Four Orphan Girls Raised To Be The Mafia Heir’s Wife. And I Only Wanted His Empire. Chapter 03
The Polo Grounds
Camille Ashford steps through the arrivals gate like she owns the entire airport.
Couture suit. Hair blown out to perfection. Sunglasses that cost more than our monthly allowance combined. She’s the sole heir of the Ashford family, and every inch of her knows it.
Victoria sent us here as a welcoming committee. But let’s be honest about what we really are. Props. Set dressing. Four pretty reminders that Alistair has options, just to put a little pressure on his future bride.
Camille’s gaze slides over us behind her dark lenses. One by one. Assessing. Dismissing.
Then her eyes stop on Maisie.
Maisie, who wore the designer dress Alistair bought her last Christmas. She spent an hour on soft pink blush and gloss this morning. Her entire body is screaming “I belong to Alistair without her saying a single word.”
Camille sees all of it. And she smiles.
That evening, there’s a dinner at the estate. All the important families are there. Camille moves through the room like water, kissing cheeks, owning every conversation.
Then she drifts toward Maisie, wine glass in hand, and her smile turns sweet as poison.
“You must be Maisie. Alistair mentions you ride? I just got back from abroad and I’m dying for a little competition. What do you say? Tomorrow? The polo grounds?”
Maisie’s eyes go wide. Alistair talked about her. To his fiancée. That has to mean something, right?
She says yes before she even thinks about it.
The next morning, half the city’s elite shows up at the Kain family’s private grounds. This isn’t a friendly match. It’s a public execution dressed up in riding boots.
Camille personally selects a horse for Maisie. A chestnut stallion, tall and wild-eyed, muscles twitching under its coat.
“This one’s perfect for you,” Camille says, stroking its muzzle. “Strong. Spirited. A real match.”
Maisie looks at the horse and I can see the hesitation flash across her face. The animal is too big for her, too unpredictable. But Alistair is watching from the VIP box, and she’d rather break her neck than look weak in front of him.
She mounts up.
The race starts. Camille takes the lead immediately, effortless, like she was born in a saddle.
Maisie pushes her horse harder, trying to close the gap.
Then, at the turn, the horse screams. It rears up so violently Maisie doesn’t even have time to grab the reins. She hits the ground with a sound I can hear from the stands. A crack. Then silence. Then her scream.
Everyone surges forward.
Alistair vaults over the railing. He’s running.
But not toward Maisie.
Camille has slid gracefully off her own horse, clutching her ankle, wincing like a porcelain doll with a hairline fracture. Perfectly timed. Perfectly performed.
Alistair catches her in his arms. His face is all concern, all tenderness. He cradles her foot like it’s made of glass, murmuring soft things against her hair.
Twenty feet away, Maisie lies in the dirt. Her leg bends the wrong way. She’s ghost-pale. Sweat rolls into the dust beneath her. No one goes to her. No one even looks.
Her eyes find Alistair.
She watches him hold another woman the way she always dreamed he’d hold her.
And I see it happen. That light she carried, that naive, stubborn glow she wore like armor, it goes out.
Not all at once. But enough.
I don’t move from my seat. I don’t gasp. I don’t rush to help.
I just think: This is what happens when you build your whole world around a man who was never yours.
And I go back to memorizing the list of shell companies and front businesses I pulled from the family server last night.