He Broke Her Heart, She Broke His Bank

to his throne as the Don of a powerful crime family. Our home was

coming from a guest room that was supposed to be empty. T

e "a piece of furniture that sleeps soundly." I heard him tell her she possessed something I didn't. Then, a video conf

child his heir. He had broken the one rule that held

s grand design, a brilliant mind he c

of him surgically cut from my mind, erase him from my soul like a can

pte

ra

nly settle over a house this large was pier

slithered down the marble corri

upposed to

our king-sized bed was

my stomach. Brendan, for

an empire on violence and control, and the same man who'd s

is Queen, the architect of

ary. He always, always came back to it.

it again, sha

la

ng through the enforce

g against my ribs, a fran

silk sheets, my bare feet mak

, a ghost in the home I had designed and

red the heavy oak door of the gu

od, I recogniz

p and di

s was the voice

i

curity and brought into our inner circle. The girl in

dly," Brendan said, his voice laced with the

ing the air from my lungs. I was a fi

Kiya's voice was syrupy sweet, dripping wi

his voice that twisted the knife already in my gut. "But you, my dear," he

t just the affair; it was the violation of our h

lt an empire with, the man who h

d mentored, the one I'd tr

thing I had built, everything I was,

was instan

y one way out

university days. I would have the memory of Brendan Wiggins-of Brendan Ri

d eras

I would