Chapter 3

Time's running out, Iliana. The club's still waiting on you to settle up and close for the night.

Giselle sauntered up to me with that arrogant sway in her hips, her lips curled in open mockery.

"You can't pay, can you? And you know the rule here—no money means you get dragged to the back-room interrogation chamber. Just like what you did to me last month when you froze my card."

She lit a Black Devil cigarette and blew a thick cloud of smoke right in my face.

That was it. I snapped. My hand flew up and cracked across her cheek.

SLAP!

The cigarette hit the floor and burst into sparks.

Christian's face went dark. His eyes turned savage in an instant.

The two enforcers behind him didn't need a word. They grabbed my shoulders and slammed me onto the floor.

"Iliana! Stay the fuck down!"

Christian rushed over, pulling Giselle up with this sickening tenderness, then turned to glare at me.

"So you can dish it out with your arrogance, but you can't take it when it comes back at you?!"

My fists clenched so hard my knuckles went white. I stared at this greedy bastard through burning eyes.

He had no idea. The only reason the Messina family had clawed its way to the top in three years—swallowing up half of Manhattan's core smuggling routes—was me pulling strings from the shadows.

The only reason their bloodthirsty enemies hadn't made a move? They knew exactly whose name was written behind the curtain.

I'd planned to tell him tonight. On my birthday. Lay it all out—that I was the first-in-line heiress to North America's most powerful mafia empire.

I'd already set everything up. I was going to bring him home to meet my father and the council, put him on the throne of the underworld.

But I never expected a man's greed and disloyalty to rot this fast.

I misjudged him. Underestimated just how selfish and blind he could be.

"Christian." My voice came out flat, frozen. "Are you really going to make me walk out of this club naked?"

Christian let out a mocking laugh.

"Iliana, I just want this to teach you some respect."

Respect. He had no idea who actually wrote the rules of this city.

Giselle, emboldened by her muscle at her back, lifted her chin and sneered.

"Bitch, you've got two choices. Either you can't pay and they drag you to the back for a strip auction. Or you strip down right now, bite down on this plate of raw beef like the little dog you are, and crawl out on all fours barking."

"Come on, pick one—I can't wait to see this!"

Sixty pairs of cruel, hungry eyes fixed on me, waiting for the show. I squeezed my fists until my nails bit into my palms, then turned my cold stare to Christian.

"Fine. If this is the choice you're making, then whatever happens to your Messina family from here on—the fall, the ruin, the collapse—that's all on you."

The words barely left my mouth before Giselle burst out laughing like I'd just told the funniest joke on earth.

"Ha! Hahahaha! Did you guys hear that?!"

"Did you fry your brain working at McDonald's? You're threatening Christian?!"

The crowd joined in.

"Just some scholarship kid from the projects who got lucky with her face. Now she's a Donna with nothing behind her. She's lost her damn mind."

Christian's expression went stone-cold. He didn't see a threat—he saw his wife making a fool of herself in public, embarrassing his name.

He grabbed a plate of premium caviar off the table and dumped it across my gown.

"Destroy my family?" He scoffed. "How about you start with figuring out how to keep that dress on your back tonight."

"Manager!"

The club manager stepped forward with two hulking enforcers flanking him, his eyes cold as steel.

"Mrs. Messina—credit, cash, or one of our distinguished guests covering the tab for you?"

I rose slowly, scanning the room until my gaze landed on a suited middleman in the corner. One of my old connects—someone I'd put in business when I was brokering deals for Christian behind the scenes.

I took a step toward him. The moment he saw me coming, his face drained white. He shot up from his seat and backed away.

"Iliana, don't—Don Messina said not to—I can't cover that kind of money..."

"Relax." I stopped, my voice calm. "I'm not asking you to pay. I just need to borrow your phone."

"One call. That's it. I'll have my people bring the cash."

Hearing I was calling for backup, Giselle shot a look at Christian.

He just wrapped an arm around her waist, completely unbothered.

"Let her call. Her entire network is either a bunch of broke college kids or the sewer rats she used to sling noodles with in Chinatown. I'm dying to know who in this city would dare cross me and show up to bail her out."

With Christian's seal of approval, Giselle's grin turned venomous again.

She glanced toward the corner—where the leering old mobsters and fat-cat investors had been eyeing me like fresh meat the whole night—then turned back to me.

"Fine. You get half an hour. Thirty minutes, and if nobody shows up with the cash, I'll let these old-timers personally rip that gown off your body. Consider it the biggest honor of your pathetic life."