishop Crime Family.

I had agreed to this charade.

It was a pact Connor and I had made.

Before I wore his ring publicly, before our families merged the East Coast territories in a marriage of iron and blood, I wanted to see the operation from the ground up.

I needed to know the man I was marrying was a King, not a puppet.

I looked up as the double doors swung open.

Jaden Juarez didn't just walk in; she invaded.

She was wearing a neon pink dress that screamed "new money" and dragged a mink coat across the floor behind her like roadkill.

She bypassed the velvet rope and the line of paying customers.

She shoved a bouncer who could have snapped her neck with two fingers.

And he let her.

That was the first crack in the foundation.

A civilian touching a soldier without consequence.

Connor Bishop was supposed to be the new face of the Cosa Nostra.

Ruthless.

Modern.

Honorable.

But looking at Jaden, I saw only weakness.

She marched to the bar, her eyes scanning the room with the hunger of a starving dog given a bone.

"You," she barked, pointing a manicured talon at the head bartender. "Espresso Martini. Now. And don't use the well vodka. I know what you keep back there."

The bartender froze.

He flicked his gaze to Mark, the floor manager.

Mark was a Capo.

A made man.

By rights, he should have backhanded her for the tone alone.