“My fiancé sent me a text ordering me to serve his mistress, unaware that the waitress holding the tray was actually the daughter of the man who owned his soul. I was working undercover at his club, playing the role of a poor nobody to test his character before our wedding. But tonight, the test ended in disaster. His mistress, Jaden, walked in and treated me like dirt. When I brought her drink, she slapped the tray, spilling scalding coffee all over my hand. The pain was white-hot. My skin blistered instantly, peeling away in angry red patches. I showed Connor the injury on a video call, expecting protection. Expecting him to be a man. Instead, he looked at my burned hand and then at his investors. Panic filled his eyes. "Fix it, Blake," he roared. "Apologize to her." "She burned me," I said quietly. "I don't care! Kneel if you have to. Kiss her ring. Just make her happy so I can finish this deal!" He told the Principessa of the Shaw crime family to kneel to a woman who meant nothing. He sacrificed his future wife to save face. Something inside me snapped. It wasn't my heart; it was the leash I had placed on myself. "Okay," I whispered. I hung up the phone and dropped it into a pot of boiling pasta water. Then I turned to the Executive Chef, a former hitman who recognized the lethal shift in my eyes. "Lock the doors," I ordered. "And tell my father I'm ready to burn this place to the ground."”